Acquisition
Defense Dept. photo
VIEWPOINT: Munitions Industry Needs New Acquisition Strategy
Jay Brannam, National Defense
The U.S. munitions industrial base currently suffers from a "contracting problem" rather than a funding shortage, as acquisition strategies prioritize short-term flexibility over long-term industrial health. To ensure readiness for future conflicts, experts propose shifting to multi-year, capacity-based contracts that treat production lines as a strategic asset.
- Flawed Acquisition Models: Current indefinite delivery contracts maximize government flexibility but systematically transfer demand and readiness risk to private industry, which discourages investment and hollows out the supply chain.
- Multi-Year Stability: A proposed solution involves multi-year contracts that provide the long-term horizon necessary for suppliers to justify hiring, tooling investment, and workforce development.
- Triple-CLIN Architecture: This new framework would explicitly fund steady-state production, "warm-base" readiness to keep tooling and workers prepared, and pre-negotiated surge execution for rapid volume increases during crises.
- Volatile Input Protection: Including economic price adjustment mechanisms for metals and chemicals is critical for allowing small and medium-sized businesses to commit to sustained production without facing ruinous inflation risks.
Association Introduces New Munitions Database
Brennan Greeves & Jennifer Stewart, National
The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) has launched the Munitions Dashboard, a publicly available platform that tracks 25 years of U.S. military budget data. Covering the last quarter-century, the tool allows analysts to see how decades of past government decisions have shaped current inventory levels and where production capacity needs to ramp up. The association hopes that making this data public will encourage more predictable acquisition strategies, such as multi-year procurement agreements and minimum yearly order quantities.
Related: NDIA Munitions Dashboard
Innovation
Spc. Daniel Novak, a signal operations support specialist conducts a pre-mission inspection of a Stryker combat vehicle during Ivy Mass at Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, Colorado, May 17, 2026. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Jacob Cruz)
Operation Jailbreak: the Army’s massive push to hack its own systems and make them talk to each other
Drew F. Lawrence, DefenseScoop
The U.S. Army has launched Operation Jailbreak, a massive collaborative "hackathon" designed to dismantle technical barriers between isolated military systems and achieve seamless battlefield connectivity.
- Interoperability Breakthrough: Operation Jailbreak brings together engineers from over 50 defense companies to "hack" the Army’s own equipment, ensuring that decades-old tanks and missile systems can finally exchange data with modern drones and sensors.
- Mandatory Transparency: To participate, companies must sign a "Right to Integrate" (R2I) agreement, requiring them to expose their software interfaces and documentation to the Army and their competitors—a radical departure from traditional industry insularity.
- Immediate Battlefield Impact: Initial "sprints" have already yielded results, with newly integrated counter-drone and air defense systems currently deployed to the Middle East to protect service members from evolving aerial threats.
- IP Protection Balance: While vendors must standardize how systems communicate at the interface layer, the Army has clarified that companies are not required to expose internal intellectual property or proprietary code.
Related: Army’s data-merging cell needs a few years to untangle the mess
Defense & Strategy
US Navy photo
The Golden Fleet on Paper: Ambition Meets Strategic Contradiction
Dr. Emma Salisbury, Foreign Policy Research Institute
The US Navy’s new shipbuilding plan presents an ambitious vision for a "Golden Fleet" but suffers from a core strategic tension between modern distributed warfare and traditional, high-cost capital ships. While it introduces vital bureaucratic reforms, its pursuit of a multi-billion-dollar battleship program threatens to repeat the same acquisition failures it candidly diagnoses.
Trump memo pushes national-security agencies to move faster on AI
David DiMolfetta, Defense One
President Trump recently signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum mandating that U.S. military and intelligence agencies accelerate their adoption of frontier artificial intelligence to maintain a competitive edge over rivals like China. The memo mandates that federal agencies establish proactive partnerships with private-sector tech firms to ensure that the most advanced frontier models are deployed quickly for national security purposes.
