At a recent meeting with senior Pentagon acquisition and industry officials, the conversation started with an overview followed by one set of instructions. Whatever you do, we were told, do not say “supply chains.”
The implication such that supply chains are a well-studied and deeply discussed challenge that are also being managed for the most part.
What is more often overlooked in Pentagon purchasing is the actual purchasing—the buying of more weapons and equipment at scale and at speed.
Indeed, when industry leaders harp on the need for ‘steady demand signals’ what they really mean are products under contract with dollars flowing to build stuff for warfighters. This leads to the waterfall effects Pentagon leaders often seek, including upscaling workers, capital investment in company infrastructure, risk taking in company investments in research and development, and more.
Uncle Sam must move first with investment dollars before industry will take action, however. The government must prime the pump to prepare and build up a healthier and broader defense industrial base if it wants to deter enemies and win a war if need be.
But a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) starkly highlights that the Pentagon has made little progress in overcoming these shortcomings and is “…not yet well-positioned to field systems with speed.”
The report paints a troubling outlook: the time to deliver capability from so-called Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) has grown by an average of 3 years across the Pentagon’s portfolio, and programs now take more than a decade to get into the warfighter’s hands. Across the services, over half of the Defense Department’s major weapons programs have seen delays in the past year.
The “false assumption that US defense technological dominance will continue to exist has crowded out the importance of time in terms of decision-making, process, and innovation” according to AEI’s Bill Greenwalt. But the Pentagon does not recapitalize its force on a 1:1 basis. The result is that the armed forces no longer buy enough to move markets.
Pentagon leaders are only slowly catching up to this reality where if they call for it (this or that warfighting capability), industry increasingly will not come because this is no longer a monopsony market. The Defense Department now relies on the commercial and private sector for technology and innovation—an industry where commercial innovation “now dominates 11 of the 14 technologies that [the Department of Defense] has identified as critical to its future.”
While supply chain failures and labor shortages dominate headlines and talking points, the true root of the Pentagon’s overall acquisition woes rests in years of chronic underinvestment. The traditional defense industrial base heavily depends on yearly orders that usually arrive in cycles. Washington’s penchant for up-and-down roller coaster funding causes sine-wave contracting to follow. This cycle leaves companies reluctant to invest funds necessary to build excess production capacity, leaving our industrial base ill-equipped to meet complex demands.
President Biden’s defense budget request for next year provides the military with no real growth and amounts to an effective cut to overall procurement of military equipment across the services—the exact opposite signal.
Industry will not produce more for a costumer that says they’re going to buy less. Despite a vocal demand from the Pentagon for industry to gun up production and remedy this laundry list of problems, industry needs contracts with guaranteed payouts to rationalize their own investment.
As Dr. Bill LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, succinctly put it, “Speeches are wonderful… but contracts are actually more meaningful. And that’s what industry pays attention to.”
Without steady, large-volume purchasing across several years, the Pentagon’s programs will continue to face delays while our adversaries race ahead; fielding technologically advanced capability such as drone carriers and increasingly advanced missile arsenals.
Washington leaders must shift gears to a focus on urgency over compliance and efficiency from their defense tech and manufacturing companies. The resolution of the supply chain and workforce challenges that plague the Pentagon’s biggest acquisition projects demand more than incremental adjustments. It requires substantial, real growth in funding and reliable and predictable investment.
As Congress finalizes next year’s defense bills, it should follow the lead of Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) in boosting the military’s topline to begin to reverse the acquisition “doom loop” and buy a whole lot more needed equipment much faster.
About the Author: Mackenzie Eaglen
Mackenzie Eaglen, now a National Security Journal Contributing Editor, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness. She is also a regular guest lecturer at universities, a member of the board of advisers of the Alexander Hamilton Society, and a member of the steering committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security.
Ms. Eaglen is also one of the 12-member US Army War College Board of Visitors, which offers advice about academic program objectives and effectiveness, and serves on the US Army Science Board, an advisory body that provides guidance on scientific and other matters to the Army’s senior leadership. In 2023, she became a member of the Commission on the Future of the Navy, established by Congress to study the strategy, budget, and policy concerning the future strength of the US Navy fleet.
Image Credit: U.S. Government.
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