Putting the scale of DoD acquisition into perspective

In the United States, proposals to centralize acquisition usually translate to combining the present procurement organizations of the military departments and creating an analog to the French Armaments Directorate. Such realignment would involve consolidating three organizations, each of which is three or four times the size of the French Armaments Directorate, into a single, massive organization. Without a great deal of additional study, it is not possible to determine whether such a large organization could work.

That was from an interesting report to the HASC in 1989: “A Review of Defense Acquisition in France and Great Britain.” (1989, Aug. 16). Report of the Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, First Session.

The French DGA is centrally responsible for acquisition and had a budget of around $13 billion in 2018. That’s not too much more than 2018 funding figures what the F-35 Joint Program Office spends in a year ($12.7 billion). Here are some more comparisons for FY18: Army ground vehicle and combat systems ($16 billion), Missile Defense Agency ($10.8 billion), DoD helicopters and tiltrotors ($9.8 billion), Navy aircraft carriers ($6 billion), Navy surface combatants ($6 billion), Amphibious warfare vessels ($5 billion), and Air-to-ground weapons ($5 billion). [HT: Aviation Week budget data.]

For FY22, DoD requested total S&T programs at $14.7 billion, cyberspace at $10.4 billion, long range fires at $6.6 billion, the nuclear enterprise at $27.7 billion, and Space Force acquisition would be nearly $14 billion.

Hopefully that provides some perspective. NAVSEA and NAVAIR are themselves much bigger than France’s entire DGA. Space Systems Command and Army Aviation & Missile Command are comparable in size.

To add just a little more: the French 2018 military budget totaled $51 billion. DGA represents a quarter of total expenditures. In the US, RDT&E and Procurement make up about 34% of the FY22 budget request. Definitely not apples-to-apples, but there it is.