- Theft Prevention: Senior officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, are tasked with developing security protocols to protect U.S.-developed models from foreign adversaries who utilize techniques like "model distillation" to mimic and copy high-performing systems.
- Infrastructure Security: Beyond software, the directive focuses on securing the critical infrastructure supporting AI, such as the data centers that house the immense computing power required to run large-scale models.
Related: Trump signs AI executive order after postponement last month
Related: Atlantic Council Commission on AI lays a roadmap for US leadership in the age of AI
Industry
Navy Seaman Charles Joseph transports a missile on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 15, 2018, during a regularly scheduled deployment. (Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean M. Castellano)
US munitions depleted by Iran war will take years to restore, analysis finds
Tanya Noury, Navy Times
A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) finds that it will take at least three years to rebuild stocks of critical missiles and interceptors depleted during the bombing campaign against Iran. Although the White House maintains that current inventories are sufficient for strategic goals, analysts warn that the delay in replenishing these exquisite systems creates vulnerability in other theaters.
- Expenditure Scale: During the 38-day Operation Epic Fury, U.S. Central Command struck over 12,000 targets, expending more than 1,000 Tomahawks—a figure that dwarfs the average annual procurement rate of just 86 missiles.
- Time vs. Money: Experts argue the current obstacle is the physical time required to build complex systems rather than a lack of funding, noting that expanding production capacity for such sophisticated technology is inherently a slow process.
- Infrastructure Investment: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized that the replenishment process is already underway, with manufacturers investing in new production lines and plants to deliver weapons faster than ever before.
Full Report: Rebuilding U.S. Missile Inventory: A Multiyear Project
Government Reports
A Phalanx Close-In Weapon System fires from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter James (WMSL 754) during a gun exercise in the South Atlantic Ocean, May 18, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Logan Kaczmarek)
Weapon Systems Acquisition: Beyond Business as Usual—Using Leading Practices to Curb Waste and Save Billions
Government Accountability Office
Aerial Refueling Tankers: Air Force Needs More Focused Metrics and a Risk-Based Mitigation Plan to Improve Sustainment
Government Accountability Office
Artificial Intelligence: A Framework to Assess U.S. Competitiveness and Inform Policy Options
Government Accountability Office
Spectrum Management: DOD and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Should Improve External Collaboration
Government Accountability Office
DOD Financial Management: Questions Associated with New Financial Audit Approach
Government Accountability Office
F-35 Sustainment: Actions Needed to Ensure Updated Strategy Improves Persistent Readiness Challenges
Government Accountability Office
Research
A contractor briefs the layout of underground power lines supporting numerous facilities at Camp Simba, Kenya, to a group of personnel from the 475th Expeditionary Air Base Squadron base civil engineer team. (U.S. Army courtesy photo)
Operationalizing Transaction Cost Economics for Contract Governance: Evidence from Procurement Data
Timothy Landucci & Frank W. Ciarallo, SSRN
Drawing on Transaction Cost Economics (TCE), this study examines how observable procurement characteristics can inform contract governance choice. Using a dataset of over 2,500 U.S. federal service contracts, we develop and test empirical models that relate contract attributes—such as competition structure, subcontracting, performance specifications, and contract value—to governance form (fixed price versus cost plus). Our results provide large-sample evidence that commonly available procurement data serve as meaningful proxies for transaction cost dimensions. In particular, the findings suggest that asset specificity moderates the influence of complexity on governance selection, highlighting conditional effects that extend prior empirical applications of TCE. Building on these insights, we develop predictive models that use only information available at the time of contract design. These models improve contract-type classification accuracy by approximately 14 percent relative to an informed baseline, demonstrating practical value for procurement decision-making.
