The price tag for the U.S. military's premier shoulder-fired, anti-armor missile surged unexpectedly in fiscal year 2008, forcing the Pentagon to notify Congress this week that the Javelin program is in "significant" breach of unit cost thresholds set by Nunn-McCurdy laws, legislative provisions designed to flag procurement efforts that are in trouble. Sources close to the program maintain this unit-cost increase is a distortion caused by the recent imbalanced demand between Javelin's surveillance system and its missile, not a reflection...
