This update comes on the same day that the Government Accountability Office released a report that examines the Defense Innovation Unit’s effectiveness in identifying and fielding industry-built technologies at scale.

When DIU first launched in 2015, it was originally designed to help Defense Department components team with the commercial sector and harness cutting-edge tech at a faster and less costly rate than traditional government buying methods allowed at the time. The unit’s first phase, DIU 1.0, primarily focused on building a foundational bridge between DOD and the commercial tech sector. From there, the second phase was geared toward proving that the government’s innovation problems could be solved with private sector capabilities and prototyped quickly to meet military demands.

In February 2024, the unit’s chief Doug Beck publicly unveiled his team’s vision for “DIU 3.0”, the latest phase that places a sharp focus on scaling the organization’s efforts to help close the U.S. military’s most crucial capability gaps and support contemporary operations.

However, according to the findings in GAO’s 53-page congressionally mandated report, “DIU does not yet have clear insight into whether it is making progress to achieve its 3.0 strategic goal of helping DOD solve its most critical operational gaps.”

“This is because DIU does not have a complete performance management process to assess its results. In addition, DIU has not yet aligned the goals of NSIN and NSIC — DIU’s two new components — with the strategic goal for DIU 3.0,” officials wrote, using acronyms to refer to the National Security Innovation Network and National Security Innovation Capital.

NSIN and NSIC are mechanisms DIU uses to engage and support nontraditional defense partners. The two are being integrated and streamlined in the DIU 3.0 transition.

Watchdog officials conducted this performance audit from May 2023 to February 2025. Among a variety of steps to carry out the review, they reviewed heaps of documentation and guidance in the process, and analyzed DIU-provided data about prototype agreements awarded between fiscal 2016 and 2023.

“We met with a broad range of DIU and military department officials engaged in innovation efforts for the report. We had good dialog and helpful support from all,” GAO Director William Russell told DefenseScoop on Thursday.

This performance audit ultimately suggests that, although it’s been more than a year since DIU 3.0 was announced, the unit hasn’t set official standards or reporting measures to assess the workforce’s progress toward achieving this new strategic goal.

“The bottom line is DIU showed it can quickly prototype and deliver innovative commercial technologies to the warfighter under 2.0. As DIU focuses on 3.0 efforts to deliver technology at scale, setting performance goals and metrics can help its leaders better gauge progress and course correct as needed,” Russell said.

The organization’s timeline for that course correction was not immediately clear after the report was published, but Russell confirmed that “DIU and DOD agreed with all of the report’s recommendations and [GAO plans] to monitor efforts to implement them” moving forward.

A DIU spokesperson said over email that the unit’s leadership team welcomes GAO’s recommendations and “looks forward to meeting the new administration’s goals in providing new capabilities to the warfighter at both speed and scale.”

“Since the release of the DIU 3.0 strategy in late 2023, DIU has been implementing against the plan, formally integrating the NSIC and NSIN teams into a new Commercial Operations structure, embedding personnel into the Combatant Commands, re-evaluating current and future prototype projects in close partnership with the Services and other DoD components, establishing new bodies that help coordinate on DoD-wide innovation efforts like Replicator and the Defense Innovation Community of Entities that are designed to deliver critical capability fast while helping the Department build new muscle to do so again and again, and rethinking how we evaluate and measure successes on accelerating commercial technology into the DoD,” the spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

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Although SDA planned to validate the technology’s utility in Tranche 0 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), the agency “has not yet successfully demonstrated the full range of its laser communications technology in space using its new [optical communications terminal] standard” as of December 2024, the Government Accountability Office wrote in a new report published Wednesday. 

As a result, the watchdog is recommending that SDA complete testing of the “minimum viable product” for laser link technology before pursuing future efforts — otherwise the organization runs the risk of moving forward with the PWSA’s development without incorporating critical lessons learned.

On-orbit laser communications involves using optical communications terminals (OCTs) to transmitting data via laser links between satellites, as well as to receivers located on land, sea and in the air. The technology is considered to have several advantages over radio frequencies traditionally used by the Defense Department for communications, such as being able to send data faster and more securely.

Laser comms are central to SDA’s planned mega-constellation known as the PWSA, envisioned as hundreds of satellites stationed in low-Earth orbit that create a “mesh network” of data relay, missile warning and missile-tracking capabilities for the U.S. military. However, the agency has previously stated that proving out laser links will be a challenging technological hurdle — a fact also noted in GAO’s new report.

