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Opinion: The United States is overhauling defence procurement to deliver military technology faster, expand industry competition and harness commercial innovation, explains managing director for Hawaii for Ballard Partners, Bernice Kissinger.
The United States is moving to overhaul how it buys weapons and military technology, with the Pentagon signalling a major shift towards faster procurement, greater industry competition and a closer partnership with commercial technology firms.
At the centre of the push is Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who has outlined plans to dismantle parts of the Pentagon’s traditional acquisition bureaucracy and replace it with a streamlined system designed to deliver military capability at a pace closer to commercial innovation.
Speaking at the National War College in Washington DC recently, Secretary Hegseth described the current procurement system as “sluggish and mired in bureaucracy”, arguing that the US must dramatically accelerate the speed at which it fields new capabilities if it hopes to keep pace with strategic competitors.
From bureaucracy to speed
The proposed reform would replace elements of the Pentagon’s existing Defense Acquisition System with a new “warfighting acquisition system”, aimed at cutting years from the development and procurement timeline for major weapons programs.
Under the new model, projects that historically took three to eight years to move through the acquisition pipeline could potentially be delivered in roughly one year.
The reform reflects growing frustration within the US military that complex regulations and layered approval processes are slowing the delivery of critical capabilities to operational forces.
Secretary Hegseth said the Pentagon must ensure that acquisition moves “as strong and fast as our warfighters”, warning that bureaucratic delays risk allowing adversaries to close the technological gap.
Empowering program leaders
A central feature of the reforms is a shift in authority towards program managers and acquisition leaders.
Under the new approach, senior program officials will have greater flexibility to adjust requirements, reallocate funding and make trade-offs during development in order to keep projects on schedule.
The Pentagon also plans to reorganise its system of Program Executive Offices, replacing them with broader “portfolio acquisition executives” who will have increased authority to oversee clusters of programs and accelerate decision making.
Officials argued that fragmented accountability has historically slowed weapons programs, with no single leader able to drive rapid progress through the system.
Breaking the grip of traditional primes
The reform is also intended to reshape the relationship between the Pentagon and the defence industrial base.
For decades, major US weapons programs have been dominated by a handful of large defence contractors operating under complex cost-plus contracts. Critics argued this model reduces competition, inflates costs and slows innovation.
Secretary Hegseth had suggested the Pentagon will increasingly favour companies able to produce systems at a commercial pace and scale production quickly, potentially opening the door to smaller technology firms and non-traditional suppliers.
Industry groups have long argued that heavy regulatory requirements discourage companies from entering the defence market. One major aerospace industry association identified more than 50 procurement rules it believes deter companies from bidding for defence contracts.
Another pillar of the new strategy is a stronger emphasis on commercial-first procurement. Rather than waiting for fully customised military systems to be developed, the Pentagon intends to buy existing commercial technologies wherever possible and adapt them for military use.
The architecture of speed: OTAs and the new defence industrial base
The US Department of War (DOW) is currently undergoing its most significant acquisition pivot since the end of the Cold War. At the heart of this transformation is a move away from the rigid, multi-year cycles of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) towards a more flexible, market-responsive model.
The primary tool enabling this shift is the Other Transaction Authority (OTA), a legal mechanism that allows the Pentagon to bypass traditional bureaucratic hurdles to engage with commercial innovators at the “speed of relevance”.
The OTA as a catalyst for innovation
Unlike standard government contracts, OTAs are not governed by the FAR, meaning they are exempt from many of the burdensome accounting and reporting requirements that historically deterred Silicon Valley start-ups.
By design, OTAs require the participation of non-traditional defence contractors, ensuring that the DOW isn’t just recirculating funds among established primes, but is actively tapping into the venture-backed tech ecosystem.
This has created a fail-fast environment where prototyping and experimentation – particularly in AI, autonomous systems and cyber security – can occur in months rather than years.
Tiered rapid prototyping and production
The strategic utility of the OTA lies in its tiered approach to scaling. For small-scale research and prototype development (typically under $100 million), decision making is pushed down to senior acquisition executives to ensure maximum velocity.
However, the true “power play” of the modern OTA is the non-competitive bridge to production. If a prototype proves successful in the field, the DOW can transition the project directly into a full-scale production contract without restarting the years-long competitive bidding process.
This fast-track capability is the engine behind initiatives like Replicator, which seeks to field thousands of attritable drones on a timeline that would be impossible under traditional procurement law.
To manage this influx of rapid contracting, the DOW has increasingly turned to consortium managers. These intermediaries act as a bridge between the Pentagon and thousands of pre-vetted technology firms.
By using a consortium model, the military can issue a single solicitation to a diverse pool of innovators, further compressing the flash-to-bang time for contract awards.
This shift from a platform-centric model to an ecosystem-centric model ensures that Modular Open Systems Architecture remains at the forefront, allowing for software and hardware components to be swapped and upgraded as quickly as commercial technology evolves.
Conclusion
The modernisation of US defence procurement is no longer a peripheral goal but a strategic necessity. By leveraging rapid contracting authorities, focusing on dual-use commercial technologies and shortening delivery timelines from decades to months, the DOW is attempting to outpace global competitors.
The success of this transition depends on the permanent institutionalisation of these rapid pathways, ensuring that the agility seen in programs like Replicator becomes the standard rather than the exception.
Bernice Kissinger is a leading expert in rapid defence contracting and dual-use technology and is the managing director for Hawaii for Ballard Partners.
