Ken,

I'd submit most all weapons systems are designed with a clear vision of the potential threats so that was not unique to that period.
Sure, but the difference today is there isn't much agreement on our threat focus - there's no "peer competitor." We built a military during the cold war which, despite the many problems and incoherence along the way, was focused on the Soviet threat. My point is there isn't any such focus today so the incoherence is much worse.

We also bought a lot of dumb stuff that would not have lasted long in combat and was terribly difficult to maintain. I can name you a dozen birds that were bought that were a total waste of $$ -- start with the B-58, B-70, F-104 and F-105 or the A3D, A5, F11F. Where are the Nuke Cruisers today?
You're quite right, but there are some big differences today. First of all, those "mistakes" didn't cost as much, relatively speaking, as defense projects do today. There also used to be a lot more competition in the defense industry - many aerospace companies have consolidated into two, for example. There were, generally, more contracts that cost less than today. To use a couple of your examples, the F-105 cost about $10 million each in 2009 dollars, the B-58 about $97 million (again in 2009 dollars) and the entire Valkyrie program was about $11 billion in today's dollars, or about the same amount congress has spent on the "alternative" engine for the F-35 (which still isn't finished). All those programs you mention were comparatively cheap in terms of development and unit cost to equivalents today.

Additionally, like AIG, defense programs are "too big to fail" today thanks to collusion between the Congress, defense industry and the services. That has produced all sorts of negative consequences.

In short I agree with the general thrust of your argument that there has been a long history of incoherence - on that we agree - but I think things are much worse now due to the factors I've argued here. I freely admit that may be my own perception, tarnished by my relative youth, but the numbers in terms of cost, development timelines, number of programs, etc. I think support my argument.