“[T]his technology is much more complex, and the Space Force is working with multiple vendors to develop it. Nevertheless, the number of vendors involved adds further complexity to the overall effort,” the document stated. “Among other things, the Space Force will need to ensure that different vendors’ satellite optical communications terminals (OCT), devices used to establish laser data transmission links, are able to communicate with each other.”

The watchdog noted that SDA has taken steps to prove the technology, such as developing a government OCT standard, conducting OCT laboratory tests and maturing various component capabilities. But overall, efforts to fully demonstrate space-based laser links on the agency’s experimental satellites known as Tranche 0 have not moved as quickly as expected, according to GAO. 

Delays have been largely attributed to supply chain challenges that pushed the constellation’s launch back by several months. SDA has also stalled in demonstrating laser links in orbit due to challenges in coordinating ground support and the agency’s prioritization of other technologies over laser communications, the report added.

“Specifically, as of December 2024, SDA reported that one of its four prime contractors in [Tranche 0] had demonstrated three of the eight planned laser communications capabilities while another contractor had demonstrated one of the eight capabilities,” GAO officials wrote. “The remaining two contractors have not yet achieved any planned capabilities.”

In January, York Space Systems and SpaceX announced they had successfully demonstrated a laser link connection between two of their Tranche 0 satellites. However, the GAO report emphasized that the two companies are using OCTs developed by the same subcontractor, meaning “SDA has yet to demonstrate a link between two OCT vendors in space as originally planned.”

Furthermore, the watchdog claims that the agency’s plans to launch the first operational batch of PWSA satellites — known as Tranche 1 — in the coming months without having fully demonstrated its enabling technology does not align with best practices for rapid delivery of complex tech.

Dubbed “spiral development,” SDA’s acquisition approach for the PWSA involves rapidly fielding systems through incremental “tranches” every two years, allowing for each phase to build upon previous iterations and ensuring warfighters are using the most advanced technology available.

“Our leading practices emphasize that prioritizing schedule — as SDA has done — and using an iterative development approach can support delivering products with speed to users,” the report stated. “However, our leading practices also note that speed cannot come at the cost of demonstrating critical capability.”

The watchdog noted SDA still intends to demonstrate a Tranche 0 mesh network before it launches Tranche 1 — although the agency will test only some of the capabilities it originally planned. At the same time, the report highlighted that SDA’s goal to dramatically increase both the number of PWSA satellites in orbit and the complexity of their capabilities could be compromised if the agency doesn’t have demonstrated success from previous tranches. 

“Since [Tranche 1] and [Tranche 2] are already in development, SDA may have limited opportunities to incorporate required design changes into those designs,” officials wrote. “Incorporating design changes in those tranches could potentially delay capability, meaning that laser communications capability required to support multiple DOD missions may not be available for the warfighter as planned.”

GAO said the Pentagon has concurred with the four recommendations in the report, but added that the department “believes it is already implementing our recommendations” — a position the watchdog disagreed with.

“The evidence presented throughout our draft and final report supports our view that SDA is not already taking the actions we recommend. We continue to believe SDA would benefit from taking steps aimed at implementing our recommendations,” GAO concluded.

The report’s release comes after weeks of controversy surrounding the Space Development Agency, which is currently having its semi-independent acquisition authority being reviewed by the Pentagon, according to a report from Breaking Defense. At the same time, the Department of the Air Force has placed SDA Director Derek Tournear on administrative investigative leave following a bid protest that has since prompted the agency to re-compete one of the PWSA’s contracts.

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A watchdog study published last year urged DOD to improve its frameworks, inventory processes and official approaches for incorporating the powerful, still-maturing technology. 

“All seven recommendations [the Government Accountability Office] made in that report are open,” GAO’s Director for Defense Capabilities and Management Alissa Czyz told DefenseScoop this week. 

Soon though, “GAO will be analyzing the [Pentagon’s new, 2023 data and AI] strategy and discussing it with DOD officials from the [Chief Digital and AI Office], and other offices, as part of our recommendation follow-up efforts,” she explained. 

Czyz, who joined the watchdog agency in 2004, oversees GAO’s pursuits associated with strategic warfare, intelligence, and government-wide personnel vetting. 

