Breaking the Pentagon's Innovation and Acquisition Chains

The U.S. Department of Defense faces a moment of reckoning. While adversaries like China and Russia race ahead with artificial intelligence, hypersonics, and autonomous systems, America’s military remains shackled by a bureaucracy designed to control costs, not to win wars. So, the defense enterprise lags behind faster, more adaptive adversaries in terms of delivering new, decisive capabilities at speed and affordably to the Nation’s forces. President Trump’s April 9 executive order to modernize defense innovation and acquisitions is a step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough.

We don’t need another study or blue-ribbon panel, which gives recommendations but sees little through to completion. Rather, we need the authorizations to create Mission-Focused Teams (MFTs), that are cross-functional over requirements, acquisition, R&D, contracting, finance, and security and operations, which include national labs, facilities like the Navy’s warfare centers, and private industry.  

In effect, these mission-focused teams would be given the same authorities today to make integrated decisions in innovation and acquisition that operating forces acquired 40 years ago for planning, practice, and execution. That, too, was motivated for better integration of each service into well-coordinated, effective actions. For MFTs, this would allow immediacy, cutting out the bureaucratic rigmarole that separates those who deliver solutions from warfighters.

This matters because if all the necessary expertise can work together, in real time, then better solutions are developed and deployed faster. Resources are available where they are needed, not where the process dictates. Senior leaders can still course-correct, but the default is action, not delay.

This is how great organizations of all types behave: Apple’s invention of the iPhone, Google’s ascendence in search, Amazon’s ventures into cloud computing, Toyota’s invention and proliferation of hybrid power systems, or SpaceX’s achievement of reusable rockets way ahead of the world’s largest space agencies. Cross-functional teams, unencumbered from complying with existing policies and procedures, defined problems and developed solutions at speed, focusing on succeeding at assigned missions.   

Following course, the Pentagon should assemble diverse, multidisciplinary teams—including end users, technical experts, and outside collaborators—and put them where the work happens. Let them talk directly to operators and iterate quickly, prototyping and refining solutions with user feedback. Only after a solution has proven itself in the field should it become a formal requirement and be scaled across the force.

In contrast, today, the Pentagon’s Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) is built on the premise that full requirements can be discerned from afar and in advance, with designing to those requirements an independent next step. Industry rejected that, because, in practice, initial requirements are just guesses, of problems to be solved and of what solutions will work. Industry can’t spend years and billions developing non-working solutions for non-existent problems.

The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a cautionary tale. Launched to deliver a “fast, flexible, modular ship,” the LCS struggled because the Navy hadn’t fully defined the threats it would face. Years and billions later, the Navy shifted focus to the Constellation-class frigate, designed with a clearer understanding of actual operational needs.

The Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF), embedded teams at the tactical edge and iterated quickly with user feedback. When counter-IED efforts shifted from vehicles to dismounted infantry, REF and its partners delivered new robotic systems within months—systems still saving lives today in Ukraine.

This “problem-first” approach prevents wasted effort and ensures that solutions address real, validated needs.

Lasting change will come only if these new ways of working are codified in doctrine, policy, and everyday language. Just as military doctrine guides how forces fight, the Pentagon needs a shared framework for mission-oriented reform—one that outlives individual leaders and shifting priorities—an innovation doctrine that is competitive today.

The stakes are clear. America’s military advantage depends on its ability to out-think and out-innovate its adversaries. That means breaking the bureaucratic chains and putting mission-focused, problem-centric teams at the heart of defense innovation. Anything less risks ceding the future to those who move faster and dare more boldly.

COL Peter Newell (U.S. Army, ret.) is CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and former director of the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force. Steven Spear is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of Wiring the Winning Organization.