The Great American Acquisition Gap

In recent weeks, Ukraine has drawn attention for strikes on prestige Russian targets such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Crimea, along with reports of sporadic battlefield gains. While the war remains far from decided, these developments offer a moment to examine one of the fundamental reasons driving Ukraine's battlefield resilience: fast, agile, and adaptive defense procurement.

During the Cold War, the U.S. gained an operational and technological advantage over the Soviet Union by adapting its defense industrial base (DIB) and military capabilities to the changing nature of warfare. This occurred despite the fact that Soviet military theorists had, in many respects, preceded their American counterparts in developing the conceptual foundations of what they termed the Military-Technical Revolution. Today, the U.S. faces a small number of capable adversaries in an environment that demands not only mass but also agility, adaptability, and the ability to innovate in real time.

In this respect, the progress made by Ukraine over 4 years of a full-scale invasion provide valuable lessons and opportunities to American policymakers. R&D processes that once took up to 20 years are now being completed in a matter of weeks, complex systems like Ukraine’s Sea baby uncrewed surface vessel (USV) have been developed and fielded in a few months, while major acquisition programs in the U.S. typically take more than 12 years to deliver an initial operational capability. The U.S. Navy's own Mark 48 torpedo illustrates the point: it was conceived in 1956 but did not become operational until 1972.

Prior to the start of the war Ukrainian defense procurement was characterized by corrupt bureaucracy and centralization. Ukraine’s entire defense industry was owned by the state under the Ukroboronprom conglomerate. The procurement system in the U.S. suffers similar bureaucratic delays, although they arise from layered requirements, budgeting, and acquisition processes rather than one centralized bureaucracy. The negative effects of these bureaucracies are evident in both countries. In Ukraine, we saw the failure to establish domestic ammunition production following the 2014 invasion despite agreement on its necessity. In the U.S. similar bureaucratic failures were revealed by the warehousing of 10,000 Integrated Visual Augmentation System Headsets following 8 years and multiple acquisition efforts. The estimated cost of the 10-year purchase of the headsets is $22 billion dollars.

Before the war, Ukrainian General Staff would set requirements for weapons and equipment, defining the operational need and necessary R&D. These requirements were formalized into a single document that guided all defense procurement in a 3-year period called the State Defense Order (DOZ). In the U.S., procurement architecture is more distributed through multiple stages, analyses and assessments, but each stage adds review layers that result in requirement finalization alone taking well over 2 years. Although the procurement systems differ substantially, both historically have struggled to convert requirements into delivered capabilities. In the U.S. system, this manifests as delays and cost overruns starting at the requirements stage, while Ukraine’s main challenges emerged later in the process.

After its completion, the DOZ often went unfulfilled. Military customers were encouraged either to buy from foreign suppliers or denied capabilities altogether. The result was a procurement ecosystem that served more to outline desired capabilities than deliver them. Between 2014 and 2020 only 13% of capability requests were fulfilled by domestic development despite a historically strong DIB. Those that were developed underwent lengthy codification processes just like equivalent U.S. acquisitions which require years before fielding, even under expedited pathways.

In the old Ukrainian system, once new systems were adopted, the Ministry of Defense (MOD) could contract their production over 2-5 years, though this process also faced frequent delays. All told, the timeline between submitting requirements to fielding capabilities took between 4.7 and over 20 years. At the end of such a lengthy process, the MOD between 2014 and 2019 only ever received 6.3% of what it requested in the DOZ. In the U.S., procurement attrition varies by scale but ranges from 19% cancellation rate for major programs to high double digits for more frequent Middle Tier acquisitions.

After a series of wartime reforms, the procurement process in Ukraine today is both more efficient and much faster. At a macro scale, Ukrainian defense procurement now operates at two levels in different organizations, separating contracting execution from policy functions into the Defense Procurement Agency and MOD’s procurement respectively. The focus of these and other bureaucratic reforms is in streamlining the procurement process and ensuring timely production and fielding of capabilities. At every level of the new system, fewer administrative barriers existed, and collaboration with operators was significantly improved to ensure that capabilities delivered to end users were aligned with operational needs and delivered on time.

In addition to reorganizing procurement processes, Ukraine also dissolved Ukroboronprom and replaced it with a joint-stock company called Ukrainian Defense Industry accountable only to the state as its sole shareholder. Through such significant downsizes and enterprise consolidations, Ukraine managed to streamline bureaucracy thus reducing opportunities for corruption. Importantly, reforms of existing defense suppliers were paired with expanded partnerships with smaller more innovative firms and the construction of a regulatory environment that cultivates innovation.

R&D for systems like drones were outsourced to smaller private sector firms and foreign partners. Procurement regulations have been streamlined under martial law to give greater flexibility to domestic firms, and clarified to allow foreign firms to conduct R&D of new weapons systems. These new laws create a comprehensive framework that facilitates working with small scale domestic enterprises and foreign partners to develop new capabilities from the ground level instead of merely serving as vendors of existing products.

These reforms have significantly shortened development and procurement times for new systems. Private-sector firms have been able to rapidly provide the MOD with capabilities, such as new drone models adapted from existing commercial solutions with only minimal modifications. At the same time, established defense industry providers have also improved their ability to deliver complex systems such as the Palyanytsia missile in just 1.5 years. New regulations likewise allow the immediate deployment of prototypes in “controlled operations” rather than traditional field testing which enables R&D to deliver immediate battlefield results before formal development is complete. Crucially, with increased communication between Ukrainian warfighters and suppliers via programs like Brave1, modifications to designs can be made quickly, avoiding overengineering and focusing development to satisfy exact operational needs.