She and her team recently completed a study that revealed challenges the Pentagon and its nascent CDAO are presently confronting with identifying and forecasting the military’s AI workforce. In that report, the oversight investigators noted that, as of November 2023, “DOD had not fully implemented” any of the recommendations that were made in their earlier review on the Pentagon and AI.

GAO officials discuss the broad impacts associated with the Pentagon not implementing the seven suggestions, in the 2022 review’s “Conclusion” section.

“For example, we note that Congress and DOD decision makers do not have complete information about the number of AI activities and investments that comprise DOD’s AI portfolio. We further note that by issuing guidance and agreements that define the roles and responsibilities of the military services and other DOD organizations for leadership and participants collaborating on AI activities, DOD can avoid unnecessary fragmentation, duplication, and overlap in the future as DOD organizations adopt and integrate AI technologies,” Czyz told DefenseScoop.

The Pentagon released its updated “Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy” last month. The original guidance was first crafted in 2018 and then revised in 2021. 

Czyz noted this week that the forthcoming analysis of the DOD’s latest, revamped AI adoption strategy — which is happening “early in the new year” — could impact the status of GAO’s 2022 recommendations that remain open. 

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According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the department cannot completely pinpoint who all is part of its AI workforce or which positions demand AI-specific skill sets at this time, which also makes it impossible to fully grasp the current state of its AI staff or conduct effective future-planning that’s required.

“Since 2018, DOD has made organizational changes and is investing billions of dollars to incorporate AI technology into its operations. [The Chief Digital and AI Office, or CDAO] and other staff offices within the Office of the Secretary of Defense have taken some steps to define and identify DOD’s AI workforce. However, DOD has not formally assigned responsibility and does not have a timeline for completing the additional steps required to fully define and identify its AI workforce, such as coding the work roles in various workforce data systems, developing a qualification program, updating workforce guidance, and any other actions DOD may identify,” officials wrote in the report.

They further state that “DOD’s Human Capital Operating Plan is not fully consistent with its Agency Strategic Plan and Annual Performance Plan as it relates to AI workforce issues.” As a result, implementation could potentially vary across components.

The government watchdog conducted this performance audit from January 2022 to December 2023, based on a provision in the House report accompanying the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that explicitly required it to review DOD’s AI workforce. 

Pointing to some of the agency’s past research, GAO officials note in this latest report that “DOD is currently pursuing AI capabilities for warfighting that largely focus on (1) recognizing targets through intelligence and surveillance analysis, (2) providing recommendations to operators on the battlefield (such as where to move troops or which weapon is best positioned to respond to a threat), and (3) increasing the autonomy of uncrewed systems.”

Some potential forthcoming uses for the department, they also note, include “fusing data to provide a common operating picture on the battlefield; supporting semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles; and operating lethal autonomous weapon systems.”

The Pentagon did identify certain military and civilian occupations (like computer scientists) that execute on AI work for defense purposes. Via their audit, GAO’s analysts also verified that DOD has developed specific AI work roles — or “specialized sets of tasks and functions requiring specific knowledge, skills, and abilities.” 

Among other results, though, GAO also found that Pentagon leadership has “not assigned responsibility to the organizations necessary” to complete specific additional steps that are “required to define and identify its AI workforce” — like coding the work roles in various workforce data systems and updating guidance — or a timeline to address those.

The watchdog recommended that the secretary of defense “should ensure the CDAO assigns responsibility to complete the additional steps necessary to fully define and identify DOD’s AI workforce,” and that the office establishes a clear timeline for the effort.

The Pentagon chief also “should ensure that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness updates the Human Capital Operating Plan to be consistent with the Agency Strategic Plan and Annual Performance Plan relating to AI workforce issues in the next annual review,” officials wrote.

The Defense Department pushed back on some of the GAO’s findings and inclusions in the study. In its official response, the Pentagon partially concurred with each of GAO’s three recommendations after viewing a draft of the report ahead of its release — but also proposed explicit revisions of the recommendations. 

For instance, GAO officials note that the department “proposed that we revise the wording of the first two recommendations to include the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness as a coordinating office.” 

“We applaud DOD’s emphasis on stakeholder coordination and recognize the value that coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and others, such as the Chief Information Officer, can add to the department’s efforts to define and identify the AI workforce. However, we did not make this change to the recommendations because of the CDAO’s existing ability to coordinate with the Under Secretary of Defense,” they wrote. 

