Great ideas in defense have led to the most astounding technological advances in modern history. From the period starting at the height of WWII, to the space race, and finally culminating at the end of the Cold War, the US defense acquisition community has driven innovation on a profoundly historic scale, ushering in new technology that has served, both our collective national security, and the world via a safety net for technological advancement and an incredibly advanced global economy.

However,

Those glory days are gone, long gone; replaced by entrenched congressional budget oversight with deeply embedded special interests (e.g. the “Big Ten” defense industry titans), revolving doors for service senior officers, and stove-piped funding and acquisition communities such as the profoundly important requirements and capabilities sections of each service and agency nearly fully removed conceptually and unquestionably tactically from the products they procure. As the recent Veteran Administration (VA) scandal and Healthcare.gov launch debacle highlight; the growing negative sentiment with the civil service is not misplaced. Quite the contrary, the manipulation, the laziness, and open dereliction are not systemic issues to the VA or HHS despite being thrust into public scrutiny. Unfortunately, most, including the media, are failing to bat an eye towards the ever-more cumbersome Defense Department and its archaic product development policies.

It’s important to highlight where in the acquisition framework the product development train begins to fall off the track. In Defense procurement, Programs of Record, or rather programs associated with a budget line item number traverse a budgetary and resourcing sequence: Such that, Service→OSD→Congress→President when submitting cost, schedule, performance data and vice versa President→Congress→OSD→Service when receiving appropriated funding. Services are required by regulation to plan, build and field according to requirements. This is the law. It’s common behavior for title 10 holding authorities to build exactly to spec, years, sometimes a decade after initial definition. It would be like Apple designing the iPhone in 1997 and incrementally building it till release in 2007, never changing the original design requirements, or altering its core capability. I assure you it wouldn’t look or function according to 2007 standards.

Why do we allow White Buffalo programs to drive policy?

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program of record has an anticipated life-cycle cost totaling $396 billion — making it one of the largest defense procurement programs in history. Let’s round up and call it an even $400 billion. Now, remember the whole Wall Street bailout, otherwise known as Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) — post Dodd-Frank legislation the total TARP bailout to the banks (not including Fannie and Freddie) exceeded the JSF life-cycle budget by a mere $75 billion — that’s it! The vilified TARP effort is comparable at $475 billion to ONE major weapon system acquisition program life-cycle cost? I hope that makes you cringe a little… In perspective, the JSF program, despite keeping awkward Goose and Iceman references alive for another 30 years, by most measures of effectiveness is relatively minimal ‘new’ capability. All that money and no game changing tech? Call your congressman!

Yes, private and public partnerships have built and fielded great products. Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and others are involved in massively complicated, dynamic and impressive programs of record; however, we can do better. More importantly, we have done better. The leading defense industrial partners do and can procure relatively quickly, the talent and diversity capable of building and producing at the scale and scope needed to compete on the world stage, but many don’t, and there’s a reason for that…However, the argument here is their chance at reclamation has past. It’s time for a new approach.

The reason for their lack of innovation is really quite simple, even understandable. Progressively long product life-cycles (i.e. especially in the decades) equate to entrenched and intentionally lucrative contractual barriers and self-imposed limitations on implementing, seeking or otherwise supporting great ideas. There’s no inclination to invest in R&D, innovate, or rapidly integrate anything that could alter the ability of the stakeholders to plan to aforementioned-requirements based life-cycles and their associated profits; whatever margins, big or small. Hence why industry R&D/Science and Technology (S&T) budgets pale in comparison to the likes of Apple and Google. There’s no incentive EVEN if the government adopted or rapidly integrated their innovative tech. Congressional oversight has quite complexly removed incentive via obfuscated contract law.

Think about it…

Would you rather plan for retirement via an hourly wage, received intermittently with varying highs and lows?

or

A salary with well-known advances, inflation adjustments at exactly the rate for the year, progressively larger bonuses and incremental salary increases, etc… Some may say they can do both, but you could throw a plan together in a matter of hours and set it on autopilot, never to worry again about divesting here or there, shifting balances, buying real estate, etc. Essentially, you have reached the stage we all hope to reach — comfort.

Former Senior Defense big wigs William Lynn and James Stavridis in their Defense News piece articulate a fantastic attitude senior leaders must adopt to facilitate change, even provoke it, but fail to isolate the triggers and systemic functions of the acquisition system that needs changing. Yes they are preaching to the choir, but aren’t telling us which verse. Like the plethora of retired-to-industry and senior policy folks before them, they highlight the known conditions and focus the audience on how the government can support competition between industry, yet fail – fail – fail to tell us how. That’s because they have come to accept and blindly follow the idea that recognition of new emerging entrants and/or reforming the practices of the old, is somehow the answer to our Defense procurement woes.

As a company, as an industry it’s much easier and convenient to build empires with predetermined budgets. Thus, it’s reasonable to conclude that it’s in industries best interest to actively prevent changing and/or eliminating the contractual language for programs of record (large or small) — which is precisely what needs to occur in order to deviate from the requirements-based procurement framework. Industry will 9 out of 10 times produce the least amount of product x excusable under contract for x.

How did we get here and why? Blame for this backwards slide resides almost entirely on military brass, their officers and civil service officers past and present, for their progressively acute understanding of the very products they build, and the stifling processes, contractual proxies, agencies, process centers, product teams, and armies of bureaucrats, they create, employ and protect. We have to target this idea that industry is the answer. The easy answer. Why are the services billeting major acquisition positions with active duty officers? What does a career F-16 pilot know about software development? The revolving door must close. There’s a comfort level that needs to be disrupted. In combat and War, complacency leads to death or great loss — great ideas are being stifled, misappropriated and worse — killed daily in the government product development ecosystem. Beacons of hope exist, but these change agents are diminishing rapidly in the age of budget austerity. Off to greener pastures in tech industries or entrepreneurship. During the years preceding the last military draw-down in both size and budget, the leaders in Defense decided it was wise to divest in Government-only acquisition and support industry partners much the same way current leadership proposals support this same theme. Advocates will continue to push financially bolstering the industrial base, via large and very expensive programs of record in order to preserve it…

The answer isn’t in industry – It’s making government the creator on a large scale once more.

The bolster industry strategy will fail to equip the next generation, cyber, space, sea, air, land integrated war fighter. Remember, the law has not changed. It’s time to re-think government’s role in acquisition — Should it be the Manager? the Builder? Or Both? We see through countless examples how the government fails at managing hyper-complex IT systems and major defense acquisition programs. The answer isn’t in industry despite its capacity for innovation. It’s time for the defense acquisition community to become Both once again. Stop creating more managers and start creating more doers. Roll up its sleeves and start writing code, building smart missiles, and/or otherwise connecting the internet of DoD things via hands on, in the weeds — production. There are government employees who do some building, but these folks represent sprinkles on a cake. This would not happen overnight; however, the government will have more control over integration, requirements interoperability and most important — budget. Fewer massively complex contracts equals more time to focus on the product and its development. In doing so, the defense community begins to chip away at one of its profoundly malignant curses: Lack of tech talent

Accountability cannot be shifted — passed onto a contractor or some failed policy implemented by the previous guy in charge. Nope, if you build it and it fails — there’s really nowhere else for the arrow to point. Forget about re-structuring the laws of acquisition — that’s a rabbit hole even former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates tried to tunnel through with little lasting effect. SpaceX and others similar in approach, are wonderful companies doing amazing things, but government engineers put a man on the moon –with — help from industry, not the other way around. The problems with Defense acquisition can most certainly be righted by returning to a community of truly aligned interests and deeply rooted accountability.