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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (61965)	4/14/2005 6:10:25 AM
From: energyplay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

i'm not a spook - so I don't know. Note that the budget you mention is not the intelligence budget. The Intel budget, for all 14 + agencies ran about 24-28 Billion for all but the past three years or so. I believe it is higher post 9/11. The cost effectiveness of black programs varies much more than regular defense spending. Some now well known examples - U-2 and Corona satellites were very cost effective. F-117 Stealth fighter was cost effective for a modern aircraft. SR-71, Rhyolite, Keyhole satellites were both costly and effective. Glomar Explorer project cost a lot, paid off big. The B-2 is effective and very, very costly - that's really the upper limit Some of the later big spy satellites were a mess. *** With that big a budget, money is likely going to production instead of R&D. Secure communications channels & satellites might be a large part of the buy. During this last war, the DOD was buying commercial satellite time to handle all the battlefield data. I'll try to think where the rest might be going. ***** The last 2 or 3 Tom Clancy books usually provide a good insight to DOD and intel priorities. I seem to have difficulty reading them.