How do you forecast demand for defense contracts when data is so restricted?

Honestly, the trick is triangulating from public sources — USASpending.gov and SAM.gov contract awards are goldmines for historical spend data. Pair that with congressional budget justification documents (they're surprisingly detailed) and analyst reports from firms like Avascent or Frost & Sullivan who specialize in defense. From there you can build bottom-up estimates using prime contractor revenue breakdowns from their 10-Ks.