US military handgun adoption - then and now.
For those of us old enough to remember and maybe those younger folks who have read the history, the XM9 trials of the early 1980's were a huge political sideshow. They involved Congressional testimony, GAO investigations, accusations of favoritism and secret agreements, etc.. Part of it was the replacement of the iconic M1911A1 with a European-designed weapon of a smaller caliber. In fact, it's still a sore point with some (older) folks.
Fast forward to the replacement of the M9 by the M17/M18 handguns. There was a GAO protest by Glock, and a few debates here and there, but the process went largely without the heated atmosphere of the older XM9 trials. Even Congress seemed generally uninterested, and I don't recall any extensive pro/con arguments from the Army.
So is this a sign that the current crop of politicians have taken less interest in these programs? Or have military handguns become more and more comparable?