Origins of the Milestone acquisition process
One of the foundations of the defense acquisition system is the DoD Directive 5000.1, which defines how military systems progress from an idea to production. […]
McNamara
Anduril releases mission document: Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy
Here is an interesting slice from Anduril’s mission document: Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy. In the early 1960s, under the direction of then Secretary of […]
What are the prerequisites to defense budget reform?
Here’s a snippet from Christopher O’Donnell, acting ASD(Acquisition) at the 2021 GMU/DAU conference: What the MTA has shown is that the JCIDS process and the […]
Does blackboard economics translate to defense decisions?
Here’s an indication of the kind of thinking that predominated the post-WWII world, as expressed by Alain Enthoven who was ASD Systems Analysis in 1966: […]
Did the 5000-series lead to longer cycle time for aircraft development?
Mosaic warfare is a concept that evolved over the last 5 or 6 years, both at DARPA but also by folks like Dan Patt and […]
What led to the decline of the Army’s arsenal system?
Perhaps the most significant causal event that signaled the demise of the arsenal system was the gradual centralization of decision-making authority within the Office of […]
What’s left to be done after the Adaptive Acquisition Framework?
We need reform in our requirements processes and our budgets to allow for the same speed and agility the #AAF gives us. We have a framework for […]
Seeing like a state, institutional legibility, and the collapse of defense innovation
The book begins with an early example, “scientific” forestry (illustrated in the picture above). The early modern state, Germany in this case, was only interested […]
PPBE reform event: an imperative for winning the great power competition
… in my mind, I equate planning and budgeting and consider the terms almost synonymous, the budget being simply a quantitative expression of operating plans. […]
Defense decision-making beyond neoclassical economics
Well, in the article I caricatured how economists look at preference. So, let me do it in two stages. First, the way economists usually look […]
Cost-per-desired-effect and the F-35 vs F-15EX debate
Let me give you one specific example. The leverage provided by stealth aircraft in the First Gulf War is fully illustrated by this particular attack. […]
How financial planning came to rule the Pentagon
Here is the estimable Frederick Mosher in his 1954 classic discussing the rise of the program budget. A programmed budget, of course, is when money […]
Experts misguiding innovation in the age of ballistic missiles
Actually, the vital ingredients of a medium-range ballistic missile were mostly within reach by 1947, excepting a nuclear warhead and proven means of warhead reentry, […]
Where are the Democrats on defense policy?
With the presidential election happening today, the big question (for this blog) is how defense acquisition policy will differ based on the outcomes. My view […]
How McNamara’s top-down structure was flipped, but equally insidious forces prevailed
Taking the place of the Draft Presidential Memorandum was a new document called the Program Objective Memorandum (POM), through which the services could outline their […]