Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced a sweeping overhaul of how the Pentagon acquires weapons, aiming to deliver new technology to U.S. forces faster than ever.
Speaking at the National War College before industry leaders and military officials, Hegseth introduced several memorandums to help guide the next phase of acquisition for the Department of Defense (DOD) – rebranded as the War Department by the Trump administration.
“Speed to delivery is now our organizing principle,” Hegseth said. “It is the decisive factor in maintaining deterrence and warfighting advantage. If our warfighters die or our country loses because we took too long to get them what we needed, we have failed. It is that simple.”
Much of Hegseth’s plan mirrors an executive order issued by President Trump in April that directs a reshaping of federal acquisition processes.
The overhaul aims to transform the Defense Acquisition System into the Warfighting Acquisition System, reform the Joint Requirements Process, and unify the department’s Arms Transfer and Security Cooperation Enterprise.
Hegseth set tight deadlines to make these changes a reality, with the DOD acquisition chief required to issue guidance within 45 days and each military service submitting implementation plans within 60 days.
Hegseth also emphasized that the reforms will only succeed if the acquisition workforce adapts. He also plans to rebrand the Defense Acquisition University as the Warfighting Acquisition University, which he envisioned as a launching pad to instill a “transformative and warrior mindset” in the acquisition workforce.
He explained that the university will prioritize cohort-based programs, combining experimental and project-based learning on real portfolio challenges, industry-government exchanges, and case method instruction to develop critical thinking and rapid decision-making.
Another workforce change is the restructuring of the program executive offices into the Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs), who will have direct authority over major weapons programs and report straight to their Service Acquisition Executive. PAEs will serve as the single accountable officials for portfolio outcomes. They are empowered to act without multi-year approval chains and will held responsible for delivering results, according to one memo.
To track progress, the department will introduce portfolio scorecards focused on the time it takes to put weapons in the hands of warfighters.
“We will break down monolithic systems and build a future where our technology adapts to the threat in real near time. Contracting officers will be embedded within program teams and accountable to program leaders, shoulder to shoulder with our engineers, operators and warfighters who can provide critical, real-world user feedback to the engineers,” Hegseth said.
The department is also standing up a Wartime Production Unit, a successor to the Joint Production Acceleration Cell, led by a “deal team” empowered to negotiate directly with vendors across portfolios.
According to Hegseth, the deal team will craft financial incentives to ensure on-time delivery of weapons, emphasizing faster negotiations, better results, and full transparency between the government and industry partners. Hegseth explained that “this approach is not a pilot program,” and the department plans to expand the unit, staffing it with experienced operators and former industry executives, referred to as Business Operators for National Defense.
“It’s a fundamental shift in how we arm our warfighters. We are committed to dominating the modern battlefield, and that domination starts with a wartime industrial base focused on execution and operational success,” he said.
While Hegseth introduced a series of new initiatives aimed at overhauling acquisition, he also moved to retire some long-standing, decades-old frameworks.
Most notably, the department will eliminate the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS), the Pentagon’s traditional process for identifying and validating military requirements.
“JCIDS is dead, and it was slow and bloated and disconnected from reality, and we will do better,” Hegseth said.
“We’re leaving the old, failed process behind, and will instead embrace a new agile and results-oriented approach that used to take sometimes – when you add it up with requirements – three to eight years, we believe can happen within a year,” he said.