“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”
-Mark Twain
As the DoD develops hundreds of acquisition programs across 60+ PEO portfolios, it must assess the odds of success and impact. The DoD has many examples of spending billions of dollars and a decade or more to ultimately cancel major programs that were desperately needed by the warfighters. It also has developed some game-changing systems that provide a competitive advantage over our adversaries on the battlefield. Yet the defense bureaucracy is very slow to react to major threats from IEDs in the Middle East wars to drone attacks and munitions shortfalls in the current wars.
In the mid 20th century, the DoD was able to produce at scale major systems in a year or two and iterate on designs. Based on the complexity of our major systems, there’s an inverse Moore’s Law where they now take a decade or two to deliver at scale.
The DoD needs to manage portfolios of capabilities with a broad mix of strategic long-term investments (carriers, nuclear subs) with mid-term/mid-size systems (including software) and high quantities of smaller, often attritable systems. Just like smartly managing a personal financial portfolio, the DoD requires a balanced investment portfolio to maximize ROI - mission impact. Consider the following.
Which is more likely?
DoD correctly defining the requirements for a major system to operate in 2040.
DoD correctly defining the needs to deliver an initial system in 1-5 years.
The DoD’s requirements system, JCIDS, is designed around spending years defining requirements for a system that will be delivered over a decade later and used until potentially the 2050s. With the advancements in technologies, operations, and threats, we need to operate on shorter timelines and projected system lifespans. Capturing a strategic set of capability needs for an operational environment with clarity on a core set of parameters prioritized (e.g., increased range, precision, timing) enables the acquisition community, defense R&D, and industry to focus their energy on novel solutions and continuous improvement.
Which is a smarter bet?
Betting a few billion dollars on a system to operate in 2035-2055+.
Betting a few hundred million dollars in a system to operate in 2025-2030.
The massive bureaucratic gauntlet imposed on programs requires defining requirements and strategies in detail to justify budgets with 2-3-year lead times. Focusing investments on this decisive decade will have a greater chance of success than predicting defense technologies and operations 10-15 years from now. This is part of the discussion around PPBE reform. To rapidly exploit leading technologies and respond to current and emerging threats, we cannot wait years to initiate funding for a new thing - and then be further delayed with continuing resolutions. Congressional appropriators have removed nearly all flexibilities to reprogram funding and imposes huge risks and burdens on DoD when pursuing these changes. A modern budget structure would have structures and processes to enable rapid and dynamic investments as well as the traditional long-range investments.
Which is a riskier option?
Designing a system that requires three technology miracles to be successful.
Designing a system with mature technologies and a scalable architecture.
Congress gave DoD a novel Middle Tier of Acquisition pathway to do rapid prototyping and rapid fielding of innovative technologies. If there’s a mature solution available, move straight to production. If there’s a novel technology to prototype for national security, do so quickly and iterate with the warfighter communities. Yet there are saboteurs in Congressional and Pentagon staffs who aggressively fight rapid acquisition efforts to pivot back to legacy models. Many still struggle to break from the linear model where every element is defined upfront, decomposed into hundreds of subordinate elements, then baselined and tracked according to a plan that was rigorously reviews by dozens of organizations. That won’t work in the digital age.
What’s the best strategic, long-term approach?
Consolidating on a massive, winner-take-all contract for the next 30+ years.
Having 10-year contracts with two or more vendors and staggered timelines.
From the fifth-generation fighters to enterprise cloud contracts, DoD often puts all its eggs into one basket. This drives a massive battle for winner-take-all contracts whereby the losers are forced to protest, then are out of a key market segment for a long time while the winner assumes monopolistic power. Instead of 30-50-year operational timelines, major system lifespans should be cut in half or more and transferred to allies and partners. This saves on costly O&M to keep 30-year old systems intact. Dr. Will Roper championed the Digital Century Series whereby multiple companies are designing aircraft for you constantly. It included his digital trinity of agile software development, modular open systems approach, and digital engineering.
“Approaching NGAD the way we did the F-35 would put us at great risk. It would shrink the industry base even further and incentivize companies to get out of the fighter-building business.”
-Dr. Will Roper
This isn’t a dichotomy for DoD to only select one. DoD requires a balanced portfolio. We need DoD and Congress to transform defense requirements, budget, and acquisition processes to support short-, medium-, and long-term investments, development, and operations. As part of the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, the lead recommendation was to introduce a new capability portfolio model that manages these three processes at a portfolio level.
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