DoD advisory board wants Pentagon to reorganize its acquisition shop

The Defense Innovation Board, an advisory group set up to bring Silicon Valley best practices into the military, is calling to reverse the congressionally mandated decision to reorganize the Pentagon’s acquisition shop.

The 2017 defense policy bill mandated the Pentagon to split the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics office into the offices of the acquisition and sustainment (A&S) and research and engineering (R&E).

The advisory board recommended that the Pentagon combine the offices again but instead of operating under the AT&L name, it would be called the office of the under secretary of defense for international integration and cooperation.

The reason the Pentagon needs to reorganize its acquisition shop yet again is because the department’s efforts to work with allies, industry partners and federal agencies are “too fragmented.”

“We’ve talked to a lot of different organizations to get this sense of how things are working today,”  DIB member Charles Phillips said during the meeting Wednesday. “The number one issue we found is that there’s no pathway for working with the DoD. If you’re coming from another country, no one knows how it works. There’s a lot of different certifications and requirements.”

The board recommends designating the undersecretary of defense for international industrial cooperation as the primary contact within the DoD for all issues related to international defense industrial cooperation.

“The USD(IIC) would address the common complaint among allies and partners that the DoD and federal interagency lack the necessary capacity, transparency and harmonization for effective international industrial base cooperation,” the DIB members’ recently released study says.

As for the proposed structure and responsibilities, there would be two assistant secretaries of defense for combined requirements development and international integration and interoperability. The ASD(CRD) would work with allies and partners during the initial stages of requirements development. Meanwhile, the ASD(II&I) would manage classification guidelines for allies and partners, ensure that technical standards and policies are consistent and that communications protocols and networks work together seamlessly across partner nations.

The office would work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy and Comptroller to align international defense industrial cooperation goals with the Defense Secretary’s force defense priorities. The office would also take over the international outreach and policy responsibilities currently held by OSD R&E.

“We make it hard to work well with the DoD. The compliance standards, things called [Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification] and [International Traffic in Arms Regulations], export controls — it sometimes takes years to get approval even for U.S. companies. And we automatically classify information — no foreign dissemination without any analysis beyond that,” Phillips said.

Speaking at the board meeting, Navy Capt. Colin Kane, who serves in the Pentagon’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, said they are not plugged into the research and engineering directorate within OSD well enough to be able to field urgent needs related to uncrewed systems.

“Since we separated OSD A&S from R&E, we aren’t seeing the ability to or effective means of communication to move in that effort. Combining those two organizations, there would be benefit and, I think, unity of effort that moves us in a direction that helps us to make those things more effective,” Kane said.

While the board members agreed that the new arrangement would address supply chain vulnerabilities and production limitations, the DIB is an advisory committee designed to provide independent advice to the Defense Secretary. The Pentagon would need to take it up with Congress in case it decides to pursue this reorganization.

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