The Department of Defense’s (DoD) acquisition office will play a pivotal role in the department’s reevaluation of its fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget, according to a senior Pentagon official.
The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S) is currently going through “a rigorous analytic process, taking a relook at [the FY 2026 budget] … ensuring it aligns with the priorities of both the president and the secretary,” Steven Morani, currently performing the duties of undersecretary of defense for A&S, said during the McAleese Defense Programs Conference on March 18.
Morani explained the acquisition office is reassessing how to shift people, resources, and priorities toward providing better support directly to the warfighter.
This budget reassessment follows a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month, calling for a departmentwide review to identify areas where funds could be “realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs” to better align with President Trump’s America First priorities for national defense.
As part of this review, the DoD is realigning 8 percent of the budget in preparation for the release of its FY2026 budget request. Hegseth also tasked Pentagon leaders with reassessing the existing FY2026 budget estimate to prioritize reallocating resources away from areas like diversity, equity, and inclusion and climate programs, focusing instead on enhancing capabilities related to lethality and readiness.
“[We’re] looking at ways to streamline and remove some red tape,” Morani said, adding that part of that includes looking at the department’s real estate portfolio and reducing or eliminating what is not needed.
“We’re relooking at some of the things we did in the past before we are going to put more money against them, and perhaps [what] we’re going to stop doing,” he said.
Secretary Hegseth will make any final decisions about how funding requests are prioritized.
‘All Hands In’ for Trump’s Golden Dome
President Trump’s announcement of plans for a “Golden Dome” to safeguard the United States has sparked intense competition within the aerospace and defense sectors, with companies scrambling for a stake in what could become one of the Pentagon’s largest procurement initiatives.
“[We’re] wasting no time in moving out and taking this new direction by the president,” Morani said.
President Trump on Jan. 27 signed an executive order calling for the development of the new missile defense system, which he initially referred to as the Iron Dome of America, but later renamed the Golden Dome of America.
The concept aims to “deploy and maintain a next-generation missile defense shield” to protect against hypersonic weapons and other advanced aerial threats, which the order designates as the “most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
“This is like the monster systems engineering problem. This is the monster integration problem,” Morani said. “This is going to be layers of architecture working together at all group level elevations … to protect the United States … so we’re going to need all the services and agencies that do this kind of work to step up.”
Morani explained that the acquisition office is “working with the industrial base [through] supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome.”
