In 1960, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor testified before Congress and lamented that, “In spite of the fact that modern war is no longer fought in terms of a separate Army, Navy, and Air Force, nonetheless we still budget vertically in these service terms. Yet, if we are called upon to fight, we will not be interested in the services as such.” Taylor concluded “we do not keep our budget in these terms. Hence it is not an exaggeration to say that we do not know what kind and how much defense we are buying with any specific budget.” This sentiment remains equally true today. Taylor’s testimony helped to radically transform how the Defense Department allocates and manages resources through what would become the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System. Sixty years later, the effort to reform these processes continues. In 2022, Congress funded the Planning, Programmi…

military strength relative to global adversaries. This year, for the first time since the index’s inception in 2014, the U.S. armed forces received an aggregate “weak” rating. The index rated the Air Force as “very weak” and the Navy and Space Force both received “weak” marks. Near-peers are becoming peers. The Department of Defense’s technological advantage is eroding because it is no longer the primary source of the technologies that will likely underpin military superiority. The acquisition system that grew out of World War II expected that the department would need to develop its own capabilities — jet engines and supersonic aircraft, nuclear weaponry, radar, rockets, computers, software, semiconductors, guidance systems, and beyond. However, by the 1990s, this assumption was outdated. The Defense Department’s importance to the semiconductor industry dissolved in…