Big Changes Are Coming For The Pentagon Budget

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If anyone still thought our defense industrial base wasn't in serious trouble, the most recent Government Accountability Office report on how we acquire and advance new weapons systems should set people straight.

By looking at the characteristics and performance of 101 of the Pentagon's costliest weapon programs, the GAO found that more than half of its 26 major defense acquisition programs that have yet to deliver operational capability have reported more delays.

In fact, the word "delay" highlights most of the 261-page report, with the GAO putting the blame squarely on a systemic failure to acquire new systems quickly and to see them through to execution.

The report also found that the average time it takes for major defense acquisition programs to deliver capability has grown from eight years last year to 11 years this year. At a time when China is able to acquire new weapons systems five times faster than the United States, these numbers are unacceptable.

Fortunately, the winds of change will come to the Pentagon if Congress allows them to blow through its budget system.

In 2022, Congress appointed a blue-ribbon commission to recommend reforms in the Pentagon's Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution system. That commission issued its final report, which I helped write and edit, in March.

The current PPBE system was designed in the early 1960s. It reflects an Industrial Age mentality about how to acquire, pay for, and maintain the weapons our military services need.

One of the key recommendations of the commission's 431-page report has been to replace PPBE altogether with a new Defense Resourcing System. The goal of DRS is to create a more seamless flow of resource allocation so Pentagon spending aligns with current overall strategic goals (e.g. confronting China's growing naval threat) while also gaining more efficient performance at all levels of the allocation process.