Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY), and Rob Wittman (R-VA) set up the caucus in early 2024 to strategically inform legislation to improve the Defense Department’s adoption of modern software and warfighting capabilities.

“This is what happens when you get industry, academia, and members of Congress who refuse to maintain the status quo together in a room. We’re going to keep pushing as hard as we can,” a senior member on Ryan’s team told DefenseScoop on Friday.

Early this year, Ryan and Wittman formally solicited policy proposals and focus areas from stakeholders across industry and academia to puzzle out the reforms. The caucus also set up a unique portal for modernization-related recommendations.

“We need to put disruptive technologies in the hands of warfighters, we need more competition in the defense industrial base, and we need to cut down pointless red tape and bureaucracy. Congress must be relentlessly focused on providing the U.S. military with the capabilities and capacity necessary to deter our adversaries — we cannot afford complacency,” Wittman said in a statement.

The senior House staffer previewed some of the caucus-inspired inclusions and amendments that made it into the massive defense package.

The NDAA includes language that would:

• Accelerate the DOD’s counter-unmanned aerial system operations and authorities to protect military operations and other specific locations around the U.S.
• Add additional reporting requirements to the Authority to Operate (ATO) process and streamline timelines for such approvals
• Require the Pentagon to develop and maintain a virtual sandbox environment for operational testing and development
• Require the secretary of defense to brief Congress on the integration of AI and machine learning across the department
• Empower the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to expand outreach and create additional onramp hubs domestically and internationally
• Direct DOD leadership to submit a plan to accelerate the accreditation, construction, and operational use of commercial Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF) accessible to industry
• Seek to streamline and simplify the requirements for a modular open system approach to the design and development of a major weapon system.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” the senior official said. “This was a collaborative process over the course of many months, and it’s truly only just the beginning of what we can accomplish in the future.”

Beyond Ryan and Wittman, they said other members of the caucus who serve on HASC and helped champion these and additional efforts include: Reps. Seth Moulton (D-MA), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Don Bacon (R-NE), John McGuire (R-VA), Pat Fallon (R-TX), George Whitesides (D-CA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Wesley Bell (D-MO) and Mark Messmer (R-IN). 

“Stay tuned, because we’re only just getting started,” Ryan said in a statement.

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Introduced by members of the committee’s bipartisan Foreign Arms Sales Task Force set up to investigate and help resolve existing acquisition hurdles, the six bills include provisions to incentivize domestic capabilities and munitions manufacturing, and expand other nations’ options to adopt American-made defense articles.

“We have to make sure the process that’s put in place is effective, it has the right level of accountability and that it delivers,” the task force’s chairman, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told DefenseScoop in an interview on Wednesday.

Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) refer to two methods the U.S. applies to sell and provide equipment, technology and services to other nations. FMS is a government-to-government process where the U.S. serves as an intermediary between a foreign country and a U.S. defense contractor, while DCS involves direct contracts between other nations and American vendors, with the U.S. government overseeing export controls and licensing. 

In the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and separate conflicts in the Middle East that emerged after Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, countries’ interest in buying U.S. weapons has grown substantially. 

According to data from the State Department, the U.S. transferred assets with a total value of $117.9 billion via the FMS system in fiscal 2024, which represented a 45.7% boost from the previous fiscal year — and at the time marked the highest-ever amount of sales and assistance America provided to foreign nations in the span of one year.

However, experts have raised increasing concerns in recent years about bureaucratic and modernization issues that increasingly plague these procurement processes, like lengthy requirements leading to delivery delays, complexities that result in a lack of oversight and transparency, and other obstacles that ultimately impact U.S. competitiveness.

“Unfortunately, what’s happening now is that our allies — we expect them to fight with us. And what happens is they pay for weapon systems upfront, but by the time that they get them, the weapon systems are going to be obsolete in many cases, because the battlefield is changing so rapidly. Particularly with [unmanned aerial vehicles] and autonomous weaponry and missile systems, by the time we get the equipment to them, it’s oftentimes obsolete,” Zinke said.

The U.S. industrial base for military hardware depends heavily on foreign military sales, he noted.

In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the government to essentially overhaul its current approach to transferring defense software and hardware. 

A few weeks before that, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., launched the FMS Task Force and named Zinke and Ranking Member Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., to lead it.

To shape the creation of their six new proposals, the task force heard from international partners, defense industry stakeholders, and U.S. government officials from multiple agencies to gain feedback on where there are needs for reform.

The overarching vision, Zinke said, was for the “working group to actually address how to restructure foreign military sales so it meets [the president’s] goals.”

