Defense Acquisition Reform: A Half-Century and Still Counting

There has been a tremendous amount of research and associated reports assessing Department of Defense (DoD) acquisitions of major weapon systems over the past half century. More specifically, the problems associated with the process and the need for reform. The product of this has been a constant state of acquisition reform, the implementation of one reform initiative after another over the past half century. Despite these efforts, the DoD is still working diligently and expending a tremendous amount of time and resources to reform the process of acquiring major weapon systems. At the present time, the DoD acquisition community is implementing Better Buying Power 2.0, which is one of the most extensive acquisition reform initiatives to date. Even with the DoD implementing this extensive acquisition reform effort, the calls from Congress to assess and fix the acquisition process are as loud as ever. Fueling the calls from Congress, the responsibility to judiciously utilize taxpayer dollars, recover from 10 years of war, and react to a dynamic and every changing security environment. The time is now, for an efficient and effective acquisition system to develop and deliver more complex weapon systems, in an era of negative program performance and reduced budgets.