The Pentagon has eliminated 2,700 acquisition rules in an effort to roll back bureaucratic regulations at the Department of War.
Michael Duffey, the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, announced the acquisition regulation rule cuts during his keynote address before the Apex Defense conference on Tuesday, according to National Defense Magazine.
“We have a generational opportunity and a moral obligation to dismantle the slow, risk-averse bureaucracy of the past and build an acquisition system that delivers decisive capabilities at the speed of relevance,” Duffey said, according to the report.
Duffey said the rollback came as part of War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition reforms announced in November 2025. Hegseth unveiled several memos as part of the reform, aimed at redefining “how the Department develops requirements, manages programs, and engages industry to ensure America’s warfighters receive critical capabilities at the speed of relevance.”
“We are getting the bureaucracy out of the way in order to put the WARFIGHTER FIRST,” the War Department wrote on X on Wednesday, linking to the report of the regulations purge.
The cuts rolled back Federal Acquisition Regulation and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement regulations, according to the report. Duffey called the rollbacks “the most ambitious revamping of the FAR and DFARS in recent memory.”
“These eliminated mandates represent the death by a thousand cuts of excess regulatory requirements on both our government workforce and industry, removing the burdens of doing business with the Pentagon to invite new business and maximize innovation and competition,” Duffey said.
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The cuts come as the Trump administration has focused on eliminating wasteful bureaucracy and cutting inefficiencies throughout 2025. The Department of Government Efficiency focused much of its efforts throughout the first several months of President Donald Trump’s second term on cutting what it deemed wasteful government contracts.
The Pentagon did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
