They have championed, for example, the Third Offset strategy, the Better Buying Power program and the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUX) initiative, the latter of which in the hidebound Defense Department amounts to a radical concept \u2014 it’s aimed at getting outside the Pentagon bubble to forge relationships in Silicon Valley and other hotbeds of innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are not individuals who have allowed themselves to be held back by deeply entrenched Pentagon careerists who resist change and cherish byzantine processes. They are taking risks, experimenting and moving as fast as possible to gwt US forces and allies the weapons, systems and platforms they need in the interest of national and global security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, they labor in a deeply flawed system. Just last week Carter conceded that he has had to take the DIUX initiative outside of the current AT&L process precisely because it can be overly cumbersome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McCain’s proposal, though, may end up more rollback than solution. It echoes times from before the 1986 adoption of Goldwater-Nichols Act provisions that included, among other things, centralized acquisition authority at the OSD level, at the expense of the individual service chiefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. John McCain also included in his version of the defense policy bill a provision to eliminate the office overseeing F-35 joint strike fighter program.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain has been a leading advocate in restoring some of those authorities to the service chiefs, perhaps exemplified in another of his surprise moves last week, when he also included in his version of the defense policy bill a provision to eliminate the office overseeing the most fully joint program in Pentagon history, the F-35 joint strike fighter. He seeks to\u00a0turn over those responsibilities to the departments of the Navy and the Air Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blowing up the F-35 joint program office and the position of undersecretary for AT&L risks a trend of returning to the bad old days of bitter service rivalries that necessitated Goldwater-Nichols as a means to force the services to work in the nation’s best interests rather than those of their individual services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Few would argue that reforms in the acquisition system are desperately needed. Whether McCain’s proposals are the right track certainly deserve consideration \u2014 and serious scrutiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sen. John McCain does not like the way the Pentagon does business and he\u2019s pushing hard for changes. Big changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":68,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[66,33,68,17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2414],"class_list":["post-40297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-home","category-intercepts","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"OTBCZWP6TVAD7FNYH2U6OE4WAE","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/intercepts\/2016\/05\/14\/mccain-s-plan-for-dod-acquisition-reform-or-return-to-old-ways\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/635987574843905590-gettyimages-514485366jpg_4a4dec.jpg\")