PMs spend too much time at briefings where no decisions are made
In the early 1970s, the Army took it upon itself to review its acquisition system. The AMARC report found that the Army was “profoundly affected” […]
Month: December 2021
Inflationary lessons for the Department of Defense
Here’s Friedrich Hayek discussing the negative consequences of economist’s presumption that they can control macroeconomic outcomes — from his 1974 Nobel prize speech The Pretense […]
Will defense tech be able to compete with an innovating enemy?
When a program manager in the Pentagon is getting threat briefs, they’re your best friend before the program starts. They want to hear all about […]
Top researchers spend 50% of their time writing grants, how to fix it, and what it means for DoD
Nearly all academic researchers in the sciences rely on outside grants in order to pay salaries, buy their equipment, and run their experiments. Those grants […]
Acquisition headlines (12/20 – 12/26/2021)
United States approves possible FMS of EMALS and AAG to France. (Naval News) “The Government of France has requested to buy one (1) Electromagnetic Aircraft […]
The state of defense acquisition as 2021 draws to a close
Previously, I discussed the messaging from the Reagan National Defense Forum that “Time is running out with Silicon Valley.” It was intimated that major acquisition […]
Does the US still have 50% of major warships, and thus command of the sea?
Command of the sea was defined as concentration of naval power, in which one nation possessed roughly 50 percent of the total relevant warships owned […]
Time is running out for DoD with Silicon Valley
To those at Reagan National Defense Forum #RNDF, if there’s one BLUF you take away from the weekend, you should know: Time is running out […]
All that acquisition reform, and scaling programs still looks like the old system
When we think of alternative acquisition, that tends to be other-transaction authority and middle-tier acquisition. For [Jonathan] Etherton, these prototyping mechanisms amount to a […]
Acquisition headlines (12/13 – 12/19/2021)
The US military’s future: waves of killer drone swarms. (1945) “300-Plus Swarm Drones Just Flew In This DARPA Test: One drone armed with a missile or a bomb can […]
Palmer Luckey on rapidly fielding counter-UAS
Here’s a very interesting story from Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril, at the 2021 Reagan National Defense Forum. There was an event where we were […]
Does acquisition depend too much on assumptions, not enough on accountability?
James Roherty’s classic 1970 book, The Decisions of Robert S McNamara has a pair of interesting discussions on the takeover of systems analysis on military […]
Podcast: Injecting tech in today’s weapons with Maj. Gen. John Ferrari (ret.)
I was pleased to have John Ferrari join me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of issues facing DoD’s ability to […]
Why does DoD often take 10-15 years to deliver “big juicy targets”?
DoD still operates with enterprise processes and management practices designed around programs from 60 years ago. These program-centric constraints drive longer timelines, fewer quantities, and […]
Acquisition headlines (12/6 – 12/12/2021)
Electric Sky wins DARPA grant to work on focused power beaming system for drones. (Geek Wire) “A startup called Electric Sky says it’s begun building its […]