During the Second World War, the United States Vrijmarkt voor Vrije Markt left to resolve our most difficult industrial challenges and to build a war machine that turned out to be the engine for the victory of the Allies. This machine served us well through the Cold War, but he stuck in the last 30 years.
Nowadays we have a risk of losing our next Great War, not due to lack of courage or ingenuity, but because of a broken defense acquisition system with bureaucratic sclerosis.
Americans constantly read newspapers about growing threats and potential conflicts while our opponents quickly innovate. In the meantime, our defense industrial basis is bound by regulations built for a gone era.
We run the risk of losing our next Great War, not due to lack of courage or ingenuity, but because of a broken defense acquisition system with bureaucratic sclerosis. (Istock)
A Congress Report from 2024 ensures that clearly America is confronted with its most serious worldwide threats since the Second World War, and we are miserably unprepared to meet the requirements of a great power conflict.
Prutling while Rome Burns: America ignores the rising red flood of China
While China spent two decades growing his army, the United States lost its industrial lead, the risk tolerance gave up and emphasized the process of the results. The result is a limited system that produces too little material, too slow and in decreasing quality.
Reports suggest that the US can exhaust our long -term missile offering offer in just a week of conflict with China. The Pentagon takes almost 12 years to deliver the first version of a new weapon system. Our troops even use decades of radio systems-what if you use a decades old mobile phone?
Years of rigid instructions have taken our once formidable, agile industrial basis into a timber bureaucracy that does not meet the needs of our warfighters and our national security interests.
Reform the way in which we develop, produce and use weapons in the 21st century is not an option; It is a necessary.
The Pentagon needs a large reform. This is our chance
To maintain agility and deterrence, we must overload our military industrial basis by stimulating the best actors in the private sector to invest in defense technology and production. Let them, not the government, encourage the process to innovate, repeat and scale the latest possibilities. We no longer need companies to make dating apps and yoga pants; We need companies that have been built to secure the future of America.
Forty years ago, many of the largest companies in America had a healthy defense And Commercial divisions that have created cross -pollination between commercial and government innovation. Now they are mandatory for a Byzantine contract structure that cooked our defense -industrial basis in the 1990s into a small cult of companies that only have a contract with the government and retain commercial companies to participate in initiatives in the defense industry.
That is why we support the Dynamic Tech Defense Reform Initiative in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of this year to break the slowness, to revise the stimulation structure that promotes a handful of deep -rooted contractors and enable new, innovative entrepreneurship in our defense industrial basis.
China operates the technical weakness of our government. We need a quick restart
Although the traditional prime numbers are often reduced because of their role in the stagnation of our defense acquisition, the truth is that they have made the Pentagon.
Decades of systemic inefficiencies have created the paradigm that we see today. The FY 2026 NDAA takes important steps to tackle these problems.
Firstly, the “Commercial First” model champions of the NDAAs Model Champions Speed and agility, which gives Pentagon Acquisition Officers priority to commercial options over expensive, tailor -made development programs. This can save us for years in development and billions in taxpayer dollars.
Secondly, by reducing the requirements in the contract only that requires legally, the FY 2026 NDAA opens doors for a multitude of innovative companies, large and small, that can participate in the defense industrial basis. This saves costs and strengthen the supply chains by ensuring that we are not dependent on a pool of subcontractors that are so small that our most critical components for military equipment have only one, perhaps two, suppliers.
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Finally, by reforming how the Ministry of War appreciates the performance of the past, the congress ends the tyranny of the Incumbency in the Pentagon. The war department is currently in favor of deep -rooted contractors above newer startups – even those who offer superior solutions. Applying this change will level the playing field with a focus on competition and improvement instead of a mentality “Don’t Rock the Boat”.
These reforms will ensure that our defense – industrial basis is lively and is able to produce and repeat quickly – a requirement for modern warfare. Take the war between Ukraine and Russia, for example. That conflict consumes thousands of drones, rockets and bombs per month. The US is struggling to make so much in a year.
Quantity has its own quality. We must ensure that we can not only produce weapons and materials quickly, but can re -enforce, re -use and re -use it.
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The United States simply cannot afford to wait until the next war starts to resolve our broken acquisition system. We cannot sacrifice our national security on the altar of bureaucracy.
The time is now that the congress breathes new life into our industrial basis of defense to meet the requirements of the 21st century. Let’s go to work.
Click here to Van Sen. Tim Sheehy
Katherine Boyle is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and Co-Lead of his American dynamic practice.