Causes of Unreliable Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) Baselines
Alfred Gordon Hutchins Jr., Liberty University
This research employs an explanatory mixed-methods design to investigate why DAS processes that develop knowledge to support Milestone decisions do not develop adequate information to support reliable program baselines (knowledge timing), and how unnecessary requirements introduced by the Military Industrial Congression Complex (MICC) increase MDAP complexity and program risk (external influences). Statistical and logistic regression analyses of data from ten years of Selected Acquisition Reports quantify MDAP performance and model the probability of a baseline breach (a cost or schedule increase greater than 10 percent) based on knowledge sufficiency at Milestone B, program complexity, decision timing, and decision-maker risk tolerance. Analysis of transcripts of semi-structured interviews with acquisition executives validates the results of the statistical and regression analyses, adds depth and breadth to the causes of unreliable APBs, and provides the insights to create a modified theory of defense acquisition that includes a MICC theoretical framework.
An Empirical Evaluation of Agile versus Waterfall Performance Indicators in U.S. Army Programs
Eren Kahyaoglu, Samuel Da Silva, et al, Rutgers University
Modern U.S. Army operations treat software as a strategic asset, necessitating a fundamental shift from sequential development to modern iterative methodologies. Despite a shift from sequential software development to modern iterative methodologies , a critical visibility gap remains because acquisition leadership often utilizes legacy Waterfall metrics that fail to provide real-time insight into the health of Agile programs. This study addresses that discrepancy by applying machine learning models to the NASA JM1 dataset to evaluate the effectiveness of indicators aligned with each development paradigm for defect detection. Empirical analysis using five-fold cross-validation shows that the Agile-aligned model consistently identified more software vulnerabilities, achieving a mean recall of 59.45% compared to 54.75% for the traditional Waterfall proxy. Statistical validation confirms these performance gains are highly significant, with the F1-score achieving an exceptionally low p-value of 0.000159. These findings demonstrate that standardizing measurement around outcome-based metrics directly supports the shift-left principles of the DevSecSafOps model and DoDI 5000.87 requirements.
Events
Eurosatory
15-19 June 2026
Paris, France
Congressional M&S Leadership Summit 2026
National Training and Simulation Association
16 June 2026
Orlando, FL
2026 Army Summit
Potomac Officers Club
18 June 2026
Reston, VA
10th Annual Federal Acquisition Conference
Professional Services Council
25 June 2026
Arlington, VA or Virtual
Converge @ NPS
Naval Postgraduate School Foundation
22-24 July 2026
Monterey, CA
2026 Air and Space Summit
Potomac Officers Club
30 July 2026
McLean, VA
One more thing...
Tall ships from various nations sit docked at the port of New Orleans during Sail 250 New Orleans, May 30, 2026. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Nalanie Davila)
Tall Ships Are Coming: Sail250 Brings the World's Great Fleet from New Orleans to Boston
BoatTest
Sail250 celebrates the 250th anniversary of the United States this summer with the largest gathering of tall ships in American history. This global maritime festival features a traveling flotilla of square-riggers and naval escorts visiting five major ports to provide the public with free access to historic vessels.
- Coastal Journey: The tour begins in New Orleans in late May, traveling through the Chesapeake to Norfolk and Baltimore.
- Independence Day Centerpiece: Over 50 Class A and Class B tall ships from 30 nations will sail into New York Harbor from July 4–8, 2026, joining allied warships, the Queen Mary 2, and thousands of private pleasure boats in a massive review spanning from the Verrazzano to the George Washington Bridge.
- Grand Finale: The tour concludes July 11-16 in Boston, where the USS Constitution —- the world's oldest commissioned warship still afloat —- will officially welcome the international fleet.
- The Flagship: The USCG Barque Eagle, known as "America’s Tall Ship," will serve as the host fleet's flagship, anchoring all five ports throughout the summer voyage.
- Open Decks: The event is highly accessible, offering the public free admission to ship tours, waterfront festivals, and fireworks displays without the need for tickets.
- International Marquee: Noteworthy participants include Chile's 371-foot "La Dama Blanca" (Esmeralda), the singing and dancing cadets of Colombia’s ARC Gloria, and Germany’s Gorch Fock.
- Spectator Fleet: Owners of private pleasure boats are encouraged to join the celebration on the water, provided they follow Coast Guard security zones and maintain a respectful distance from the large sailing vessels.
|
