While DoD progresses on innovative tech, more work left to be done: Report

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is making progress on the technological front, but still has a long way to go in order to deter threats posed by China and Russia, according to a new report by the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption.

“While US companies continue to demonstrate technological prowess, this rate of innovation serves little use in deterring conflict unless the DoD is able to procure and get new technology into the hands of warfighters at a faster pace,” according to the final report. “The current US defense acquisition system was not designed to keep pace with today’s rapid rate of innovation.”

The commission, co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, released a report today that builds on an interim report released last April. The interim report included 10 broad recommendations for the DoD and Congress to enable faster adoption of new technology.

As of November 2023, progress was made on all 10 recommendations from DoD and Congress, according to the latest report. But the commission acknowledged there were “broader, strategic matters” that “will take time to reach full implementation.”

Speaking today at an Atlantic Council event formally launching the report, Esper said that while the recommendations “achieved notable impact” in DoD and Capitol Hill, “there is still much work to be done and much progress must be made if the US armed forces are to remain the preeminent military force in the world capable of handling all challenges, especially the People’s Republic of China.”

One of the recommendations made in the interim report called for “modernizing DoD to align with the twenty-first-century industrial base.” According to the final report, DoD made progress on this in a few ways: The Defense Innovation Unit in April 2023 was designated to report directly up to the secretary of defense, and US Indo-Pacific Command established a Joint Mission Accelerator Directorate to better connect with industry.

The Navy also made progress on the report’s recommendation to operate in a new capability portfolio model. According to the interim report, DoD and Congress should resource five program executive officers (PEOs) this year to address challenges with long timelines with delivering systems and the dreaded “valley of death,” where promising technologies fail to transition into programs of record.

Today’s report states the Navy designated its PEO for integrated warfare system (IWS) and its pilot PEO for portfolio management in September 2023. Now, more PEOs within the service are moving out or are planning to move out on the concept. 

Pete Modigliani, one of the authors of the report and vice president at Beacon Global Strategies, said today at the Atlantic Council event that the portfolio management recommendation was made to break down the “thousand-plus acquisition program stovepipes and really move towards a modern capability portfolio approach to deliver that integrated suite of capabilities.”

This year, US Cyber Command is also planning to implement the same portfolio management recommendation in the report by giving PEOs more flexibility to move money around within their program element, Khoi Nguyen, command acquisition executive and director of the cyber acquisition and technology directorate (J9), said during a Jan. 11 AFCEA Army IT Day event. “And that’s the goal for us from a funding perspective,” he added. 

Targeting lawmakers, both the interim and final reports made a number of recommendations to Capitol Hill when it comes to budgeting, including modifying reprogramming authorities and establishing a fund for successfully proven technologies. But the report acknowledges that Congress hasn’t yet conferenced on the fiscal year 2024 defense appropriations bills. 

In the meantime, the report warns that the “failure to adopt emerging technology at an effective pace would impede the DoD’s ability to deter China, a primary objective of the United States’ current National Defense Strategy.”