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Then-Pentagon acquisitions chief Ashton Carter takes a reporter's question after it was announced that Boeing won a contract to build new refueling planes for the U.S. Air Force at the Pentagon in Washington, February 24, 2011. President Obama formally nominated Carter on December 5, 2014 to serve as the twenty-fifth secretary of defense. (Jim Young/Courtesy Reuters)
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By Alex Haber and Jeff Jeffress
For decades, pundits and policymakers have bemoaned the Pentagon’s cumbersome, sluggish procurement processes and rampant overspending, especially compared to industry counterparts. Though these arcane protocols will be challenging to improve, the stars appear to be aligning for actual reform.
With Dr. Ashton Carter—who previously served as the Department of Defense’s head of acquisitions and the COO-equivalent as deputy secretary of defense—now slated as the next defense secretary, a unique window of opportunity may be opening for the $500+ billion agency. Carter is a policy expert with extensive operational knowledge of the DoD. As such, he is well-equipped and well-positioned to bring about much-needed upgrades in this complicated space.
However, even with an acquisition wizard in the defense secretary’s seat, be sure to temper any expectations that the DoD will be humming with the agility and flexibility of its partners in industry for a couple big reasons.
To start, the regulatory environment for DoD acquisition is onerous. Any attempts at overhaul will have to maneuver through the bureaucratic and complex labyrinth of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), as well as service-specific statutes and procedures. Unburdened by these thousands of pages of protocols, private industry can repurpose resources and bypass competition requirements in ways unavailable to most DoD procurement arms. These regulations often stand in the way of swift acquisition, and they are not going anywhere.
Also, it will take incredible feats of strength to untangle the web of federal stakeholders that touch defense systems as they move through the DOD 5000.02 Acquisition Lifecycle. Even multinational corporations have relatively direct and streamlined lines of authority and required approvals. The CEO’s signature alone can get production lines in motion. Conversely, a DOD Acquisition Category (ACAT) I program will be subject to multiple review cycles at every stage of development. It will be evaluated, re-evaluated, and re-evaluated again by technical experts, legal counsel, and policymakers across all levels of governance. This chain of command has been built deliberately over time, so even Carter will have a tough time decomposing it in favor of a simplified, industry-like approach.
But, there is still hope that the DoD acquisitions community might begin to better mirror its industry partners in the months to come.
Recent history suggests that a strong presence at the top of the Pentagon can engender a culture of good management and, in turn, catalyze big changes. Former Secretary Robert Gates is credited for driving into existence the rapidly procured (though also problematic) Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) program. Similarly, the systems out of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) likely would not have been able to sidestep the many regulations that they did without a champion in Former Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Beyond precedent, over a decade of wartime procurement now brings the incoming defense secretary a set of tools to facilitate greater agility and flexibility in acquisition activities. To get around the FAR’s many mandates around competition when sole-sourcing is appropriate, Carter can make use of the Justification and Approval Process (J&A). To consolidate lines of authority and dodge time-consuming test and evaluation protocols, he can lean on the Urgent Operational Need (UON) process.
Shifting from policy to politics, the Congressional winds are also blowing in the right direction for procurement improvements. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) is set to take the gavel in the Senate Armed Services Committee. And, the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee is going to Representative Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), who has been working on acquisition reform for over a year alongside experts out of the National Defense Industrial Association. Together with other key players on the issue, NDIA with Rep. Thornberry’s support just released a set of acquisition reform recommendations that Ash Carter and the DoD could leverage in moving forward on this issue.
For the DoD acquisitions community, Ash Carter’s confirmation would represent a rare convergence of top-level expertise, policy momentum, and political fortune. Will this combination be enough to overcome decades-old bureaucratic obstacles? Will the DoD really start acting like a private industry buyer in the not so distant future? Don’t hold your breath, but don’t lose hope too quickly either.
Alex Haber is a business analyst in the national security practice at Censeo Consulting Group. Jeff Jeffress is a managing director and head of the national security practice at Censeo Consulting Group.
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Some people live on Hope. But most people live off Desire.
The United States can not afford for this to be a simple matter of either. At this point, most large Defense procurement projects are failures. The entire system is dysfunctional and in such cases has either broken down or run out of control. As a result of this condition and budget cuts, the force structures of our military are on the verge of collapse.