On those first two recommendations, DOD officials also argued “that there is a conflation of workforce definition and identification processes for work roles compared to occupational series,” and inaccuracies regarding the order of operations and other GAO recommendations, the report noted.

Watchdog officials took issue with that Pentagon assessment.

“We do not agree that we conflated workforce definition and identification processes for work roles compared to occupational series. We based our analysis on [Office of Personnel Management] and DOD guidance. DOD did not describe or elaborate on how the processes might be conflated in its written response or in its technical comments provided along with the response to our draft report,” they stated.

The agency’s three recommendations for DOD remain open.

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Uncle Sam relies heavily on products and services such as computing systems, software and networks, to perform its missions, the GAO noted in a report published Thursday.

“Federal agencies have rapidly increased their reliance on commercially available products, contractor support for custom-built systems, and external service providers for a multitude of ICT solutions,” the watchdog wrote. “Many of the manufacturing inputs for these ICT products and services — whether physical materials or knowledge — originate from a variety of sources throughout the world. As a result, the federal government has also increased its reliance on complex, interconnected, and globally distributed supply chains that can include multiple tiers of outsourcing.”

Threats posed by foreign intelligence services or counterfeiters who could try to exploit vulnerabilities in the supply chain, are among the “numerous ICT risks that can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of an organization’s systems and the information they contain,” according to the GAO.

Of the seven “foundational” practices for managing supply chain risks that GAO focused on in its report, the Pentagon has fully implemented four but only partially implemented three, the watchdog found.

The partially implemented risks management practices include developing an agencywide ICT risk management strategy, establishing a process to conduct a risk management review of a potential supplier, and developing organizational procedures to detect counterfeit and compromised ICT products before they’re deployed.

The fully implanted risk management practices include establishing oversight of ICT risk management activities, establishing an approach to identify and document agency ICT supply chains, establishing a process to conduct agencywide assessments of ICT supply chain risks, and developing organizational ICT risk management requirements for suppliers.

“Regarding the three partially implemented practices, the department has begun several efforts that are not yet complete. For example, the department has developed a risk management strategy but has not approved guidance for implementing it. DOD has also piloted the use of several tools to review potential suppliers but the review of the results is ongoing. However, DOD did not specify time frames for when these actions would be completed. Fully implementing the three remaining practices would enhance the department’s understanding and management of supply chain risks,” the watchdog said in its assessment, which was mandated by Congress in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

The GAO made three recommendations to the Pentagon: have its chief information officer commit to a time frame to fully implement an agencywide ICT supply chain risk management strategy; have the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and the CIO commit to a time frame to fully implement a process to conduct risk management reviews of potential suppliers; and have the undersecretary for A&S and the CIO commit to a time frame to fully implement organizational counterfeit detection procedures for products prior to deployment.

The Defense Department concurred with all three recommendations, according to the GAO.

The Pentagon expects to finalize the draft of an enterprise ICT supply chain risk strategy in September, per the report.

“Regarding our second recommendation stating that the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and DOD CIO commit to a time frame to fully implement a process to conduct ICT SCRM reviews of potential suppliers … the department identified several key policies it is in the process of updating to incorporate relevant policies and procedures, as appropriate,” the GAO wrote.

The department also told the watchdog that it expected to complete its pilot efforts to evaluate various ICT counterfeit detection tools and development of related policies and procedures in fiscal 2023, and to incorporate those policies and procedures into departmentwide policy by the end of March 2024.

“If implemented effectively, the actions DOD described in its comments would address our recommendations,” the GAO stated.

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The ability to rapidly develop and deliver software is a key element of the Pentagon’s modernization plans to respond to adversary threats. The department’s Software Modernization Strategy from 2022 notes that these efforts will require a shift in the DOD’s workforce, and that developing, training and recruiting employees are “critical aspects of software modernization.”

A GAO report published Thursday noted that “building a workforce — with critical skills and competencies — that can implement these reforms is foundational to all of DOD’s planned actions. Until DOD determines when and how it will conduct effective workforce planning for its software workforce, its ability to implement its planned actions and meaningfully transform its software acquisition practices as intended remains in question.”

