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United States Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has called for a more streamlined and cost-competitive defence acquisitions process, during a recent speech to defence industry.
The US Army’s most senior civilian official reportedly made the comments in an opening ceremony address at the recent Association of the US Army’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition held last week.
“We want fast and efficient. We want to get soldiers the tools they need now, not a decade in the future,” he said to local media at the event.
“We will break down barriers until we measure acquisitions not in years and billions (dollars), but in months and thousands (of dollars).
“The traditional 12 to 18-month contracting cycle is just no longer feasible. Technology advancement moves too fast for multi-year acquisitions.”
Driscoll also made mention of the current US Army “right to repair” debate involving the ability for service personnel to leverage 3D printed parts to repair their own equipment, provided by industry.
“Private industry can help surge production if demand surpasses what the Army can produce itself. For certain parts, soldiers will be able to download the schematics, manufacture it and install it all in the field,” he said.
“This is about more than money. This is an issue that is undermining our national security. It is imperative that we have a right to repair, and we need modular open architecture systems where repairs are as easy as printing a part or buying one off the shelf.”
Driscoll also elaborated on the recently announced FUZE effort to identify, fund and develop products through promising start-up companies, who have had no experience with defence.
“Our goal with FUZE is to contract with start-ups that have never, ever worked with the United States Army before in just 60 to 70 days,” he said.
“For companies we have worked with that have prototype-level entries, we want to contract in 10 and start soldier iterations in 30 to 45 days.
“We train like we fight … We wouldn’t take 10 to 12 months to sign a contract while in a fight. So, we will train our system to move fast. And soon, Ukraine won’t be the only Silicon Valley of warfare. FUZE finds and grows capabilities and then feeds them into our broader acquisition system.”
