The U.S. defense acquisition system was too slow to provide for troops’ needs during the wars of the past 15 years and is especially ill suited to provide the technology needed for future combat in a rapidly changing world, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter says.

Acquisition of the mine-resistant, ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle to protect soldiers and Marines from deadly roadside bombs is commonly viewed as an acquisition success that saved lives when the hulking vehicles were sped to combat zones. But acquisition officials and lawmakers had to circumvent the traditional procurement process to make it happen, Carter pointed out Friday at Defense One’s 2016 Technology Summit in Washington, D.C.

“In the case of the MRAP, which saved lives, we had to do things outside the system in order to get the war fighter what they wanted. Well, what kind of system do you have where in order to get the war fighter what they need you’ve got to go outside the system?” Carter said. “There is an answer for that. We have a system that is basically meant to buy things over long periods of time and the best things. That’s a problem when we have ongoing operations and, by the way, it’s a problem in a rapidly changing world.”

Defense Secretary Ash Carter takes a moment to speak with Marines following a room clearing demonstration during a visit to Camp Pendleton Calif., Aug. 27, 2015. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz
Defense Secretary Ash Carter takes a moment to speak with Marines following a room clearing demonstration during a visit to Camp Pendleton Calif., Aug. 27, 2015. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz

Before becoming Secretary of Defense, Carter served as the Pentagon’s chief weapon buyer and has generally spent the better part of a decade working to develop, procure and field military equipment. Tackling problems like improvised explosive devices, traumatic brain injury and physical wounds from bomb blasts has resulted in rapid improvements in vehicle armor and protection, prosthetics and medical science, he said. Instead of exceptional examples, those technological achievements must become the norm for defense acquisitions, he said.

“The war[s] taught us some things–otherwise there is not a whole lot great to say about having a war,” he said. “We did what we had to do and people had to make great sacrifices. But it did have one little silver lining…which is we learned a lot about agility. In today’s fights and also in the fights we don’t want but that could happen, say North Korea, if something happened there, what tomorrow will I wish I had done today? You don’t want that wish list to be very long.”

The Pentagon got more than it bargained for in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, wherein both congressional defense committees launched aggressive acquisition reform efforts. Much of what the bill contained tracked with what the civilian and uniformed military leadership proposed.

Other proposals, like plans to raiding the overseas war funding accounts of $18 billion to pay for unfunded base budget shortfalls and eliminating the position of under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics–which Carter once held, now occupied by Frank Kendall–have drawn rebuke from Carter.

“I really appreciate the effort that both Chairman McCain and Chairman Thornberry and their committees have put in, because I think they are trying to think the same way [about] what’s in the future and so forth,” Carter said. “I do have some differences. In general, micromanagement from the Hill, of what are executive and leadership functions is not a good idea.”

Carter has said, and the Obama administration has officially agreed, that the NDAA should be vetoed by the president if it passes with those proposals intact. He reiterated that position Friday.