Christopher C. Miller
Sunday’s attack by Iranian proxies on U.S. forces serving in Jordan—the first time American soldiers have been killed by a conventional enemy air attack since the Korean War—serves as a stark reminder of the evolving threats that American forces face overseas. This event should highlight the importance of making sure our men and women in uniform have what they need to defend themselves. America will be burying more of its warriors if it doesn’t change the way the Pentagon does business.
This tragic loss of life didn’t need to happen. Our soldiers’ need for the materiel to defend against drone strikes has been obvious for months. Since October, U.S. forces have successfully defended against more than 160 attacks, many of them drone-based, from Iran-sponsored groups throughout the Middle East. Though our troops have performed admirably, the Defense Department has failed to provide them with the best available technology to defend against these attacks, even as its capabilities in the Middle East have diminished with its pivot to the Pacific. This, almost inevitably, led to the successful strike on our base in Jordan. Though the Pentagon knows what our forces need, it has let itself be too mired in bureaucracy to provide it.
This isn’t a partisan issue. I accept responsibility for failing to break the back of the hidebound bureaucracy when I served in the Army and ultimately led the Pentagon as acting secretary of defense. The Defense Department still adheres to its extant plodding and seemingly sacrosanct five-year budget-planning cycle, though it risks troops’ lives. If America’s military fails to change that, it risks defeat by the growing number of hostile powers intent on destroying the current international order.
Across my 37-year career, I’ve seen the U.S. military transform itself rapidly to face threats. It usually takes a crisis to drive urgency into the byzantine acquisition process. During the war on terror, America established rapid acquisition organizations to bypass the lethargic and impossibly complex contracting system to get our troops what they needed. Defense Secretary Robert Gates developed the playbook for quickly developing and procuring mine-resistant vehicles to protect U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon in 2006 created the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization to defend against drones and improvised explosives while also using academia, laboratories, industry and private-sector investment to accelerate development of lifesaving solutions.
It’s time to demand a similar approach to counter other autonomous threats. It’s obvious what our troops need, but the bureaucracy is too slow to deliver. Specifically designed to detect, track and neutralize drones, counter-uncrewed aircraft systems would provide a critical layer of protection against aerial threats that can bypass traditional defenses. These systems have proved effective across various conflict zones, preventing harm to our troops and those of our allies—especially during the battle against ISIS in Mosul in 2017. But they haven’t been more broadly fielded to all units of the military that could use them, and our enemies are adapting as the Pentagon struggles to acquire more.
Successive defense secretaries ordered the Army to develop these counter uncrewed-aircraft systems for the entire military with no success. In 2019 the Army tried to institutionalize drone defense by establishing the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, known as JCO, but that only worsened the Pentagon’s paralysis.
The JCO has devolved into an ineffective embarrassment that’s emblematic of the Defense Department’s overall procurement strategy. The office conducts an endless series of testing events that have yet to result in effective procurement of systems vital to our overseas forces. The JCO has required the defense industry to spend millions of the companies’ own dollars to participate in JCO-mandated testing to establish an approved list of suppliers.
Yet the office repeatedly has ignored its own recommendations. In supplying Ukraine, the JCO selected systems that weren’t approved in previous office field tests rather than those available from companies that poured money into getting JCO certified. The office has said it ignored its established criteria for systems procurement because they had to be acquired so rapidly, but JCO-certified companies could have supplied systems quickly. Moreover, the need now for counter uncrewed-aircraft systems is urgent, too. So why delay with bureaucracy?
With its massive cost to companies and seemingly arbitrary use, the JCO’s testing system unfairly impacts nontraditional contractors, limits innovation and contributes to the erosion of our country’s defense industrial base.
How many more American warriors must die before our military and civilian leaders act? Congress, the Pentagon and American voters must honor the sacrifices of Sgt. William Rivers, Spc. Kennedy Sanders, Spc. Breonna Moffett and the loved ones they left behind.
By transforming the way the Pentagon does business, we can guarantee their sacrifices weren’t made in vain. We can create an effective military that deters aggression, and we can build a force capable of defeating our enemies while returning our troops home safely.
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