According to a fact sheet viewed by DefenseScoop, the six task force-led measures that moved forward in Tuesday’s markup include: 

• Streamlining Foreign Military Sales Act — introduced by Zinke, and Rep. James Panetta, D-Calif.; would raise the Congressional Notification value thresholds to levels requested by the Trump Administration’s April mandate
• AUKUS Reform for Military Optimization and Review (ARMOR) Act — introduced by Dean and Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif.; seeks to “address a variety of impediments” to trilateral security partnership’s Pillar II implementation 
• ITAR Licensing Reform Act — introduced by Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash.; would codify the prioritization requirement in Trump’s directive by requiring the State Department to establish a list of priority partners and end users for DCS and creating a time-bound process for issuing such licenses. 
• Made-In-America Defense Act — introduced by Rep. Sheri Biggs, R-S.C.; would codify the FMS-only list review requirement in Trump’s order and direct the Departments of State and Defense to conduct an annual review of that list
• Missile Technology Control Review Act — introduced by Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas; would amend the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to allow for expedited defense trade with nations that the president determines to be eligible for an exemption
• Abraham Accords Defense Against Terror Act — introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; would reduce bureaucratic hurdles for regional partners that commit to fighting the threat posed by Iran and its proxies by creating an expedited formal review process for defense sales to these partners

When asked if he’s confident all of the proposals will pass through the full Senate, Zinke said “I think they’re necessary.”

He added that the task force has also been working closely with federal departments and human rights organizations to confront the potential for misuse, as the current process has been criticized for being difficult to monitor U.S. military equipment and associated civilian casualties.

“I think you need to make sure you have the authorities in place to do it. That means the decision process has to take in consideration things like the Leahy Act, child trafficking and child soldiers. There’s a lot of things in law that need to be, on a sale, absolutely adhered to,” Zinke told DefenseScoop.

After serving as a Navy SEAL from 1986 to 2008, he went on to become the first-ever SEAL elected to the House of Representatives — and the first to occupy a position in the Cabinet, when he was tapped as secretary of interior during the first Trump administration.

Drawing from his experiences as a Naval Special Warfare Officer, the congressman said he understands “how important currency is on the battlefield, and the currency is the best technology, because sometimes six months makes a difference.”

“What I saw [as a SEAL] was a system that was multiple departments with different objectives, unable to communicate with each other. That resulted in our allies paying for equipment upfront, oftentimes receiving obsolete equipment, but that equipment is most assuredly always late. With peacetime, you could take it out of the stockpile, right, because, you’re not shooting that much,” Zinke said, suggesting the U.S. supply chain is not presently equipped for wartime demands.

With that tenure, plus his time as a businessman, Zinke said he felt uniquely positioned to steer the FMS Task Force. He noted he has “excellent relationships” with Trump, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Congress should step up and do our part, making sure that there’s still transparency and oversight, because that’s Article One. And I think we can shake it up a little and present our recommendations to Hegseth and Rubio — which we’re doing — and then pass a series of bills to make sure that we update and get the authorities where necessary in order to, again, deliver on what we’re promising,” Zinke told DefenseScoop. 

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Adm. James Kilby shared a status update on that work and shed light on some of the sea service’s associated near-term, technology-enabling efforts during a media roundtable at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space forum.

“One of our goals — one of our seven targets — is this hybrid fleet [with] robotic and autonomous systems,” Kilby explained. “The challenge for us is to really robustly lay out a roadmap to get there. We’ve had some fits and starts there, so we must do better. Our initial focus is 2027 though, [for a] capability that will help us in the Pacific.”

Last year, then-CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti unveiled a list of seven “Project 33 targets” to accelerate to enhance the Navy’s long-term advantage and ensure readiness for a possible war with China by 2027. President Donald Trump fired Franchetti in February, but as Kilby suggested, the Navy continues to pursue those immediate modernization aims under his leadership and while waiting on a new nominee to be named. 

He said personnel are currently moving to deploy a unified network of unmanned and manned platforms “in a meaningful way.”

“The MQ-25 is the first unmanned aircraft to integrate with the air wing. Beyond that, once we do that, I’m looking at sensors, I’m looking at electronic attack, possibly a loyal wingman concept — but I also have to have unmanned surface [capabilities] helping me in that fight, as well,” Kilby noted. 

He acknowledged that while the Navy is pursuing a range of activities to boost global readiness and enhance platforms’ maintenance and efficiency at shore and sea, its force and arsenal are simultaneously in high demand all over the world. Kilby pointed to the Nimitz and Vinson Carrier Strike Groups, which are conducting deterrence and other operations in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as the P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and a guided missile destroyer supporting Northern Command on the Trump administration’s new U.S.-Mexico border missions.

“Over the past 18 months, our sailors in the Red Sea have successfully countered hundreds of Houthi missiles and [unmanned aerial vehicles]. We have had over 20 ships that have operated in the Central Command area of responsibility for this, and today, the incredible sailors of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group are there carrying on that effort,” the acting CNO said.

As that conflict continues to disrupt commercial shipping and place sailors’ lives at risk, Kilby said he’s increasingly concerned about the Navy’s lack of options to more economically counter that threat, and America’s munitions industrial base.  

“As the former [deputy chief of Naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities, or N9], I was focused on a high-end laser, 500 kilowatts to 1 megawatt. And I have regret for that — that I had not been thoughtful enough to think about the UAV threat, where I think a much lesser-power weapon would have done what we needed to do,” he said.

The Navy’s secretive Project Overmatch marks another key element of its future warfighting capabilities and overarching intent to prioritize lethality, per Trump’s recent orders. 

That initiative is a major piece of the Navy’s contribution to the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) operational concept and will be crucial to the U.S. and its allies’ joint tactical network of the future.

