The terms “Military Specification” or “MIL-SPEC” may sound like government bureaucracy. This requirement, however, that every piece of equipment used by the military — down to its components, such as screws, electronics, and plastic — needs to meet certain standards was arguably why the United States was able to win the Cold War.
While the US military focused on quality, the Soviet Union focused on quantity, driven by its own doctrine that quantity was a key part of quality. The regime believed that endless numbers of tanks and planes would allow them to win any conflict; that turned out to be faulty thinking.
