In recent decades, the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars trying, and failing, to solve a straightforward military problem. How to haul people and equipment between ships at sea … and beachheads on land.

The Defense Department’s “surface-connector” shortfall illuminates fundamental flaws in the political-industrial-military system. In theory, these institutions together are supposed to produce the weaponry American troops need at a cost taxpayers can afford and in time to be actually useful.

In fact, the military-industrial-political complex is a tangle of perverse incentives. The systems energetically produces multi-billion-dollar stealth drones, electric battleships and high-tech missile interceptors.

But something as simple as a powered barge—the most basic and useful of sea connectors—has proved too much, or too little, for the military, industry and politicians to handle.

In short, America just can’t make a decent landing craft. Not any more, at least. U.S. shipyards quickly churned out thousands of simple landing craft during World War II.

Sea-based forces and connectors are becoming more important. At the West 2014 military confab in February, Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Amos warned that U.S. forces will be spending more time on the world’s oceans. “Allies are going to want to train with us … but they’re not going to want us to build bases,” Amos said. “Those days are gone.”

Increasingly, American military ops will launch from ships. Helicopters can handle some of the transport duties. But for large-scale operations, surface connectors are way more efficient. The physics of surface travel are simply way more forgiving than those of flying.

U.S. troops are going to find it more difficult getting from the ships to shore.

The proliferation of guided missiles is forcing ships to sail farther from land. And that means the connectors have to travel greater distances and in more dangerous conditions. The Pentagon doesn’t believe its current connectors—including Navy landing craft and hovercraft and Marine Corps amphibious tractors—are up to the task.

“Simply put, our current and proposed surface connector inventory does not meet the current and future requirements and ability to maneuver from increased range beyond the threat,” Amos noted in Proceedings, the Navy’s main professional journal.

Many of the amphibious tractors, landing craft and hovercraft are older than their crews—and in some cases, their crews’ parents. The newest connectors, the Navy’s Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft, entered the fleet in the 1980s. Trusty and rusty LCU-1600 landing craft and AAV-7 amtracs are entering their second half-century of service.

Only the hovercraft have any chance of getting replaced any time soon. Other connectors will soldier on in an increasingly dangerous and demanding world.

All because the world’s leading military power can’t—or won’t—manufacture simple, affordable landing craft.