At stake is not just a $10 billion IT contract, but an information age weapon.

And make it snappy: The deadline is July 26th.

The Department of Defense can make smarter and faster acquisition decisions if it uses people more thoughtfully. Instead of involving top-level leaders at every decision point in the acquisition process, senior leaders should determine the organization’s enterprise-level goals, then communicate them to empowered and capable leaders who can decide how best to meet those goals.… Keep reading →

Peter Levine, former top staffer at the Senate Armed Services Committee and now with the Institute for Defense Analyses, penned a piece for us critiquing the GAO’s annual report on major weapons systems. The GAO begs to differ with Levine’s conclusions and assertions. Below is their reply, penned by Shelby Oakley, director at GAO. Read… Keep reading →

At issue is not just this particular program, but the much wider question of how a Pentagon testing apparatus designed for big industrial age programs can keep up with the much faster and more fluid upgrade cycles of information technology.

Democratic chairman Adam Smith wants to focus on the “cyber fight with Russia and China… that’s really going to happen.”

The first iteration of the new Assured Precision Navigation & Timing (APNT) kit will go to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany for evaluation.

GAO’s own data show that the supposed cost growth at the heart of the analysis does not exist at all. The patient reader will find that the real reason for this “cost growth” is increased purchase quantities. In plain terms, the Pentagon bought more weapons.

The senators’ draft of the annual defense bill puts a new emphasis on technological competition, including industrial policy moves to strengthen US companies.

Can a new kind of contract get key cutting-edge technologies across the bureaucratic “valley of death” before the Russians and Chinese lap the US?