Why America Needs Dynamic Defense Reform
It is Time to Fix the Broken System
David Ulevitch, Katherine Boyle, and Matt Cronin
The system is failing us. The Pentagon has spent trillions to defend America and deter our adversaries. Yet our fleet is shrinking, weapon systems are delivered late and over budget, and warfighters lack the tools to win the fight of the future.
Even worse, in a conflict with a peer power, some key munitions would run out in a week.
How did the world’s most powerful military, backed by the most innovative economy, reach this point?
The answer will shock Americans. Years ago, the Pentagon abandoned market principles for Soviet-style central planning for its acquisition system. It replaced bottom-up innovation for top-down five-year plans, non-commercial buying practices, and over 5,000 pages of regulations.
This decision had dramatic consequences.
It removed the profit motive for defense companies, killing incentives for innovation and efficiency.
It rewarded bureaucrats, shunning builders and inventors.
It made working with the Pentagon so difficult that the Defense Industrial Base has withered to a shell of its former self.
If the U.S. military is Superman, the Pentagon’s acquisition system is its kryptonite.
The world is on fire because, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Caine stated, this failed system emboldens our adversaries. This month, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea stood united at Beijing’s military parade. Each has vowed to dismantle the U.S.-led order – the system behind one of the greatest periods of peace and prosperity in history – and replace it with war and tyranny.
China – whose manufacturing base now outproduces ours by orders of magnitude – is preparing to invade Taiwan as early as 2027, an act that could spark a global war.
Production is deterrence. The only path to rapidly scale defense production capability is to reintroduce market principles, opening defense contracts to any U.S. company able to compete and win on merit. To do that, as HASC Ranking Member Adam Smith put it, we must “blow[] up the system, instead of tweaking it.”
That’s why we’re launching the Dynamic Tech Defense Reform Initiative to restore innovation, speed, and accountability to defense acquisition. We’ve united thought leaders from venture capital, startups, Congress, the military, think tanks, and industry to champion bold reforms in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. These reforms will end the Pentagon’s failed, Soviet-style system and realign it with American policies that we know work from historical and current evidence. The key reforms are as follows:
- Commercial First: As NASA proved, requiring commercial solutions cuts costs, boosts efficiency, and drives innovation.
- Portfolio Acquisition: Let the Pentagon buy what works, not what a bureaucrat chose years or decades ago.
- Past Performance Requirements: Reward merit, not incumbency.
- Expanded Definition of Non-Traditional Defense Contractors: Slash red tape for start-ups trying to serve their nation.
- Procurement Workforce Reform: Align incentives to fix a risk-averse culture.
These reforms would return us to an acquisition system that helped win WWII and seeded Cold War-era tech dominance. They would unlock innovation, expand opportunities for thousands of U.S. businesses, and rapidly deliver the best products to our warfighters.
Perhaps most important of all, they will help usher in an industrial renaissance for the American people. A revitalized defense industrial base means new factories, better jobs, and durable middle-class careers anchored in innovation and production. These reforms can reignite American manufacturing in towns hollowed out by decades of offshoring and neglect.
We believe in the limitless potential of the American people – and that free markets always outperform central planning. These reforms will empower a new generation of innovators to deliver American Dynamism and secure peace through strength.
It’s time to build a new defense acquisition system.
Let’s build it for America.
Learn More About The Dynamic Tech Defense Reform Initiative
Read Now
-
David Ulevitch is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm’s American Dynamism practice and invests in enterprise and SaaS software.
-
Katherine Boyle is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and cofounder of the firm’s American Dynamism practice.
- Follow
- X
-
Matt Cronin is the senior national security advisor at Andreessen Horowitz.