Flagpole to Front Lines: A Warfighter-Driven Requirements Process : RAND Corporation , June 10 , 2026
Flagpole to Front Lines: A Warfighter-Driven Requirements Process : RAND Corporation , June 10 , 2026
From the report: "The United States is facing the most complex and contested security environment in generations. The U.S. Department of War (DOW) will need to ensure that its requirements process supports national strategic priorities ranging from defending the homeland and protecting U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere to deterring aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Consistent with the 2025 National Security Strategy’s emphasis on agility, industrial strength, and technological advantage, DOW will need a more coherent system for linking strategy to execution and fielding capabilities at the speed of relevance. Evolving threats, changing operational demands, and the accelerating pace of innovation have created an imperative to build a new framework that aligns emerging technologies and capability requirements with warfighter needs and national security objectives.
In November 2025, following the completion of analysis conducted by DOW in response to Section 811 of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth directed the DOW workforce to reform the joint requirements process to accelerate the fielding of warfighting capabilities. As part of the clean-sheet analysis conducted by RAND for the Section 811 modernization effort, RAND researchers developed the Flagpole to Front Lines (F2FL) concept to provide a vehicle for DOW to realign strategic intent with operational and acquisition realities. The F2FL framework includes several principles to guide such a transformation:"
Authors - Mouton, Christopher A., Stoll, Hunter, McKernan, Megan, Worman, Stephen M.Subjects
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