Acquisition Talk

What it takes in acquisition to deter China with Matt MacGregor, Greg Grant, and Pete Modigliani

Acquisition Talk

Show Notes

A new paper from MITRE takes an end-to-end look at how military strategy gets translated into the types of weapon systems actually bought through the acquisition process. It is called Five First Steps to a Modern Defense Budgeting System, and I was pleased to have the authors on the podcast to discuss it: Matt MacGregor, Greg Grant, and Pete Modigliani.

In the episode, we discuss

- What a challenge-driven Defense Planning Guidance could look like - How special, "innovation" funds can be improved - Oversight of Middle-Tier programs - Imperative for new start authorities

This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

More from Acquisition Talk

Feb 19, 2023

In this final episode of Programmed to Fail, we explore the true importance of reforming the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process in the Department of Defense. Some may say that it is only a poor craftsman who blames his tools, that it is deficiencies in the workforce rather than problems of the acquisition and budgeting systems that are holding weapons innovation back. But certainly, it is not the lack of quality and drive in the people that has held North Korea back relative to their neighbors in South Korea, or that has stymied the growth of nations in the former Soviet Union. It was the ideologies of the political economy thrust upon the people that so devastated their culture.

Feb 19, 2023

In this episode of Programmed to Fail, we explore how accounting costs do not reveal the value being generated in the production process and cannot be used, on their own, as a guide for specific choices. Cost is not an objective reality, particularly to those who know the vagaries of cost accounting. Instead, our view of cost depends on subjective use value and is related to the term opportunity cost, or the next-best choice foregone. This chapter reveals that for defense acquisition to truly understand weapons value and leverage the power of commercial markets, it needs to shift away from its obsession with financial metrics.

Feb 19, 2023

In this episode of the Acquisition Talk podcast, Dorothy Engelhart joins me to discuss unmanned surface and underwater vessel development in the United States Navy. Dorothy is the Director of Unmanned Systems in the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for ships, and she has been in this role since 2015. Before that, she was a senior acquisition manager for Marine Corps MDAPs, and had over 20 years of experience in NAVAIR as well as experience on the Hill.

Feb 18, 2023

In this episode of Programmed to Fail, we discuss the integral role of rivalrous competition in the discovery of knowledge and the growth of technology. It finds that policy maker's dreams about single best plans and pre-coordinating service behavior to avoid duplication, competition, and overlap is a false economy, one that stamps out the true creative potential of the American people and harms national security.

Feb 16, 2023

Welcome to a special series on the acquisition talk podcast that gives you an audiobook tour of my research project titled, Programmed to Fail: The Rise of Central Planning in Defense Acquisition 1945 to 1975. I’m Eric Lofgren of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. You can find this book for free and over 1,300 blog posts on my website, https://AcquisitionTalk.com.

See all episodes →