{"id":20112,"date":"2021-02-25T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/02\/25\/pentagons-dated-budget-process-too-slow-to-beat-china-new-report-says\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:53:16","slug":"pentagons-dated-budget-process-too-slow-to-beat-china-new-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/congress\/2021\/02\/25\/pentagons-dated-budget-process-too-slow-to-beat-china-new-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon\u2019s dated budget process too slow to beat China, new report says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 A new report argues for a sweeping overhaul of the Pentagon\u2019s 60-year-old defense budgeting and appropriations process, so it can match the fast-moving commercial sector and outpace China\u2019s technological development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper<\/a>, set for release Thursday, argues that numerous acquisition policy reforms over the years have failed to get the best results because the Planning, Programming, Budget and Execution, or PPBE, process has eluded change. The authors, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Bill Greenwalt<\/a> and the Hudson Institute\u2019s Dan Patt, recommend the U.S. consider more agile defense budgeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpecifically, the U.S. needs the ability to launch and terminate new development efforts more quickly, to pivot the direction of ongoing investments, and combine the outputs of multiple efforts at various levels of maturity in such a way as to force competitors to respond to U.S. initiative,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper, obtained by Defense News, comes as policymakers worry the Pentagon isn\u2019t investing to develop the advanced technologies that are considered crucial to future warfare. The report is timely, as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., said Tuesday at a hearing on emerging technologies<\/a> that PPBE process is \u201cone of those relics of days gone by,\u201d and asked how it could be changed to provide better \u201corganizational responsiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the panel that Congress and the Defense Department need to collaborate on steps beyond acquisition reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe DoD\u2019s problem is not innovation, but innovation adoption,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s outdated, industrial-age budgeting process creates a valley of death for new technology, allowing basic research funding and also procurement of weapons systems, but preventing the flexible investment needed in prototypes, concepts, and experimentation of new concepts and technologies like AI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schmidt lamented that the budgeting process requires American defense planners to lock-in programmatic decisions more than two years in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\t