During the Cold War, U.S. military forces and technology were far superior to those of Russia and China. But those days are gone -- they’ve since caught up to us. The race to stay ahead of the curve is closer than before and harder to maintain, so the U.S. needs to modernize and streamline.
How? Simply put, by getting more done with the taxpayer dollars.
Up until now, the DOD has been focused on being thorough (via lots of red tape) and minimizing risk (not taking chances on projects or tech if we’re unsure what rewards they will reap). But that’s not cutting it anymore. We’re transitioning to a culture of performance where results and accountability matter.
So what’s changing?
We’re going to get things done faster and be ready to work in a continually changing environment.
Before, decisions often took too long, thanks to inconvenient approval chains. Resources were being wasted on noncompetitive ventures, and people worried too much about risk, meaning we weren’t changing at a competitive pace. We’re updating management practices to include some used in the private sector to pick up the pace.
To be efficient on the battlefield, we have to be efficient with our money.
The DOD is working to better manage costs by:
- Acquiring equipment and services more efficiently.
- Consolidating and streamlining contracts.
- Reducing management overhead.
- Reducing or getting rid of organizations and systems that overlap too much.
- Getting rid of unnecessary property and infrastructure.
We’re streamlining processes and organizations.
This means adapting management practices to make sure that service members get the knowledge, equipment and support they need to succeed. If a current process is hindering their ability to do their mission well, that process will need to be restructured, consolidated or gotten rid of altogether. It’s all about what works for the warfighter – not the other way around.
Our approach to developing and handling new weapons systems will also be streamlined to reduce costs, lower the risk of purchasing or building ineffective systems, and keeping technologies from becoming obsolete too fast.
Electronics and software will be routinely replaced.
This is actually a big change, and it will help the department respond faster to security environment changes and make it harder for competitors to counteract our systems.
We’ll do a better job of keeping our defense partners in the loop.
To keep our technological advantage, we also need to keep our defense partners – traditional and nontraditional – informed on what the department wants to do in the future so they can make sure their research, development, infrastructure and critical skills can support these ideas long-term.