ARMY AL&T


THE NEED FOR SPEED


DOD is fusing new authorities to upend a moribund acquisition status quo.


by Col. Joel D. Babbitt and Dr. Donald Schlomer, Lt. Col., USA (Ret.) T


he case for change in peacetime has rarely been made as succinctly as the last two National Defense Strategies. For 17 years, the U.S. military has focused on low-intensity conflicts, bend- ing all of our resources and attention toward defeating the terrorist threat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Africa. However, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the debut of Russia’s New


Generation Warfare using robots in eastern Ukraine, and China’s rapid maturation of its navy, rocket forces and military in general, it has become obvious that a new era of peer competition has arrived.


But large enterprises don’t change on a dime. It took us 17 years of focus on counterterrorism rather than on near-peer competitors to get to where we are—outranged by Russian artillery, lacking in air defense and discovering that our technological lead has eroded in several other areas as well. To regain our edge in these areas—quickly—is and will be a daunting challenge.


To meet this challenge, Gen. Mark A. Milley, Army chief of staff, is driving structural changes, and Congress is providing the top cover, through the development of a new four-star headquarters, the U.S. Army Futures Command. Te Army Futures Command is breaking organizational friction by prioritizing the Army’s research and development, promoting an open dialogue through its cross-functional teams and championing the use of new authorities to break through calcified acquisition processes, thereby usher- ing in a new era of Army acquisition.


All of this has created quite a bit of buzz in the program offices and in the cube farms of the Pentagon. Te need is clear: Army acquisition must no longer be process-oriented, time-consuming and risk-averse, taking years to deliver a product.


Enter the dynamic duo of middle-tier acquisition and other transaction authorities.


https://asc.ar my.mil


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