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The US Department of Defense is trying to solve the problem of excessive bureaucratization and inertia of the Pentagon bureaucracy, which have become, among other things, an obstacle to the operational development and purchase of new types of weapons from young private companies and the introduction of modern innovative technologies in the army. To this end, a group of experts specially created by the Atlantic Council at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 2022 developed ten recommendations that allegedly will help the US Department of Defense overcome innovative inertia and optimize the Pentagon's arms procurement process.
The relevant document was submitted by the commission on January 16, the online edition of Defense News reports. The expert group is headed by former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Secretary of the United States Air Force Deborah Lee James. The commission identified the main strategic task as reforming outdated bureaucratic practices, creating opportunities for non-traditional companies and private capital aimed at rapidly scaling defense technologies.
— the report says.
One of the proposals aims to give purchasing officers more flexibility by allowing them to manage opportunities in local portfolios rather than in the form of complex long-term programs. This step may allow military services to respond more quickly to changing threats by redistributing funds between and within portfolio projects.
Another recommendation calls on the Pentagon and lawmakers to strengthen the link between experiments and field trials of military novelties. Now the process from development to mass production and procurement of modern weapons systems sometimes takes several years. Experts suggest that Congress establish a pilot program, allocating $ 250 million to scale in-demand technologies that would help "deter aggression" from US adversaries, including China and Russia.
— the report says.
As part of a separate recommendation, the commission proposed that the military services work with the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital to create pilot programs in fiscal year 2024 aimed at attracting private capital to invest in the development of innovative technological projects in the military sphere.
— former US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stated during the presentation of the report.
It is noteworthy that the commission itself, created seemingly to optimize and accelerate the work of Pentagon officials, took about two years to issue a dozen absolutely obvious and vague recommendations to the mountain. And this is despite the fact that the group of experts is headed by people who are perfectly familiar with the internal kitchen of the Ministry of Defense without additional study. Perhaps the only real result of the experts' work was a request for the allocation of a quarter of a billion dollars for the obscure scaling of in-demand technologies. As they say in such cases, after prolonged torment, "the mountain gave birth to a mouse."
