A bipartisan pair of House Armed Services Committee members said Wednesday that the Pentagon’s combatant commands should be given more authority to directly go and procure innovative technologies that can be fielded quickly.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the HASC’s Intelligence and Special Operations panel, said the idea has been “batted around” and cited the example of Special Operations Command’s (SOCOM) unique acquisition authority as a model to follow.
“There is a model that we used during the global war on terror where we gave SOCOM direct authority to go right to market and buy what they needed and immediately send it to the warfighter, and it worked. It was cheaper. It was more effective. It was more efficient,” Crow said in remarks at the Reagan Institute’s National Security Innovation Base Summit. “So maybe we start cutting the services out of it. And, you know, I’m the co-chair of the Army caucus. I’m definitely going to freaking hear [about] this from the Army.”
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chair of the HASC Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, joined Crow on the panel and said he agreed with the idea of pushing more authority to the COCOMs, adding this could be “the baseline” rather than “the exception to the rule.”
“Now, listen. People up the chain in [Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the service branches are going to, ‘No, no, no, you can’t do that because we have all these things and these planning documents that we have to do.’ What I argue is that the planning process and how we identify the threat and how we operationalize resources toward the threat is just behind the curve. So we have to operationalize money and get [capabilities] quicker in the hands of the warfighter,” Wittman said.
Wittman added that the COCOMs unfunded requirements lists, submitted to Congress annually following the budget submission, is where “the threat” is “most immediately identified,” rather than in the longer-term budget planning documents compiled by the services.
“[The COCOMs] see on a daily basis, ‘This is what we need. This is what I need today,’” Wittman said. “How do we push more money down to the COCOMs.”
The Army is currently building on its Transforming in Contact initiative to rapidly field new technology by seeking additional authority from Congress that would allow the service to more flexibly move funding around capability areas rather than rigid budget line items, initially focusing the effort on drones, counter-UAS equipment and electronic warfare capabilities.
Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, told reporters last month the service has received “good feedback” from lawmakers on the push for more flexible funding authority, which he cited as critical to fielding promising new technologies across the force (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).