A federated approach to JADC2 is the only way to field interoperability before 2027
Jerry McGinn and I joined Vago Muradian on the Defense & Aerospace report to discuss our recent paper on Execution Flexibility and Bridging the Valley […]
Blog Posts
A brief history of the munitions industrial base, and the importance of GOGOs
During the first few years of World War I, European nations modernized weapons with machine guns, tanks, airplanes and larger artillery, leaving the American CMIB […]
Podcast: PPBE Reform with Ellen Lord and Michael Brown
Ellen Lord and Michael Brown joined me at the 2022 Conference hosted by George Mason University and Defense Acquisition University to discuss PPBE Reform. Ellen […]
Precision guided munitions pruduction is totally inadequate
The Pentagon is rebalancing its portfolio of PGMs away from short-range weapons used for counterterrorism operations toward long-range weapons that can be fired from standoff […]
Acquisition headlines (11/14 – 11/20/2022)
US Air Force’s ‘divest to invest’ plan is too risky. (Defense News) “The Air Force plans to retire aging F-15Cs, F-16s, B-1s and B-2s [to […]
The incredible decline of DoD execution flexibility has created the so-called “valley of death”
Here are some excerpts from our recent report at Mason GovCon, Execution Flexibility and Bridging the Valley of Death. Caution: Just how much the purse […]
Are United States shipyards in trouble?
Here are some points from an interesting article, US Shipyards – Record Revenue At Firesale Valuations. Yesterday Bollinger Shipyards, the largest privately-owned and operated shipbuilder […]
Getting to the battle fastest with the mostest
A post-World War II cartoon gets to a deep truth in defense acquisition. It shows American tanks on trial, supposedly for being outgunned and relatively […]
Rep. Mike Gallagher on multiyear procurement, budget, and oversight
Here’s a slice from a great episode of Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula’s Building the Base podcast with Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI). The Pentagon doesn’t […]
Acquisition headlines (11/7 – 11/13/2022)
Opinion: How to partner with the Pentagon. (Aviation Week) AJ Piplica write: “Since the company’s founding in 2018, Hermeus has raised over $120 million in […]
Does EVMS serve any other purpose than to justify cost overruns?
Earned Value Management (EVM) is a complicated system for measuring baseline plans, actual costs, and technical progress on large, complex defense contracts. It evolved from […]
Podcast: Getting weapons into production with USD A&S Bill LaPlante
The Undersecretary for Acquisition & Sustainment (USD A&S) Bill LaPlante joined us at the 2022 Conference hosted by George Mason University and Defense Acquisition University. […]
Tech bros vs. munitions at scale — what is helping Ukraine?
Here’s some good tweeting from Politico’s Lee Hudson on USD A&S Bill LaPlante’s keynote speech at the GMU-DAU Conference. A couple of the controversial points: […]
It takes exceptional people to do average work with DoD’s budgeting system
“I had a boss one time who said the processes and systems we have [in PPBE] are such that it takes exceptional people to do […]
Acquisition headlines (10/31 – 11/6/2022)
Pentagon, Congress have trust issues, budget reform panel’s Lord says. (Defense News) From the GMU-DAU Conference: “Early work by a congressionally mandated budget reform commission […]