“The classic example of Overmatch is I want to be able to communicate across every single modality I have at sea, based on prioritization of message. Comms-as-a-service and software-defined radios are a piece of that as well. So, that effort continues,” Kilby told DefenseScoop.

“This ability to communicate in a more effective manner at sea makes me more lethal, where I’m not having to wait for a certain prioritization of messages to go out — the system just understands the quickest means to do that and sends that message,” he explained.

For most of Kilby’s career, Navy forces have been able to conduct power projection, or sail anywhere in the world to carry out orders. But contemporary network advancements are introducing nascent challenges and making it easier for adversaries to locate U.S. forces’ whereabouts. 

“Overmatch, and [the fight from the maritime operations centers], and the mission control of my strike group is what I need to do to be able to have access into that environment,” Kilby said.

Earlier this year, the Project Overmatch team unveiled its first-ever formal project arrangement with the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.

“Certainly we need to work with our allies across the board here, and I’ll meet with several of them during this conference,” Kilby told DefenseScoop during the roundtable.

Naval Information Warfare Systems Commander Rear Adm. Seiko Okano was recently tapped as the newest lead for Project Overmatch. 

Kilby confirmed he’s impressed with her early work in this role, including recent moves to target readiness across the maritime operations centers and from the strike group commanders in new and noticeable ways — and largely by handling data differently.

“She’s been critical in helping us with the unmanned surface vessels, and communicating with C2 and command and control, and using artificial intelligence to do things like automatic target recognition, which are important for those targets, and to have that data set updated — so I see it continuing and only growing larger as we move forward,” he said.

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In interviews this week, DefenseScoop spoke to current and former defense officials — many who requested anonymity to speak freely — about the incident revealed by the Atlantic magazine’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was included in a message chain earlier this month on the encrypted but unclassified messaging app Signal, where some of the president’s closest advisers discussed forthcoming strikes targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.

“This, of course, is a political hot potato — because both sides are going after each other. But I want to move beyond the politics and say, let’s acknowledge the gravity of this,” a former senior defense official said in reference to the implications of classified plans being shared on Signal.

Mixed Signals

Congressional hearings and follow-up statements from the government continue to paint a picture of exactly what happened regarding the “Houthi PC Small Group” chat, as it was named. The conversation Goldberg was added to with more than a dozen top Trump officials included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and national security adviser Michael Waltz. 

In the view of the former senior defense official, who requested anonymity to speak openly about the matter, this blunder is “a sign of people [who lack] serious experience at those levels.”

“Because I just cannot think of the people that I used to work with ever doing something like this. I just can’t — whether it’s in the intel community or in the [Defense Department] — a lot of us took this as seriously as anything we ever dealt with as operational security, because people will die if you get it wrong,” the official said Tuesday.

While it’s difficult to get mobile devices with adequate security to transmit classified material, the former senior official said they did have access to “clunky” capabilities designed for exactly that during their own military service.

“And anybody who’s been around the intel community knows that when senior people travel, they have access to all sorts of communication devices,” they noted. 

“So, there is always a temptation to do the quick solution — but the quick solution is not the right solution. You’re violating all sorts of acts and policies and legislation about releasing classified information via unclassified devices or an application that” is not government-approved for sharing sensitive information that could put people or assets at risk, the former senior defense official said.

Regarding exceptions to existing rules, the official said the only scenario they could come up with would be an emergency situation where information had to get out quickly because troops’ lives were on the line.

“But even there, those who know what they’re doing would mask the information by code words or just saying the target is struck, and it would be clear to those who were considered in the ‘need-to-know’ what happened — without revealing anything sensitive,” the former senior defense official said. 

Multiple times in the interview, the official emphasized how shocked and frustrated they were about the administration’s choices during and amid the aftermath of the incident.

A current military official expressed similar sentiments in a separate conversation with DefenseScoop on Wednesday.

“We have classified systems that can do this. We have [a version of the Microsoft Teams chat platform for DOD’s Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet]. This is just laziness,” the military official said.

However, in an interview Tuesday, another current defense official said they think the U.S. government needs a broader arsenal of options for platforms that go farther than simple encryption and can be trusted for rapid text exchanges that incorporate sensitive and classified information.

“It is nearly impossible for U.S. government agencies all over the world to chat in real time with current U.S. government-provided systems,” said the defense official.

They added that they were not surprised by what happened, because so many federal agencies and officials — as well as lawmakers, journalists and diplomats — use Signal daily to transmit what they refer to as “official communications” about work. 

“There is no efficient way for agencies to chat in real time. For example: Most of your embassies use WhatsApp for communication with DOD, due to the need to be in real-time communication. Most of your staffs across the U.S. government use WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, etc. — and they have for decades,” the defense official said.

Pointing to a potential solution to this challenge, they said that the government needs its own “cross-agency chat or text system that is owned by one agency, but mandated for all.” The system they envision would have classified and unclassified versions, and would be something internal and secure, requiring an official government email to gain access.

The defense official further suggested the government could partner with existing industry platforms — like Signal — because, in their experience, websites and apps created by the U.S. government in the past have “not been good at all.”

Separately, the former senior defense official said that they “completely agree” that it would be helpful for American officials to have approved access to more dynamic tools that meet the expectations of the modern “chat-driven world.”

