Btw, this is a widely known practice (not sure if it's legally accepted though). Government contractors often play a big role in shaping the RFI/RFP requirements. This is a multi-year process that involves socializing, discovering the legacy/obsolete systems in client environment, learning about their business side, identifying pain points in the gov customer side, etc. Big contractors like Raytheon, CACI, SAIC have a well-defined and stream-lined process for this. This is where smaller contractors or startups find it very difficult to get into gov contracting because they don't have the kind of access that Raytheon/CACI has. So, I don't see any surprise in AWS giving inputs for shaping DoD requirements.

Cutting all the politics and legalities, is n't AWS superior to Azure? I guess Azure's major revenue is still from MS-office subscriptions, but AWS is more battled hardened, more reliable and has more variety of services than Azure. At least, that's my perception.