Mismanagement is the worst form of sabotage. The failure of such projects as the Joint Strike Fighter, the Littoral Combat Ship, and the Zumwalt class Destroyer represent great losses to our Country’s armed forces.
It is imperative that these problems be fixed And the answer is not merely to start the planning process all over again, as has been suggested recently, with a new visionary document.
This is an urgent matter. It is in fact, an emergency. A complete overhaul of the regulations and laws you refer to is in order, but there is no time for that. The President should issue executive orders to arm the Secretary of Defense with the power to cut them up in to little pieces, and to make things happen that must.
With a stroke of the pen, the Secretary of Defense must be in a position to do such things as cancel the F-35, reactivate the F-22 production line, reactivate production of F-15s, and similarly do what is necessary to save Naval ship procurement.
This whole process is corrupt. From top to bottom. It is corrupted by Congess, which not only funds military procurement, but decides for the military, what weapons systems they will have. It is one thing to deny or limit funding for acquisitions. But it is quite another for Congress to tell the Air Force what planes to fly, and the Navy, what ships to use. A poster child for this is the picture of Dr. Carter signing the contract for the refueling tanker that the Air Force did not want, under political duress.
Unless the President joins with him and with senior military leaders in standing up to Congress, the whole system will break down in to one massive scramble to grab what can be had with limited funds, and our military will be left with hollow forces in a matter of a few years.
And, incidentally, given interest rates, a healthy dose of deficit spending to correct this problem would be in order.
Let us save our Navy. Let us save the Zumwalt project. Let us nationalize it, if we have to. The Navy can not afford for this to be a failure.
Respectfully submitted,
Tyler P. Harwell
Tyler – while you have expressed the frustration we all feel, I am afraid your solutions are fundamentally unconstitutional. A “stroke of the pen” for the executive branch to sidestep or counter the legislative branch in most acquisition matters is not possible except for urgent operational needs. Unless it is about actively engaged troops, we should be very wary of an executive branch official disregarding an elected legislative branch. The separation of powers was a wise, albeit at times frustrating, construct of our founding fathers to protect us.
Respectfully, Gordan
Gordon – Maybe it is time to go revisit National League of Cities v. Usery., and its no doubt degenerate progeny.
(Congress gave Nixon money to spend on sewer projects. Nixon refused to spend it. Cities went to court to force him to do so. Cities won.)
We should be wary. Agreed. And mindful of legislative prerogatives. Agreed. But ought we not also be wary of legislative intrusion in to command decisions in the field of military procurement ?
No ? What about the case where by specific later legislation, Congress attempts to override a quasi-judicial administrative decision made in conformity with prior rules and legislation of a more general nature pertaining to procurements ? I.e., legislation to overturn the outcome of a case ? Is not awarding a contract a quasi-judicial decision ? Or is it legislative ?
At the present time, there are American soldiers and sailors fighting and dying overseas. Congress has just passed legislation budgeting for military operations in Iraq. A War Powers Act resolution must soon come up.
Query, if the President can not decide what missiles, and aircraft, and ships will be deployed there, or anywhere else overseas, what powers as Commander-in-Chief does he have ?
What happens when the Commandant of the Marine Corp says, we do not want any more Ospreys, and this goes up, and the President affirms his decision. He says, all right. And furthermore, the ones we have are grounded.
Under this circumstance, can Congress force them to be built, and purchased, and used ? Is there no limit to the ability of Congress to intrude itself in to every nook and cranny of Defense Department procurement operations ?
Far be it for a humble person such as myself to suggest that the President of the United States is all powerful, and that he can and should pick and choose what laws he will observe and enforce, and to what extent,…..as he has recently done with respect to controlled substances and immigration. He is, I will concede, an executive with many, many constraints. However, if in the faithful execution of his duties as CINC, he should decide not to field certain assets, nor consequently, to spend money on them, who is it then, that should over-rule him ? And how ?
The only reason to have a navy is for it to perform operations. Every day it does. Everywhere it goes. Every day, there are sailors aboard ships at sea, in good weather, and bad. If the President should decide that they should be in Arleigh-Burke destroyers, and not Littoral Combat Ships, who is there that should contest his judgment as to the urgency of the matter ?
Yes, let there be separation of powers, by all means.
Respectfully submitted,
TPH