“We’ve welcomed the help from technology companies, but there’s a different vetting process between classified systems, and Signal and WhatsApp — as good as their encryption are — they’re still not what I would call meant for classified information,” they said. “And I think we’re in a world today where we’re always working with partners and allies, and it can be very cumbersome to get them the information they need. And so you’ll turn to whatever you have.” 

‘There will be no secrets.’

Details about all that was discussed in the administration officials’ “Houthi PC Small Group” chat continue to emerge Wednesday. But since Goldberg’s first story was published Monday, questions and concerns have swirled about the legality and possible unforeseen consequences of the high-level officials’ use of the unclassified messaging app.

“There’s going to be great hay made of the fact that this particular group of individuals with security clearances transmitted top-secret information on a commercial, encrypted software. That’s just the reality of politics. Underscoring that is that we need to have government-secured communications, well-encrypted with strong algorithms, that are going to be used for the transmission of federally protected information amongst agencies — and that is an absolute requirement,” Scott White told DefenseScoop on Tuesday.

White served as an officer with the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command and is currently an associate professor and director of George Washington University’s cybersecurity program. He and the other officials who DefenseScoop interviewed highlighted how the issue that underpins this entire incident has been a problem for previous administrations and across political parties.

“President Obama loved to use his Blackberry — and that’s got probably some of the best encryption in the world,” White said. 

“In fact, the Saudi government told BlackBerry that they wouldn’t allow them to sell their product in Saudi Arabia unless they gave them the de-encryption codes, and Blackberry said, ‘We’re not giving them to you,’” he explained. “It has one of the strongest encryptions in the world — and even that encryption program, when Obama wanted to use his own Blackberry, they disallowed that.”

President Donald Trump and members of his administration have largely downplayed any critiques of wrongdoing associated with the controversial Signal chat.

When asked if his team’s decision to use the app put U.S. national security at risk during a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Trump responded: “I don’t know anything about Signal. I wasn’t involved in this, but I just heard about it, and I hear it’s used by a lot of groups. It’s used by the media a lot. It’s used by a lot [in] the military, and I think, successfully — but sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly.” 

In response to reporters’ questions about whether he’ll move to mandate an investigation into the matter, the president said, “It’s not really an FBI thing,” so he would instead like to know more about the platform’s security.

“Like, will somebody be able to break in? Are people able to break into conversations? And if that’s true, we’re going to have to find some other form of device, and I think that’s something that we may have to do. Some people like Signal very much, other people probably don’t, but we’ll look into it,” Trump said.

At a press gaggle with reporters in Hawaii on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Hegseth doubled down on his rebuttal that “nobody’s texting war plans.” 

Prior to his statements, the Atlantic published screenshots of his texts in the Signal group, where the secretary revealed U.S. Central Command’s schedule for attacks, as well as information about specific targets and locations.

“If you define ‘war plan’ as an ‘O-plan,’ an operational plan, it was definitely not a war plan. It was, however — if I believe Goldberg from the Atlantic and I have every reason to believe them — it included targets, timing, weapons platforms, which are classified. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. There’s no parsing this one out. That information will put lives at stake if somebody has access to it,” the former senior defense official told DefenseScoop.

They noted that there are people who served in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 15 years “who were petrified about polygraphs because they had to do something in the heat of battle — to release information to an ally or a partner, but had no choice — because people were going to die if they didn’t do something.”   

“To think that people at the most senior levels in the government would not acknowledge what they did was wrong. That’s what really is beginning to bug me more than anything else, is this refusal to acknowledge what was done was wrong,” the official said. “It almost feels like it’s another blatant disregard for the rules that everybody else has to follow. I would be led off in handcuffs if I had done what they did, there would be no doubt in my mind — I would be held accountable for sucking up that magnitude of having a reporter in on the classified chat.”

Further, they called the fact that Steve Witkoff — the American real estate investor, lawyer, and Trump’s pick to serve as the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East  — was in Russia for meetings with President Vladimir Putin while participating in the group text “absolutely stunning.”

“I would assume everything from the chat has been compromised, because it’s Russia and they’re really good at this stuff. So if you’re not paying attention to that, what else has been compromised?” the former senior defense official said.

Hegseth and other members of Trump’s cabinet have also said that the success of the attacks in Yemen discussed in the chat show that the group message was not compromised. 

However, the officials who spoke to DefenseScoop this week pointed out that it’s possible U.S. adversaries could have been hiding in those types of text chains over long periods to learn about the tactics, techniques and procedures that will better position them next time to counter future operations.

“And most people don’t write about this aspect of it, but they can also learn from it and use information operations right back at the president, which they know how to target him very personally and convince him to do things or not do things. So there’s a lot in play here, which is well beyond just this one initial strike,” the former senior defense official said.

White said there’s an onus on government officials, now more than ever, to continue to handle sensitive, classified and top-secret information and distribute that information as securely as possible — because China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are constantly working to intercept U.S. communications for their benefit.

He and other cyber experts also expect major disruptions in the potentially not-so-distant future when quantum computing is fully realized and can be used with AI to break existing encryption services, including those that enable text messages to seemingly disappear after they are sent. 

