For decades, America’s warfighters have faced an uncomfortable truth that the weapons and technology they desperately need arrive years too late, if they arrive at all. The U.S. military’s acquisition system, designed during the Cold War era, has become a labyrinth of regulatory red tape, endless review cycles, and risk-averse decision-making that prioritizes process over performance.
Consider the stark reality that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently shared: allies ordering equipment in 2014 are still waiting for delivery in 2025, with scheduled arrival dates pushed to 2032. Meanwhile, our adversaries are moving at commercial speed, iterating and deploying capabilities in months, not decades.
The crisis isn’t just about slow timelines, it’s about lives at stake. When bureaucracy delays critical munitions, advanced sensors, or next-generation platforms, American service members enter contested environments without the decisive advantages they’ve earned through their sacrifice.
The old system has forced urgent programs like mine-resistant vehicles and missile defense projects to work around official acquisition processes just to succeed.
Secretary Hegseth made it clear in his November 7 speech at the National War College: that era is over.
“The defense acquisition system as you know it is dead,” Hegseth declared before an audience of defense CEOs, military leaders, and acquisition officials. “Speed to delivery is now our organizing principle. It is the decisive factor in maintaining deterrence and warfighting advantage.”
The Solution: The Warfighting Acquisition System
Hegseth’s transformation represents the most comprehensive overhaul of Pentagon weapons buying in generations. The Department of Defense is formally retiring the Defense Acquisition System and replacing it with the Warfighting Acquisition System, a fundamental shift that treats acquisition as a warfighting function, not an administrative burden.
Key Structural Changes
Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) Replace PEOs
The traditional Program Executive Office structure is being dismantled. In its place, Portfolio Acquisition Executives will manage interconnected weapon systems with unprecedented authority to reallocate funding, make rapid decisions, and be held directly accountable for delivery performance.
This consolidation, reducing 13 Army PEOs alone, creates clearer ownership and eliminates the fragmented decision-making that has paralyzed innovation.
Commercial-First Technology Adoption
“We will be open to buying the 85% solution and iterate together over time to achieve the 100% solution,” Hegseth stated, signaling a seismic philosophical shift. The Pentagon will default to commercial off-the-shelf technology, embrace modularity, pursue multi-source procurement, and accept calculated risk to decrease operational risk on the battlefield.
Streamlined Requirements Process
The notorious Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) is being phased out. In its place: a Requirements and Resourcing Alignment Board to direct funding toward top priorities, a Mission Engineering and Integration Activity to prototype solutions rapidly, and a Joint Acceleration Reserve, dedicated funding that can quickly scale promising programs.
Wartime Production Unit
Replacing the Joint Production Acceleration Cell, this new “deal team” will negotiate contracts across vendor portfolios, create financial incentives tied to on-time delivery, and operate at commercial negotiation speeds. The message to contractors is unambiguous: meet wartime production rates or watch competitors take your place.
Foreign Military Sales Reform
Recognizing that FMS delays undermine strategic partnerships and industrial base health, Hegseth announced operational control of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and Defense Technology Security Administration will shift from the policy directorate to the acquisition and sustainment directorate. The goal: exportability baked into acquisition from day one, with clear performance metrics and bottleneck elimination.
What It Means for the Defense Industrial Base
The New Competitive Landscape
Hegseth’s reforms create both extraordinary opportunity and existential pressure for defense contractors. The message to industry was direct, almost confrontational: “Move faster and invest more, or we just might make you.”
The Pentagon is moving away from a “prime contractor-dominated system defined by limited competition, vendor lock, cost-plus contracts, stressed budgets, and frustrating protests,” toward “a dynamic vendor space that accelerates production by combining investment at a commercial pace with the uniquely American ability to scale quickly.”
Winners and Losers
Traditional primes face unprecedented competition. The emphasis on commercial technology, private capital investment, and new entrants means startups and dual-use firms have more access than ever before. As one industry observer noted, the reforms provide “more opportunity for commercial and dual-use firms to increase their business with the Pentagon than the pure-play defense companies.”
The shift from cost-plus to fixed-price contracts accelerates. Contractors must deliver on time and on budget, with delays now subject to proportional penalties. The days of treating schedule slips as inevitable are ending.
Agile, risk-tolerant companies will thrive. Organizations that have already embraced rapid prototyping, experimental learning, open architecture, and commercial business models are positioned to dominate. As L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik noted, “We’ve embraced and invested in commercial products and business models for decades.”
The Talent Imperative
This transformation doesn’t just demand new processes; it requires different people. The Pentagon is actively recruiting “Business Operators for National Defense”, former industry executives with the expertise to drive defense industrial renewal. The new Warfighting Acquisition University will prioritize cohort-based programs, experimental learning, and rapid decision-making over classroom instruction about failed processes.
For defense contractors, this means retooling talent strategies immediately. Companies need program managers who think like entrepreneurs, engineers comfortable with 85% solutions that iterate rapidly, and business development teams who understand venture capital as well as FAR clauses.
What Defense-Aero Search Group Is Seeing
As we connect companies with Game Changers and Difference Makers across the defense sector, the implications of Hegseth’s reforms are already reshaping hiring priorities:
Increased demand for commercial technology experience. Companies are seeking leaders who’ve succeeded in fast-paced commercial environments and can translate that velocity to defense programs.
Portfolio management expertise. The PAE model requires executives who can manage complex, interconnected systems and make rapid trade-off decisions across platforms.
Risk-comfortable innovators. Organizations need professionals who view calculated risk as a competitive advantage, not a career liability.
Production-focused leaders. With the emphasis on wartime production rates, companies need operations executives who can scale manufacturing rapidly without sacrificing quality.
The Bottom Line: Adapt or Fade Away
Secretary Hegseth’s reforms represent more than policy changes; they’re a fundamental reimagining of how America arms itself. The bureaucratic inertia that has characterized defense acquisition for decades is being replaced by urgency, accountability, and warfighter-first thinking.
For contractors, the choice is binary: evolve into agile, commercially-minded partners who deliver capability at speed, or watch market share evaporate as new entrants and adaptive competitors capture Pentagon investment.
The defense industrial base that emerges from this transformation will look dramatically different. It will be faster, more competitive, and more demanding, but also more aligned with the reality that America’s adversaries don’t wait for endless review cycles to field capabilities.
As the Aerospace Industries Association noted, “For this plan to work, industry and government must work closely to implement these reforms and fine-tune the details.” The companies that lean into this partnership, rather than resist it, will define the next generation of American defense capability.
The defense acquisition system, as we knew it, is indeed dead. The question for every company and professional in our industry is, are you ready to thrive in what comes next?
Defense-Aero Search Group connects leading defense and aerospace companies with the transformational talent needed to succeed in this new era of rapid acquisition. If your organization needs leaders who can navigate this evolving landscape, or if you’re a professional ready to make an impact, reach out today.Contact us at defense-aero.com to discuss how we can support your talent strategy in this pivotal moment for the defense industry.
