The Greatest Threat to Acquisition Transformation Is Fear : War on the Rocks , February 17 , 2026
February 17, 2026
War on the Rocks
The Greatest Threat to Acquisition Transformation Is Fear : War on the Rocks , February 17 , 2026
February 17, 2026
War on the Rocks
From the document: "The Department of Defense’s acquisition and sustainment culture is pathologically risk-averse. The greatest threat to acquisition transformation is not the Federal Acquisition Regulation. It is not congressional oversight, statutory constraints, insufficient training, or an absence of strategy.
The greatest threat is fear. Not fear as emotion, but fear as architecture.
The defense acquisition system is not broken. It is functioning precisely as designed. It produces compliance. It produces documentation. It produces defensible process. It produces career survivability.
But it does not reliably produce speed or meaningful results.
For more than three decades, senior leaders have promised reform. Since the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, the acquisition community has cycled through transformation campaigns: Better Buying Power, the Adaptive Acquisition Framework, expanded other transaction authorities, congressional mandates, and more. Each wave arrives wrapped in urgency. Each diagnoses the same pathology: acquisitions are too slow, too rigid, too risk-averse."
Authors - Evangelista, BonnieSubjects
Authors
Publishers
Related Resources