“There will be no secrets. So in the same vein, we’re going to have to use artificial intelligence and quantum computing to create a robust encryption,” White said.

The officials who DefenseScoop interviewed additionally called on the government to use this incident as an opportunity to spotlight one concise policy about what is and isn’t permissible when using unclassified mobile apps for work-related chats. 

According to an official DOD memorandum published in 2023, “unmanaged messaging apps” including iMessage, Signal and WhatsApp are “NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information.”

“To me, it probably is clear already — but why not take advantage of this to come out with a policy that says, ‘here’s guidance,’” the former senior defense official said.

“We can’t afford to do this when we’re going against the Chinese adversary in the South China Sea — so we’ve got to learn from this,” they said. “We have to put some things in place to make sure something like this never happens again.”

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Feinberg, a billionaire investor and businessman with no previous experience working at the Defense Department, is now set to play a key role in shaping the U.S. military’s modernization efforts and managing DOD’s sprawling enterprise.

President Donald Trump tapped Feinberg to work with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to shake things up at the Pentagon.

Ahead of his confirmation hearing last month, Feinberg told lawmakers that if confirmed, he would “prioritize the review of the Department’s investments in future technologies to ensure that the Department’s investments are aligned with national security needs.”

He suggested that the high-profile Replicator autonomous systems initiative, launched during the Biden administration, would be part of such a review.

Feinberg noted that he would seek opportunities to eliminate what he considers wasteful spending and reinvest the savings in other programs.

“If confirmed, I expect to lead a thorough review of Defense Department spending, incorporating bottom-up and topdown reviews to ensure that the President’s priorities are funded within the guidance provided by the Office of Management and Budget,” he wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators. “I welcome the opportunity to work with Congress to improve efficiency and increase readiness by rapidly fielding innovative technologies, reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisitions process, and passing a financial audit.”

Feinberg has endorsed the integration of more uncrewed systems into the U.S. military’s arsenal.

“This evolution is crucial for increasing our capacity and augmenting our operational forces with new/novel technologies that will provide both lethal and non-lethal capabilities,” he told lawmakers, noting that he planned to look at related efforts across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF) and “advocate for changes that will capitalize on the pace of which technology is changing while ensuring robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard all of our capabilities.”

Feinberg was previously co-founder, co-CEO and chief investment officer for the global investment and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, which has invested in companies that do business with the Pentagon.

Feinberg told lawmakers that he had “dozens of ideas” about ways to improve the structure and operations of the DOD.

“I believe our program requirements need to be far less rigid, far less gold-plated, much easier to achieve, less costly, and much quicker to meet. We also need to stop changing the requirements once we set them. This is essential to be able to not only meet our program demands but also to meet them on time. This also enables us to have a much more nimble and agile acquisition capability that would also attract new entrants and promote more competition. This is not easy to achieve, but it can be done effectively,” he wrote.

Another idea he floated would be to “sponsor” private sector manufacturing companies to help them enter the DOD innovation ecosystem, including through “sole-source noncompetitive opportunities.”

“As we know, we have too few fully capable product providers at DoD as there has been way too much consolidation and too much concentration among the big major defense players. This reliance on a few companies leaves DoD very exposed. We have great manufacturing companies in the United States who are excellent in developing and scaling capabilities who aren’t working with DoD today,” he wrote.

“There are creative ways under the [Federal Acquisition Regulation] to provide sole-source noncompetitive opportunities for these large companies to motivate them and make it possible for them to enter the defense industry. Often these types of companies, despite their great capabilities, are not conversant in DoD process or practices and requirements and competing with our big defense majors is very difficult. Being creative to give them help and a big jumpstart in non-traditional ways may be frowned upon because this is a departure from traditional competition-based acquisition policy. But it can be done legally and is very necessary to bring a much bigger part of our large industrial base into the defense industry. We have seen this in the past during wartime, and this is so important today due to a dearth of large manufacturing companies who know how to scale who are currently servicing DoD,” he added.

He noted that the secretary of defense would have to give the green light to implement these types of concepts, suggesting that they need to be “carefully looked at and determined if they are possible.”

He also recommended bringing more people with private sector expertise — including experience working at tech companies — into government.

Feinberg comes into the job as personnel from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — spearheaded by Elon Musk — are examining Pentagon spending, and the DOD is reviewing contracting policies, procedures and personnel to comply with Trump’s DOGE directive.

As of Friday, some of Trump’s other nominees for high-level Pentagon jobs have yet to be confirmed, including Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Phelan as Navy secretary and Troy Meink as Air Force secretary, among others.

Last month, Trump removed Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown from his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations.

Trump’s pick for Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was confirmed in February. Hegseth narrowly won confirmation in January as secretary of defense.

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“I think that the building is not quite prepared for what’s about to happen to it. That’s my observation in the first 30 days,” noted Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense, referring to the Pentagon.

Carroll, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer with deep AI expertise, participated on a panel with defense and industry officials at the House Defense Modernization Caucus’ official re-launch for this session of Congress.

At the event, HDMC’s co-founders Reps. Rob Wittman, R-Va., and Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., also spotlighted some of the caucus’ near-term initiatives — including growing its bipartisan membership and driving legislative changes to transform how DOD adopts modern software and tech-enabled warfighting assets.