These communication improvements and frontline testing reforms made Ukraine an international benchmark for sustaining combat effectiveness in 21st-century warfare. Such reforms provide a wealth of transferable best practices for reducing waste caused by overdevelopment and enabling the direct translation of tactical requirements into operational capabilities.

In discussing what the U.S. should learn from Ukraine, it must be understood that several outside factors played into the success of the reforms that cannot be replicated in kind. First, Ukraine is under martial law, dedicating more than 34.5% of its GDP to the military and granting the MOD procurement liberties that would not ordinarily be available in peacetime. Second, although procurement and adoption are rapid, all systems adopted during the war will be evaluated to remain in service. Equally important however, Ukraine is procuring (and testing) capabilities to deploy in a known location, against a known threat. The U.S. faces several hostile competitors, making it impossible to plan with absolute certainty for the strategic conditions, tactics, and operational realities of potential future conflicts.

However, these caveats do not diminish the relevance of Ukraine's experience. If anything, they suggest transferable reforms consistent with ongoing U.S. procurement reform goals.

The establishment and active sustainment of open and continuous communication between warfighters and developers is critical. An age-old problem in any defense procurement process is that the engineers developing cutting-edge technologies often lack direct insight into which capabilities are most urgently needed on the frontlines. At the same time, operators and strategists increasingly struggle to keep pace with rapidly evolving technological capabilities.

Although efforts to better incorporate feedback are underway, they are mixed and do not always keep warfighters involved throughout the whole process. Overcoming, amongst other things, security barriers for builders and keeping the end user involved throughout the development lifecycle would allow planners to ensure a more agile force development process and guarantee relevance. In Ukraine’s case, this has proven necessary with rapid innovation taking place on both sides of the frontlines. Reforms at that speed cannot take place in an overly static environment and without constant feedback and testing.

Second, the U.S. must increase acquisitions from non-traditional providers, especially for less complex and cheaper systems. Much of Ukraine’s success in reforming its defense procurement has focused on its ability to rapidly adopt and produce drones via leaning on the startups rather than its established military industrial base. For the U.S. to meet the stated goal of pursuing a high-low mix of capabilities including affordable attritable systems, emerging commercial-sector expertise should be leveraged to a greater extent rather than continued overreliance on legacy providers. Mr. Hegseth's recent memo establishing a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM-UxS) to serve as the sole integrator for all unmanned systems programs, with authority over their development, procurement, fielding, and operationalization, is a strong step that should be expanded so long as the military services are satisfied with the result.

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which bridges tech firms and the Pentagon within the new portfolio, has already enabled the military to expand such partnerships, resulting in mission-ready drones being produced in under 15 months. As the U.S. pursues the high-low capability mix, examples like this should be the standard rather than the exception. As part of this, the concept of iterative development must become a founding principle in American defense procurement as industry works with warfighters to refine prototypes from the ground up rather than using field testing as a final step in the adoption process. The Navy's acquisition strategy structured around iterative development cycles offer a model the rest of the acquisition system should follow.

Finally, although the DoD has already made progress in streamlining defense acquisitions, the U.S. must free itself from the decades-old annual Planning, Programming, Budgeting & Execution Process system responsible for allocating budgetary resources among various procurement programs by fully replacing it with the Defense Resourcing System. As suggested by the Congressional Research Service, this would improve coherence between strategic priorities and resource allocation.

The 2025 Acquisition Transformation Strategy already discusses “removing bureaucracy” from middle-tier acquisition, but this streamlining is even more critical for the major capability acquisitions which face even more red tape and delays causing high profile failures like the cancellation of the constellation class frigate. The rapid pace of the DIU’s USV program should serve as a model demonstrating what is possible when simpler methods are used rather than solely relying on legacy processes and providers.

Ultimately, the next peer conflict will not be decided exclusively by the technology used to fight it. Agility, adaptability and the real-time capacity to innovate in the processes to procure and effectively deploy the technology of tomorrow is as critical as it was in the Cold War. Ukraine is a powerful reminder that when it comes to acquiring capabilities, the how is just as important as the what. It’s innovative approach to defense acquisitions is a direct consequence of a war forcing a mindset change to take place allowing the country to revolutionize the how. As the U.S. embarks on efforts to reform its procurement processes, it must ensure that structural and procedural reforms are preceded by a cultural shift that paves way for intellectual focus on the necessities demanded by the 21^st-century RMA. After all, as the late Andrew Marshall reminded us, the most important competition is not technological but intellectual.

Barna Peterfi is the Research Director of Yorktown Institute. His work focuses on military affairs, naval strategy, and the geopolitics of Eurasia. Mr. Peterfi is an Andrassy National Security Fellow.

image: U.S. Soldiers assigned to Ft. Irwin Operations Group, overlook the training area while discussing daily objectives during Project Convergence Capstone 6 (PC-C6) at Fort Irwin, California, July 22, 2026. PC-C6 is the premier Army-hosted experiment that allows the joint force and multinational allies and partners to integrate people, equipment, and technologies to support continuous transformation efforts aimed at shaping how future warfighters will operate in fast-paced, high-tech environments. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Rebecca Watkins)