It's interesting, how the political uproar and media hype around the RD-180 ban implies that ULA is unable to compete with SpaceX because congress took their cheap Russian engines away. Even when they do use russian brought RD-180s, ULA is far more expensive than SpaceX and is still hopelessly uncompetitive.

This is in spite of the billion dollar annual subsidy they receive from the government, in spite of the massive government investment (free government money) into improving their launch vehicles, and in spite of the fat profits they earned for the large part of a decade from the assured income of lucrative defense contracts. ULA didn't reinvest a penny of their profits into manufacturing the RD-180 at home in order to have assured supply, in spite of having acquired the blueprints and the license to manufacture it, instead making the unconscionable decision to rely on a corrupt and unreliable cold war enemy.

They figured if the Russians shut off the spigot, the US government would shower an unlimited amount of money onto them to set-up the manufacturing at home and why would they want to hurt their bottom line by investing in it themselves. They didn't invest a penny into making themselves competitive and trimming the fat so that they could charge an honest buck from the US tax payers. They milked their monopoly to the last drop and padded their fat corporate wallets. When the government put their feet to the fire and banned russian made engines for air force contracts, they decided to double down on a tried and true tactic of leaning heavily on the government and airforce and allocated the 5 remaining engines to commercial contracts (when the law allowed for them to import unlimited RD-180s for commercial customers), a move ostensibly meant to force the government to reverse, and expeditiously so, the ban on RD-180s for DOD payloads.

The US government and air force were left with egg on their face, after the corporation that accepts a billion dollars a year of taxpayer subsidy to stay comfortably profitable, brazenly attempts to sabotage the will of the US congress and becoming a bonafide lobbyist for Roscosmos and Putin's political henchmen. ULA isn't a victim and the ceaseless uproar over the RD-180 is merely sand blown into our eyes to distract from the true issue of concern, which should be a focus on how ULA is a case study of a monopolistic and bloated welfare-baby corporation that in spite of having received years of government subsidy and investment funding and fat profits and already in possession of proven platforms and mature technology likes to play dirty politics and is still shockingly unable and unwilling to provide the US taxpayer an accountable and justifiable return on their buck.