“I think we have a huge opportunity in the new administration. I’m very optimistic that there’s broad, bipartisan and sort of non-partisan recognition of the urgencies here. And disruption can be good as long as we’re thoughtful about it, which I think we will be. And we want to be part of driving that and making sure that that’s aligned with you all,” Ryan, an Army combat veteran, told attendees.

Broadly, the lawmakers suggested that in parallel with their Senate colleagues, the one-year-old caucus is keen to pinpoint and ultimately eliminate what they view to be unnecessary bureaucratic layers and processes that are hindering the DOD acquisition system. 

They each emphasized the need for more innovative “flexible funding” mechanisms to accelerate the delivery of new and quickly-evolving capabilities to the military — especially at the operational level.

“I think the caucus is a critical component of what’s necessary to inform both the authorization and appropriations process. The good news is that the authorizers and appropriators are starting to see what is necessary for us to do,” Wittman said.

“We’ve seen in the past when we’ve had significant changes, it is because Congress has acted. And we have to be unafraid of making big changes. Being constructively disruptive, that’s our key,” he added.

Government and industry officials on a separate panel also highlighted existing policy and contracting complexities that could be hindering the military’s progress, suggesting a need for both immediate and more lengthy institutional reforms to modernize how the Pentagon does business.

Carroll hinted at some of the potential changes in the pipeline from DOD’s new and incoming leadership team.

“I think you’ll see the administration do some interesting things with a concept called the DRPM, the Direct Reporting Program Manager, which is a formal acquisition concept that the services typically run,” he said, pointing to the Navy’s Overmatch program as one example.

“I think you’ll see that applied to some weapons systems and business systems directly to either the deputy or [acquisition and sustainment directorate] going forward [to move more quickly]. But you can’t do that with every weapon system and program in the department. So, we have to fix the longer-term foundation as well,” he explained.

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“This event is particularly special because it’s the first event of this caucus,” a congressional staffer told DefenseScoop on the condition of anonymity ahead of the meet-up.

The new group was originally launched in September 2024 by Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Two months after that [we sort of went] into a ‘lame duck’ Congress. So, the intent here is to essentially kick-start the caucus again — and to generate buzz there. We’re also going to be recognizing the new members [and use this as] a sort of recruiting tool for any prospective members who might want to join the caucus,” the staffer explained. 

The SDMC’s overarching mission is to promote defense investments and next-gen capabilities to deter and counter foreign adversaries. According to the staffer, an immediate topline goal for the lawmakers involved is to “get after” the process behind defense innovation.

“We as a government, as a military, need to move at the speed of relevance, which is to say, move at the speed of China. And with that comes an issue, not so much with a lack of innovation in our country — we have great innovators, but more so at the process that I guess disheartens innovators from staying within the defense industry,” they said. 

“So with this Congress, while still in its kind of nascent phases, I know it’s very important [for] Sen. Cramer to get after the processes, the bureaucracy … and kind of unleash that innovative spirit and mindset. That would be probably the biggest priority right now,” the staffer added. 

They confirmed that Cramer will not be in attendance on Wednesday, as he’s recovering in Bismarck, North Dakota, after slipping on ice and hitting his head over the weekend. He’s currently under doctor’s orders not to fly. 

“The senator’s bummed he’s missing it,” the staffer said, noting that he’ll be in close contact with co-chair Sen. Kelly about how it all goes.

DefenseScoop viewed a list of the more than 200 representatives from both chambers of Congress, different-sized companies and the Defense Department who RSVP’d to participate in person. Lawmakers from the Democratic, Republican and Independent parties — and notably several representing the House Defense Modernization Caucus — are expected to join the event.

Gen. James Rainey, who leads Army Futures Command, and Defense Innovation Unit Director Doug Beck were invited as “special guests” and will each provide remarks.

Members of Beck’s team told DefenseScoop ahead of the reception that he’s going to share new details about DIU’s high-level modernization aims for the next few years. Beck’s also likely going to spotlight some big-picture impacts, including that DIU has awarded nearly 550 prototype awards worth $2.4 billion — primarily to nontraditional vendors — to date.

On Wednesday, a second congressional staffer familiar with the plans also emphasized the dual role of caucuses on Capitol Hill.

“A lot of times caucuses are meant to be these public events that highlight good ideas, highlight good changes that can be made. And it’s a bit of a PR, it’s a PR platform. And then there’s the second part of caucuses that are meant to be idea factories — and so they can feed into the actual legislative work that’s going to get done in an NDAA. Obviously, caucuses are not official government organizations. So whatever comes out of this is meant to then be built into the work that we do in NDAA and other legislative vehicles,” they told DefenseScoop, referring to the annual policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

Both staffers suggested that moving forward, members of the new Senate caucus are keen to host more engagements that are open to the public. However, “what exactly that forum would be in the public space is still kind of being worked out at the staff level,” one told DefenseScoop.

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The top-down requirements process Ukraine’s military inherited from Moscow in the 1990s kept headquarters analysts employed but left 87 percent of needs unfulfilled. Today, warfighters get the final say in what gets built. Drones that once relied on GPS and luck now use automated navigation and targeting algorithms to overcome operator error and Russian jamming, raising success rates from 20 percent to 70 percent. The newest generation uses fiber-optic cable for communication to eliminate the threat of electronic interference.

