Having only a handful of huge defense contractors limits competition and innovation, Under Secretary of War Emil Michael said during the Breitbart News policy event “AI is Here: What to Fear, What to Embrace,” on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Michael and host Matthew Boyle discussed the Trump administration’s Department of War “encouraging competition in this space” and how that produces massive benefits.
Under Secretary of War Emil Michael speaks with host Matthew Boyle at the Breitbart News Event “AI is Here: What to Fear, What to Embrace” on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
“So, competition broadly for defense companies, it’s good, right? So, not to analogize to the Cold War too much, but we had 50 different big defense contractors. There was McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, and then all these companies merged after the Cold War because they’re like, well, we don’t need to buy as much stuff anymore,” he said, explaining that this resulted in very few primary defense contractors.
“So, we better kind of merge and get slim and get our expenses under control because you’re not going to be buying as much stuff, and so we ended up with five primary, five or six primary defense contractors. When you have five or six, while the military is actually starting to grow again, as it did when the global war on terror started, you didn’t have enough competition, so what happens when you don’t have competition? Cost overruns, delays in schedule,” he said.
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“They were charging us cost plus, so it wasn’t like, I’ll buy a missile for this much, and when you deliver it to me, you get paid. It was like you pay us for our time in developing this thing. So, what’s your incentive if you’re getting paid cost plus? Takes a long time. Costs a lot. So when I took this job, I said, well, I want to create five more new prime contractors in my tenure, and I don’t want to have to have them sue us to get the business because the new companies, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril, all had to sue the government for their first big contract because the rules were written in a complex way to defend the incumbents that was very hard for new companies to get in,” he said, explaining that they have been working to remove those barriers “so there’s a lot more competition.”
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He added, “And that goes with AI too. So, they chose one provider, and therefore, when it came time to have to switch out, because that provider wasn’t providing us what we needed to do this massive changeover, this integration to get new providers. The Department of War, at least under our leadership, that will never happen again. We’ll never be solely dependent on any one provider.”
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