This review includes the feasibility and advisability of: (1) estab. a process in which the commanders of combatant commands provide input on the capabilities needed to accomplish their missions over 15 years or more; (2) estab. a materiel solutions process for addressing identified gaps in critical warfighting capabilities; (3) revising the acquisition process by estab. shorter, more frequent acquisition program milestones; (4) requiring the milestone decision authority to specify the period of time that will be required to deliver an initial operational capability; (5) estab. a new office to provide independent cost and performance est.; (6) requiring certifications of program status; and (7) modifying the role played by the Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces. Illus.

Pentagon spending has been the target of decades of criticism and reform efforts. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons programs that are later abandoned. State-of-the-art data centers are underutilized and overstaffed. New business systems are built at great expense but fail to meet the needs of their users. Every Secretary of Defense for the last five Administrations has made it a priority to address perceived bloat and inefficiency by making management reform a major priority. The congressional defense committees have been just as active, enacting hundreds of legislative provisions. Yet few of these initiatives produce significant results, and the Pentagon appears to go on, as wasteful as ever. In this book, Peter Levine addresses why, despite a long history of attempted reform, the Pentagon continues to struggle to reduce waste and inefficiency. The heart of Defense Management Reform is three case studies covering civilian personnel, acquisitions, and financial management. Narrated with the insight of an insider, the result is a clear understanding of what went wrong in the past and a set of concrete guidelines to plot a better future.