At War on the Rocks, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. (ret.) CQ Brown, Jr. highlights the urgent need to accelerate US military modernization and capability delivery. Drawing on his experiences from Operation Inherent Resolve, he emphasizes that bureaucratic delays, rigid budgeting, and inconsistent procurement slow the Pentagon’s ability to equip warfighters. He advocates for reforms, including flexible budget portfolios, multi-year procurement, streamlined acquisition processes, and improved coordination among the Department of Defense, Congress, and industry. Success, he argues, requires treating all three as a single, collaborative defense industrial enterprise capable of delivering capabilities at the speed and scale modern warfare demands. The overarching message is clear: the US must act decisively and collectively to modernize, or risk strategic disadvantage. He writes:
In November 2015, I was five months into commanding the air campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Operation Inherent Resolve was in full swing. Coalition airpower was blocking enemy reinforcements, severing supply lines, choking off illicit oil revenue, and enabling friendly forces to retake key ground. We were taking it to the enemy: The week before Thanksgiving 2015, U.S. Central Command registered the highest seven-day total weapons expenditure since the beginning of the campaign.
The group would be defeated, but I could foresee a major strategic challenge: The United States, its allies, and partners did not have deep inventories of precision weapons on the shelf. The coalition of the willing was short on firepower. Something had to change quickly. […]
Warfighting was at the center of my military career. From the Middle East to Europe to the Indo-Pacific, I saw how transformation determines whether America can deter wars and, if necessary, win them. But back in the Pentagon, I also saw how slowly that transformation can unfold at the highest level, limiting the flow of capabilities to warfighters. That tension between the pace of battle and the pace of bureaucracy shaped my Accelerate Change or Lose approach as chief of staff of the Air Force that I continued as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In both roles, I sought to trim bureaucracy, modernize faster, and enable the development of servicemembers for the future fight. […]
Congress is acting with agency on two critical pieces of legislation that will deliver capability to the field faster. The Senate’s FoRGED Act and the House’s SPEED Act shaped elements of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Both focus on streamlining, but with different approaches. The FoRGED Act provisions included in the NDAA focused on expanding participation of non-traditional defense contractors, easing regulatory burdens, removing outdated laws and regulations, and introducing portfolio management. The SPEED Act provisions address the Pentagon’s requirement process to reduce timelines through a more agile Joint Requirements Council and by testing technologies under operationally relevant conditions. The NDAA provisions driven by the FoRGED and SPEED Acts are definitely a step in the right direction. The real measure of success will be their implementation and results for warfighters. In short, simplifying processes enables a change in culture from one of risk-averse bureaucracy to one of transparency and collaboration. […]
From my decades of service, I realize this is all easier said than done. But any steps taken to increase flexibility, consistency, and streamlining will be a plus for warfighters. This is not about recreating the “arsenal of democracy” of the 1940s. That world no longer exists. It is about forging a modern arsenal of agility, one that harnesses private-sector dynamism, transparent governance, and the clarity of a unified mission. The commissions have given us the playbook. The next step is to execute it ruthlessly and relentlessly. Risk will always accompany action, but the far greater danger lies in complacency. The time for more studies has passed. The time to build, together and at speed, is now.
Read more here.
