The Navy’s leader said Friday that he’s on the same page as a top lawmaker on the Hill as Congress prepares to further improve upon the Pentagon’s sluggish acquisition process.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson emphasized the need to speed up how quickly the military can get new technology in the hands of troops, especially as the rate at which technology is developed gets faster. This is a priority for leaders on Capitol Hill as well, including Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
“Chairman Thornberry is one of the most thoughtful people in town in that regard, so it’s been terrific to have conversations with him because I think we’re very like-minded in terms of addressing the acquisition system,” Richardson told reporters after an event at the American Enterprise Institute.
Richardson said services, lawmakers and analysts all agree that something in the military’s acquisition system needs to change.
The pace of new technology is one of the biggest factors driving this change, he said. When it takes only months for a newer model to emerge, but a lengthy amount of time to procure something, new technology is already outdated when it heads to the fleet.
“It’s months,” Richardson said of the rate of technological advancement. “Some of this, we can’t even get the paperwork together in that amount of time, never mind build it. So we have to fix it, or we’re just going to fall behind certainly our potential but even worse our competitors.”
Thornberry and his counterpart in the Senate, John McCain, R-Ariz., have both said that improving the process by which the Pentagon buy its weapons and platforms is a priority.
“The first step in dealing with a sluggish bureaucracy is simplification, but I’ve got to tell you, we have a long way to go,” Thornberry said last month at the National Press Club.
Thornberry said he plans to introduce a bill soon to give industry and the services time to submit feedback before final changes are rolled into the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.
Any changes made in next year’s bill will build upon changes made in the fiscal 2016 defense policy bill that gives the service chiefs a greater role in the acquisition process and, as a result, more accountability.
“I welcome getting more involved in acquisition programs,” Richardson said of the previous changes. “A combination of the NDAA and Navy policy allows me to exercise ownership much more over Navy acquisition.”
He also talked about creating a “speed lane” to fast track capabilities that are needed quickly.
The acquisition reforms are part of a broader effort on the Hill to reform Goldwater-Nichols, the decades-old framework that governs how the top of the military runs and the organizational structure of advisers around the world.
Asked about his stance on Goldwater-Nichols reform, Richardson on Friday said he would prefer to focus only on potential changes to the acquisition system.
