Aviation Week quotes Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow for Defense James Hasik on the Defense Department acquisitions process and how the Defense Department can more quickly begin the acquisition process:
Second, Defense Department’s concepts of time need to be reset. The mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle program is usually highlighted as an example of how fast the Pentagon can move in the face of urgent operational needs. However, that is arguably a poor example. Jim Hasik at the Atlantic Council has observed that MRAP acquisition proceeded at a very tepid pace in 2001-05 before the problem of improvised explosive devices (IED) became strategically serious enough that senior Defense Department leadership spurred faster acquisition. There have to be other instances in which the Defense Department more quickly recognized it had a new need and then worked with industry to fulfill it. A customer that can articulate what it needs in weeks or months and get an acquisition rolling is going to be preferable to one that takes years to do so.