The acquisition reforms announced last week by Secretary Pete Hegseth reflect a revolutionary shift in mindset: after decades of aspiring to remain the world’s most advanced force, the U.S. military has finally recognized that adaptability trumps performance.
Better late than never. The last few years of war in Ukraine, the Red Sea, and Israel have been screaming the lesson that better kit doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, “better” means something different than it did even a decade ago.
Rather than faster, bigger, or rangier, the better solution today is one that is already fielded and good enough for the current situation, as we noted in our work with the Pentagon in the runup to the reforms’ release. The only guarantee is that “good enough” will be different in a few weeks or months.
Build an adaptation pipeline
The Pentagon has long taken years to envision, specify, manufacture, and deliver systems to warfighters. The fundamental bet was that these exquisite products would remain superior to countermeasures at least as long as it would take to produce their replacements.
Hegseth’s Nov. 7 directive recognizes the futility of this approach in the modern era. Under the acquisition model announced last week, the pipeline is more important than the product. Any weapon, sensor, or drone will only be relevant for a short time in its current form, so the military needs a robust problem-to-product pipeline that will deliver the next version.
The secretary announced three transformations that will build his department’s new adaptation pipeline. First, he killed the toothless joint-requirements process that was a rubber stamp for service wishlists. In its place, he established a way to define and rank joint problems from combatant commanders, then tie them to dedicated funding for solutions.
Second, he ordered the department to give acquisition executives real authority and accountability. Portfolio Acquisition Executives, or PAEs, will own their programs entirely, including funding, development, specifications, contracting, and delivery. They will have the authority to make trade-offs between performance and schedule to field relevant capabilities when they are needed. And if PAEs cannot deliver, senior leaders will replace them.
And third, Pentagon acquisition will embrace real modularity, rather than the interoperability cosplay of static and proprietary “open architectures.” The new directive requires that systems have machine-readable interface specifications posted in government repositories. Any vendor will be able to build compatible software modules without asking for the system developer’s permission.
This matters because modern military systems are increasingly software-defined. A missile is basically a collection of computers with explosives. By separately competing modules for everything from seekers and guidance and navigation controls to propulsion, PAEs can swap in appropriate components as new technologies and needs emerge. Our adversaries already do this with commercial parts. We're finally catching up.
Like the commercial best practices, the new acquisition model will enable adaptation through a continuous integration and delivery pipeline. When interfaces are exposed and government-owned, innovation can happen at the edge, not just in the prime contractors’ labs.