Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor
The primary purpose of the defense acquisition enterprise is to acquire and deliver capabilities for the operational commanders to use to deter and if necessary, win wars.
Per Title X, the military services are responsible for organizing, training, and equipping the forces. The Combatant Commands are joint military commands responsible for geographic (e.g., INDOPACOM) or functional areas (e.g., CYBERCOM).
Ample debate over the last few decades includes the case that the Services too often put their parochial views above those of the Joint Force (we have written about this ourselves). Combatant Commanders remain frustrated by what they view as “the system” not delivering the capabilities they require at the speed and quantity needed to complete their missions.
This was a major reason for the initiation of the European (EDI) and Pacific Deterrence Initiatives (PDI). In particular PDI was driven by years of Congress getting massive unfunded lists from INDOPACOM that the Services had seemingly ignored. The 2020 $20B wish list that INDOPACOM had submitted to the Hill turned into a 2021 NDAA provision with $6.9B allocated to address the combatant command needs. Predictably, this was hijacked by the Services (and OSD) to buy more ships and planes…when commanders really needed “long-range weapons, missile defenses, and critical enablers such as logistics capabilities, training ranges, and support infrastructure.”
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