The Department of Defense (DoD) this week launched a sweeping review of its major defense acquisition programs in response to President Donald Trump’s defense acquisition executive order (EO) issued earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on April 23.
“This week we began reviewing all 72 active major defense acquisition programs. As President Trump outlined in his executive order on defense acquisition, we must have high performing mission aligned programs at every level,” Hegseth told students and staff at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
President Trump on April 9 issued the executive order to streamline the defense acquisition process and eliminate programs that are over budget or behind schedule.
According to the EO, the current acquisition system is “antiquated” and lacks the “speed and flexibility” needed to support the U.S. Armed Forces. The order aims to improve the nation’s ability to “deliver state-of-the-art capabilities at speed and scale through a comprehensive overhaul” of the defense acquisition system.
One program under review – but not on the chopping block, according to Hegseth – is the department’s Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) program.
“We’ve been assessing the department from top to bottom to ensure that we’re getting more, faster, better and more efficient,” Hegseth said, adding that part of this acquisition overhauls was “reinforcing the software acquisition pathway as [the Pentagon’s] preferred model.”
“We have to be able to get what we need and when we need it,” he emphasized.
The review of acquisition programs comes as the Pentagon launches broader efforts to overhaul how it buys software – prioritizing speed, agility, and security. DoD’s Software Fast Track program unveiled earlier this week aims to create a streamlined authority to operate process, providing services and defense agencies with greater assurance that software applications are secure.
“We are rebuilding the world’s greatest fighting force for the challenges ahead,” Hegseth said. “We’re prioritizing what works and cutting what doesn’t.”
Hegseth also highlighted ongoing progress on President Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense system.
“We are rapidly moving to – moving ahead on one of the president’s key campaign promises, which is a Golden Dome for America, a nationwide missile defense system to protect Americans from the threat of nuclear, hypersonic and conventional weapons here in our homeland,” Hegseth said.
While many elements of the Golden Dome initiative remain uncertain – as it is still in the conceptual phase – what is clear is that it could become one of the largest and most expensive defense procurement projects in history. According to Hegseth, President Trump anticipates that a proposed increase in the DoD budget to $1 trillion annually defense will go a long way toward developing the Golden Dome project.