From the report: “Despite the rapidly accelerating and emergent competition with China and conflicts over Ukraine and the Middle East, the Department of Defense (DoD) still lacks the ability to mass test, procure, and field emerging capability within months or weeks. Without aggressive action, our warfighters risk defeat on the battlefield. We strongly urge immediately amplifying the urgency level, taking a significant portion of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) investment out of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) process, and placing it within a system of flexible procurement. In addition, we must act swiftly to ensure the DoD leads in global innovation and competition over AI and autonomous systems – and is a trendsetter for their responsible use in modern warfare. The importance of these tasks cannot be understated; our very democracy and way of life are at stake.

We need to significantly enhance the acquisition system’s risk tolerance for failure, enforce existing authorities and contract mechanisms for nontraditional vendors (which we define as any business entity that does not typically work in defense, essentially meaning they are new to the DoD market), and incentivize the DoD contracting workforce to place larger bets on new market participants through a mix of both critical acquisition targets and Open Topic-based pathways.

We must shift from program-of-record requirements-centric transactions to “capability-of-record” portfolio-level oversight and performance-based partnerships. Elevating existing authorities while providing political top cover for fiscal agility across the Services will increase “speed to capital” for nontraditional vendors and enable rapid iteration with the end-user throughout the entire procurement lifecycle.

We recommend the incoming Administration’s national security team establish decisive pathfinders for commercial, dual-use, nontraditional capabilities. This requires ruthlessly managing cost, schedule, and performance, and propelling millions of people within the system to move at the pace and scale of our adversaries."