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Politics

Congress needs introspection for PPBE Reform to work, for DoD to innovate at scale

April 8, 2022 Eric Lofgren 0

There are several ways in which Congress is a major impediment to an improved defense investment process. First, congressional committees are loath to shed their ability […]

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Takeaways from Bill LaPlante’s confirmation hearing for USD A&S

March 29, 2022 Eric Lofgren 0

Here are some notes on William LaPlante’s confirmation hearing to become USD Acquisition & Sustainment — courtesy of the excellent Pete Modigliani. Congress gave DoD […]

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GAO: To keep up with surging Congressional reporting, DoD should modernize

February 16, 2022 Eric Lofgren 0

The Department of Defense is required to report to Congress on an array of national security topics each year. The number of new reporting requirements […]

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PPBE Reform is getting hot, here are some views

January 13, 2022 Eric Lofgren 0

The archaic defense budget process based on five-year plans, long decision making and excessive time to revenue keeps the most innovative companies from ever wanting […]

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Is a Russian invasion of Ukraine imminent? And when will acquisition get serious?

January 7, 2022 Eric Lofgren 0

Here is Dmitri Alpervitch, co-founder of the largest cybersecurity firm in the world Crowd Strike, in a viral twitter thread: There are numerous signals that […]

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All that acquisition reform, and scaling programs still looks like the old system

December 21, 2021 Eric Lofgren 0

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 […]

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What does the 20-year delivery on the AUKUS deal say about US power?

December 2, 2021 Eric Lofgren 2

Here’s one perhaps relevant portion of an incredibly interesting discussion between Balaji Srinivasan and Tim Ferriss. Balaji remarks that the AUKUS deal in which the […]

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Highlights from DoD’s 2021 report on China’s military power

December 1, 2021 Eric Lofgren 0

The link is here, officially titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.” In 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced a […]

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Senate appropriators support PPBE reform, provided some cautions

October 22, 2021 Eric Lofgren 2

Several recent studies have examined the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution [PPBE] process of the Department of Defense, and have recommended various improvements. Chief among […]

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Adam Smith on budget flexibility and congressional self-interest

July 21, 2021 Eric Lofgren 0

Of course there is the procurement cycle, which to make it very simple, it’s too long. As technology is changing rapidly, if you’re saying that […]

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How DoD’s innovation fund can avoid becoming a slush fund

June 24, 2021 Eric Lofgren 0

Back in March, Matt MacGregor and I wrote an article with the provocative title, A bridge fund won’t solve the Pentagon’s emerging tech problem. While […]

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Did neoliberal economics destroy government’s ability to execute programs? Not so fast…

April 14, 2021 Eric Lofgren 3

You can either look at this as deterministic history that, once upon a time there were really smart people in government who knew how to […]

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Should government be more mission-driven?

April 13, 2021 Eric Lofgren 1

Only when it’s too late, only when we have a pandemic of the scale we have now, do we realize, uh oh, we have to […]

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The debate over defining “legacy” weapon systems

March 12, 2021 Eric Lofgren 0

How DoD defines “legacy systems” will drive tens of billions of dollars of investment, sustainment activities, and force structure. Everyone criticizes legacy systems, and in […]

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Why are there defense authorizations and appropriations?

February 27, 2021 Eric Lofgren 0

The budgeting that Wildavsky, Caiden, and other scholars defined as “traditional” was designed to finance bureaus that provide a service to the public or, more […]

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Featured

  • Disastrously risk-averse government funded R&D
  • Rickover on human considerations for technology
  • Make 2021 the year of defense budget reform!
  • COVID-19 contract update and unfunded DoD costs
  • DoD provides some relief for small/nontraditional contractors
  • Acquisition headlines (8/8 – 8/14/2022)
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