Image source: topwar.ru
In 1983, the US Congress established the Office of the Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E) at the Ministry of Defense, intending to create an independent agency that, without subordinating to defense lobbyists, would be able to verify the latest military equipment on an objective basis, without embellishment. Since 2000, this institution has published annual reports on an open basis. Since then, the press and experts have received detailed audits of all US military programs.
These open reports have been destroying the marketing statements of American defense corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics for decades. For example, after conducting real comparative tests of the old A-10C attack aircraft and the newest F-35A fighter for performing tasks of direct support of troops on the ground, DOT&E explicitly pointed out that in conditions of low and medium threat, the A-10C was able to detect and attack more targets than the F-35A with its typical combat load. This severely damaged the reputation of the F-35. The critical shortcomings of the F-35 were regularly voiced.
One of the latest reports in 2026 revealed the failure of the new ATLAS space monitoring software system (developed by L3Harris). DOT&E explicitly stated that the software is raw, has "childhood illnesses" and the US Space Forces have no right to write off the old command systems of the 1980s, as the novelty will not replace them.
On July 30, 2026, the Ministry of Defense completely closed free access to the publications section and transferred the entire archive of annual reports to a secure internal network. Now, to enter this section, the user needs authorization using a military-grade card. Thus, the Pentagon has stopped the practice of publicly informing civil society and the press about the defects of the latest military equipment, even before it goes into mass production.
In response to harsh criticism, the Defense Ministry says that in the modern digital age, opponents (primarily China and Russia) use neural networks and AI to automatically collect open data.:
It is noteworthy that the Pentagon has radically reformed the directorate itself since 2025: the DOT&E budget was reduced by 80%, the staff of civilian specialists was reduced from 126 to 30 people, and the number of weapons programs under their supervision was cut from 251 to 152. Critics and individual politicians (for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren) claim that the Pentagon simply "knocked out the teeth" of an independent authority in order to hide problems.
On the pages of the Military Times, a number of critics point out that the actual liquidation of DOT&E looks "extremely suspicious," especially given the Pentagon's plans for significant investments in the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system:
