The Pentagon’s Acquisition Reform Faces a Critical Test: Can It Outpace the Drone Threat?

The Department of War (DoW) has recently implemented its most ambitious acquisition reform in 60 years, introducing Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) and streamlining the Warfighting Acquisition System to prioritize speed. Yet, experts warn that these reforms risk repeating past mistakes, particularly in the face of the rapidly evolving drone threat. The core issue isn’t a lack of technology, but a critical cycle-time gap between identifying problems and deploying solutions.

The Counter-Drone Challenge: A Familiar Pattern

The current challenge posed by drones mirrors the counter-IED campaign in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2013. Both threats share key characteristics:

• Cheap, Dual-Employ Components: Both IEDs and drones are constructed from readily available commercial parts. A Shahed-pattern drone costs approximately $20,000, while First-Person View (FPV) kamikaze drones can cost just a few hundred dollars, often engaging targets with $400,000 Stingers.
• Rapid Knowledge Proliferation: Construction techniques and designs spread quickly through informal networks and open-source repositories.
• Modular Adaptation: Adversaries can quickly adapt to countermeasures with minimal cost, such as updating firmware or modifying drone components.
• Tactical Variation: The threat varies significantly depending on the operational context, requiring tailored solutions. A long-range Houthi drone differs greatly from a platoon-level FPV kamikaze drone.
• Systems Problem, Not Just a Technology Problem: Past attempts to solely address the IED threat with technology proved largely ineffective and experts suggest the same fate awaits a technology-focused approach to counter-drones.

The Innovation Targeting Cycle: A Missing Link

The Pentagon’s current response focuses heavily on the development and deployment phases of innovation, with initiatives like the Joint Counter-UAS Task Force (JIATF-401) and industry competitions. However, critical gaps exist in the front finish – detecting and defining the problem – and the back end – assessing effectiveness and distributing lessons learned.

Specifically, the following phases lack dedicated organizational ownership:

• Detect: Persistent monitoring of the evolving drone threat at the tactical edge is lacking.
• Define: Scoping specific problems faced by individual units with sufficient precision to drive useful solutions is insufficient.
• Assess: Systematic measurement of the effectiveness of fielded C-UAS systems against an adapting adversary is absent.
• Distribute: Ensuring that lessons learned by one unit reach others facing similar threats at operational speed is not happening.

The PAE Reforms: Progress, But Not Enough

The PAE restructuring is a positive step, consolidating authority and eliminating delays. However, it expands the scope of requirements writing without addressing the source of those requirements. The reforms need to be coupled with a robust system for problem curation, similar to the Army’s former Rapid Equipping Force (REF).

The REF’s success stemmed from forward-deployed teams generating requirements from direct observation of the battlefield. Soldiers could submit problems via a one-page “10-Liner,” leading to solutions delivered in as little as 72 hours. The REF was disbanded in 2021 and has not been replaced.

The Innovation Targeting Cycle: A Proposed Solution

To address these shortcomings, a comprehensive “Innovation Targeting Cycle” is needed, modeled after the F3EAD process used by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). This cycle consists of six continuous phases:

• Detect
• Define
• Develop
• Deploy
• Assess
• Distribute

Each PAE needs:

• Forward-Deployed Problem Discovery Teams: Embedded with operational units to identify and curate problems.
• Fusion Cells: To collect and analyze data from the field, industry, and labs.
• Rapid Operational Assessment: Built into the cycle to measure effectiveness and inform future iterations.
• Lateral Distribution at Operational Speed: To share lessons learned across the force.

The Bottom Line

The Department of War has reformed how it acquires, but not what it acquires, whether it works, or who needs to realize. Failing to address the cycle-time gap will likely lead to the same outcome as the counter-IED campaign: significant investment with limited success. The key is not simply building a better mousetrap, but running a faster, smarter cycle that begins with understanding the problem.

Pete Newell is the former director of the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force and CEO of BMNT. He co-created Hacking for Defense with Steve Blank and is the author of “The Innovation Targeting Cycle: Time-Sensitive Innovation Fires Inside the Continuous Innovation Cycle”.