The Pentagon’s acquisition system, despite decades of reform efforts, is increasingly failing to deliver capabilities at the speed required by modern warfare, according to a recent analysis by acquisition leader Bonnie Evangelista. The core issue isn’t bureaucratic rules, but a deeply ingrained culture of risk aversion that prioritizes compliance and career preservation over innovation and timely delivery.
Evangelista, currently a Senior Advisor for Acquisition Policy at the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, details how successive attempts at reform – including the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, Better Buying Power, the Adaptive Acquisition Framework, and expanded use of Other Transaction Authority – have largely failed to yield lasting improvements. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report cited in her analysis shows the average time to field a major defense acquisition program has increased from eight years to over eleven.
The problem, Evangelista argues, isn’t a lack of intelligent leadership or strategic intent. It’s that the system’s incentives reward caution and adherence to process, while offering little consequence for delays. “When visible failure carries career-ending consequences and invisible delay carries almost none, rational actors adapt,” she writes. This creates a system where acquisition professionals prioritize avoiding scrutiny from the GAO, congressional hearings, or internal audits, rather than taking calculated risks to accelerate delivery.
The Adaptive Acquisition Framework, established in 2020, aimed to address this by promoting faster development cycles. Though, the GAO found that outside of software acquisition, the framework wasn’t consistently implemented, with programs often reverting to slower, linear development processes. This mirrors a pattern where new authorities and policy guidance fail to translate into meaningful behavioral change.
Evangelista draws on her own experience working on Army defensive cyber programs, where she led a team that successfully accelerated the delivery of a critical hardware and software kit by five years. The team streamlined decision-making and focused on operational needs, but the success proved unsustainable once the individuals driving the effort moved on. The system, she explains, reverted to its default settings because the underlying incentive structure remained unchanged.
This pattern of temporary breakthroughs followed by systemic regression is not unique. The Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, Kessel Run, and the Joint AI Center have all demonstrated the potential for faster, more innovative acquisition approaches. However, Evangelista argues these successes remain vulnerable without structural reinforcement. The Defense Innovation Board’s study on aligning incentives found the department rewards the status quo and fails to protect innovators.
Evangelista contends that the focus should shift from issuing more strategy documents to fundamentally redistributing risk, power, and consequence within the acquisition system. She proposes several concrete steps, including shifting resources towards rapid prototyping, rewriting performance evaluations to reward speed of delivery, and publicly protecting “pathfinders” who challenge established norms. She also suggests treating delays as decisions requiring justification, and eliminating performative reporting requirements that consume time without accelerating progress.
The analysis highlights a corrosive effect of enforced silence within the acquisition community, where practitioners are hesitant to challenge existing processes for fear of retribution. Evangelista cites a parallel to techniques used by the Office of Strategic Services during World War II to paralyze enemy bureaucracies – insisting on perfect compliance, referring decisions to committees, and elevating minor procedural concerns. She argues these tactics are now commonplace within the Pentagon, disguised as professionalism.
Evangelista concludes that true transformation requires a shift in mindset, demanding “uncommon courage” from acquisition professionals to act even before the system makes it safe. She emphasizes that no reform will come from external forces, but must be driven by individuals willing to challenge the status quo and change what the system rewards. The next steps, according to Evangelista, are not further studies, but a willingness to accept risk and prioritize outcomes over process.
