Did McCain Mean 'fcs' or FCS?

Federal information technology has typically taken a back seat to most other issues (or rather it's been kept in the trunk) during presidential campaigns. But maybe this election cycle is different. Or is it?

As reported by CNN Politics, John McCain criticized Barack Obama on Monday for flip flopping on his call for increasing the size of the military, which on Sunday Obama said he would do as president. That was a flip, McCain said, from when Obama said during the primary that he would "slow our development of future combat systems."

Future combat systems? As Wired's Danger Room blog points out, there's a big difference between future combat systems and Future Combat Systems (initial caps). It's the difference between the general idea of providing funding to the Army so it can pay to fight future wars and a specific program that is "an ultramodern suite of armored vehicles, robots and aerial drones connected via a sophisticated battle command network," as described by Government Executive article on the program's problems. That program -- the Future Combat Systems (initial caps) -- has cost estimates ranging from $164 billion to more than $230 billion.

The Future Combat Systems (initial caps) has been routinely criticized by the Government Accountability Office, inspectors general and Congress (including McCain, as Danger Room points out) as too costly and suffering from technological shortcomings.

Some clarification is needed -- the general concept or the specific program? But the subtle, yet important, distinction is lost on Americans, except for those inside the Beltway.