The Pentagon’s approach to weapon development looks more like the one used by Soviet apparatchiks. Requirements officers in the Joint Staff and military services try to guess capability gaps and potential solutions years in advance. By the time these analyses emerge from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) two years later, the threat has changed, technology has marched on, and a different solution is likely needed.

By definition, predictive planning systems such as JCIDS cannot work in a dynamic environment. They define performance metrics before testing a single prototype because they assume cutting-edge defense systems can only arise from dedicated government-led research and development. That approach is now obsolete thanks to the rapid advance and broad availability of militarily-relevant commercial technology.

Ukraine’s successes show how the U.S. Department of Defense could unlock the potential of private-sector innovation through collaborative experimentation between engineers and operators. Instead of funneling their needs through a multi-year staffing process, Ukrainian commanders talk with local drone pilots and data scientists to identify problems and reach out to government offices that can pay for solutions.

Under Kyiv’s innovation model, a new uncrewed system concept can reach the battlefield in months, drawing on commercial AI to quickly adapt flight paths or identify targets in thousands of video streams. For example, a volunteer-driven missile team eschewed extensive predictive analysis and prototyped a new cruise missile in a year and a half — an unthinkable timeline under Ukraine’s previous Soviet-model bureaucracy.

Real-time operator feedback is essential to this approach. It defines what is “good enough” and helps program managers cut through the competing equities that often prevent a system from reaching the field. In less than a year, Ukraine’s military created Delta, a situational awareness system like the elusive Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept that the Pentagon has chased for nearly a decade. Coders started Delta with a single battlefield map and added new modules when soldiers asked for them. Now the system ties together thousands of drones, cameras, satellite feeds, and Western cannon and rocket artillery systems.

Instead of waiting for a glacial interagency process to dictate universal interoperability requirements, Delta’s developers iteratively add new elements and test them in the real fight. During NATO interoperability exercises in 2023, Delta proved the value of this bottom-up approach by sharing data via Link 16 with F-16 jets and integrating with Poland’s TOPAZ artillery fire control software. Delta reflects genuine cross-domain synergy, born out of emergent needs and continuous iteration, not years of staff approvals.

Ukraine’s success is not simply a fluke born out of existential desperation; it’s the logical consequence of removing unnecessary processes and letting warfighters shape the pipeline. While we in the United States prioritize box-checking staffing for documents that meet formatting guidelines and have all the right system views and appendices, Ukraine lets demand drive immediate action. This shift from central planning to distributed innovation has not only kept Ukraine in the fight but also opened the door to realizing advanced integrations like real-time targeting.

The Pentagon should take Ukraine’s combat lessons to heart and fund the work to find solutions for today’s problems. Requirements officers should stop trying to predict the future and begin collecting and refining operational challenges to drive experimentation. And acquisition executives should give innovative program managers and their industry partners the decision space to quickly develop systems that deliver relevant capability, use existing components, and can respond to future enemy countermeasures.

The DOD has experimented with new acquisition pathways and innovation initiatives that have these attributes. But “Band-Aid” solutions that speed up paperwork or create more prototypes don’t address the core problem: a requirements system that prioritizes predictive planning over operational results.

The Pentagon should retire centralized requirements processes such as JCIDS. In their place, the U.S. military services should fund focused campaigns of experimentation that test multiple solutions against clear operational problems, enable rapid learning from failure, and scale what actually works in realistic conditions. Until the DOD abandons its Soviet-style faith in headquarters apparatchiks and embraces structured experimentation driven by warfighters, it will continue to fall behind adversaries who are willing to adapt and learn.

Bryan Clark is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, and an expert in naval operations, electronic warfare, autonomous systems, military competitions and wargaming. Previously, he served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of the CNO’s Commander’s Action Group, led studies on the Navy headquarters staff, and was an enlisted and officer submariner in the Navy.

Dan Patt is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, where he focuses on the role of information and innovation in national security. Patt also supports strategy at national security technology company STR and supports Thomas H. Lee Partners’ automation and technology investment practice. Previously, he co-founded and was CEO of Vecna Robotics and served as deputy director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office.

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The new Pentagon chief, in a town hall with troops at the Pentagon, noted the threat posed by advanced adversaries such as China.

“President Trump asked me to not maintain the status quo. We’re going to take unconventional approaches. We’re going to move fast, think outside the box, be disruptive on purpose, to create a sense of urgency that I want to make sure exists inside this department. And that’s not to impugn anybody who’s been here, or anybody who’s sitting here, or anybody who’s watching. I don’t have to tell you all that we live in very dangerous times in a world with ascendant powers who, if they had their way, would love to be on the rise and reject the forces and capabilities and beliefs of the West. America is at the forefront of that, and wearing the uniform here at the department, it’s our job to ensure we create the deterrent effect that maintains American dominance in the world,” he said.

One of the main pillars of his approach will be to “rebuild our military.”

That includes a focus on America’s “defense industrial base, our acquisitions process, how we rapidly field new technologies, how we learn from conflicts around the globe, how we match what we fund to capabilities and effects. There’s a lot of programs around here that we spend a lot of money on that, when you actually war game it, don’t have the impact you want them to. One of the benefits I have is … I don’t have any special interests. I don’t have a background invested in any systems or services. I’m agnostic to that,” Hegseth said.

Historically, efforts to cut programs, especially high-dollar ones that involve major contractors and lots of jobs, have often faced opposition in Congress, at the Pentagon, and from industry.

The SecDef said he’s prepared to “take a lot of arrows” when he tries to shake things up.

“That’s fine. We need the best systems in the hands of warfighters, where they need it, to the [combatant commanders] to deter [and] send the signals that when that fight comes, we’re ready to win and win decisively,” he told service members.

Hegseth narrowly won confirmation two weeks ago to lead the Pentagon.

In his first message to the force that he released after he was sworn in, he highlighted the need to rapidly field emerging tech.

During his confirmation process, Hegseth pledged that as leader of the Pentagon he would prioritize investments in AI, drones and counter-drone systems, among other technologies that he considers key to military modernization.

Hegseth’s opening remarks at Friday’s town hall were publicly livestreamed but the video feed was turned off when he started to take questions from troops in attendance.

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Now the same kinds of partnerships can again help make the Defense Department more innovative and effective — and Americans safer. Military leaders recognize the imperative of forming these partnerships, but clearing away the bureaucratic roadblocks is far easier said than done.

The Pentagon established the Defense Innovation Board, which I have the honor of chairing, to help the department build its relationships outside of government and beyond the existing defense industry. Our role is to conduct independent research and interviews, and then offer recommendations for change to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and other senior leaders. In many cases, the capabilities that the department needs already exist. The difficulty lies in adopting and scaling them.

One area the board has been focusing on is changing the way the department treats data. In the private sector, data is an asset — a resource that can help an organization improve over time. In the military, however, good data is too often out of reach. Sometimes it’s not collected. Other times, it’s not digitized, just a pile of paper locked away in a cabinet. Sometimes the fastest way to retrieve and share it is to move it onto a disc and send it by snail mail. And even when that happens, data is only as good as the analytical tools that can unlock its promise, which the department often lacks.

In addition to those obsolete systems, contracts with companies too often limit the department’s access to the data they produce together. Outdated contracting practices resulted in the department losing control of intellectual property it should have retained. Ensuring more efficient, cost-effective operations can start with retaining more of that intellectual property in the first place. The challenge is to do it while also changing the way the department does business more broadly — and speeding up a traditionally show, clunky acquisition process.

The Pentagon, for example, is committed to buying the available commercial technology from the small firms or startups that make it, when it’s the right fit. The department’s Replicator initiative aims to deploy thousands of drones in 18 to 24 months instead of the typical five years. That’s a promising development, but a one-off project, no matter how successful, will not be enough to reform acquisitions department-wide. It also won’t be enough if the military continues to pour money into antiquated legacy systems.

The Pentagon will need to do more of what the Army did with its decades-old Raven and Shadow drone programs: cancel them. Changing tack and supporting more effective models takes on an even greater urgency now, as evidence piles up in Ukraine about the deficiencies of some drones made by U.S. startups.

There are many areas where acquisitions of high-tech weapons and other systems can be made both faster and less costly, including the purchasing of parts for large machinery. But, right now, the department lacks the ability to bypass the big prime contractors and turn to other vendors for support or competing bids. That drives up costs for taxpayers. The cost of the F-35, for example, has skyrocketed to over $2 trillion, even as it fails to meet the department’s goals for its capabilities.

Businesses should be fairly compensated for their products and services, but as it stands, the shareholders of the big prime contractors are getting rich while national security and taxpayers suffer. The public should not stand for this. If the prime contractors won’t at least work with the department to open the door to greater competition — which is both the ethical and patriotic thing to do — then Congress should pass a law forcing them to do it.

New tech is just one side of the defense innovation coin, though. Together, industry and the department must also develop the single most important asset either of them can have. The key to innovation isn’t hardware or software — it’s talented people. Whether in business or the military, smart thinkers need to be empowered to take risks when they see good opportunities. They also need to interact as closely and as often as possible, so that the sparks can fly.

The Marine Innovation Unit underscores the power of that kind of collaboration. It’s a reserve force staffed by people with experience in fields ranging from artificial intelligence and data analytics to business management and venture capital. They’re problem-solvers with private-sector experience and connections based not far from New York City.

In ordering the creation of the Marine Innovation Unit, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro sought to help the Marine Corps acquire new tech more quickly. In one instance, the unit helped the force study the available commercial options and buy new boats in under 12 months, a process that can typically take up to five years. In light of the unit’s early success, the military can look to replicate it near more tech hotbeds across the country, from Silicon Valley to the North Carolina research triangle, and from Austin to Boston.

The Defense Department is signaling its demand for a new era of innovation. There is a wealth of private-sector talent and capital eager to meet that demand. Both sides should seek opportunities to bridge the two — and foster the tech and talent that, as the Cold War showed, can defeat adversaries while also delivering enormous economic benefits to the American people.

Michael R. Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies and the chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. He served as mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. The views in this column are his own.

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