The Defense Department has taken initial steps in planning for the future software workforce by identifying and defining key software engineering roles necessary for the Pentagon’s plans to swiftly deliver capabilities, the report said. 

A DOD official told the watchdog organization that they are collecting data to identify department-wide information on its current software workforce composition, expertise and skill sets, but added that these efforts are challenging because these employees work across a wide variety of occupations. 

It’s estimated to take from 12 to 18 months to collect this data, which will be used to help determine what resources the Defense Department will need to stand up a robust software workforce, officials told the GAO.

The report emphasized, however, that identifying the workforce is only the beginning of a longer process to ensure the Defense Department will have the people needed to carry out its plans for software modernization. With the current focus on collecting internal data, the department has not yet determined how it plans to execute a broader strategic workforce planning process, it said.

“Strategic workforce planning for software modernization efforts is likely to take a number of years and will need to involve the coordinated efforts of management, employees, and key stakeholders across DOD,” the report said. “Developing a department-wide strategic workforce plan for DOD’s software workforce—including strategies tailored to address gaps in the critical skills and competencies—will help position DOD to execute next steps in this planning process and achieve future software modernization goals.”

Once its existing software workforce is identified, the GAO recommends that relevant entities use that information to develop a department-wide software workforce plan.

The Defense Department “partially concurred” with the recommendations, adding that the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment plans to work with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness in developing a “targeted strategic workforce plan that will address any identified skills or competency gaps,” the report said.

The findings within the GAO report aren’t the first time red flags have been raised regarding the DOD’s software workforce. Separate reports from the Defense Science Board and the Defense Innovation Board released in 2018 and 2019, respectively, called on the Pentagon to develop a cadre of software developers, as well as relevant training curriculums.

The GAO report did acknowledge that the Defense Department has taken several steps in recent years to transform how it develops and buys software. For example, the Pentagon has embraced acquisition strategies that promote agile development and stood up its software factory ecosystem.

The watchdog is also suggesting that the department take other actions, including finalizing implementation plans for future software modernization efforts, to ensure it is poised to implement its goals. 

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Over the past couple of decades, the DOD divested much of its capabilities and tactics in this realm, ceding the ground to others such as Russia and China and forcing the Pentagon to play catch-up, according to some observers.

“Fundamentally, information operations is a critical part of modern warfare. Our enemies are using it. We’ve actually used it effectively in the past. But our current capabilities are way behind the times. We are losing the information warfare fight,” Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a member on the House Armed Services Committee, told DefenseScoop.

In his view, the DOD doesn’t sufficiently approach information operations as a critical warfighting function, but as just “one minor tool” in its toolkit.

Others say the Pentagon has had trouble with implementation.

“What we found a lot of times is that the department has been really great strategy-wise. They’ve set out a vision and they’ve set out the things they really want to do — and in some ways, what they need to do to get there,” Joseph Kirschbaum, a director in the Government Accountability Office’s defense capabilities and management team, told DefenseScoop. “The way I always put that in shorthand terms is the department tends to be long on strategy and short on implementation. That’s where the struggle has been definitely in the information environment area is the ability to implement the vision that they’ve set out for themselves.”

The DOD has taken some steps recently to begin shining the light on information operations again, including highlighting its importance in the newly updated National Defense Strategy, which was publicly released Oct. 27.

“Deterrence depends in part on competitors’ understanding of U.S. intent and capabilities. The Department must seek to avoid unknowingly driving competition to aggression. To strengthen deterrence while managing escalation risks, the Department will enhance its ability to operate in the information domain — for example, by working to ensure that messages are conveyed effectively. We will work in collaboration with other U.S. Federal departments and agencies along with Allies and partners,” the document said in a section about the role of information in deterrence.

Moreover, the strategy notes that tailored information operations can be used to support and maybe even lead the DOD’s response to adversaries’ coercion attempts.

The department is also still working to meet several mandates Congress directed in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The provision, which created the principal information operations adviser, among other things, directs the DOD to update the 2016 Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment and designate a joint force trainer for information operations and a joint force provider for information operations — much how U.S. Cyber Command is the joint force trainer and provider for cyber.

The draft 2023 strategy “reinforces many of the same themes from the 2016 strategy to include people and organizations, programs, policies and governance and partnerships,” a DOD spokesperson told DefenseScoop, adding they expect to publish it this year.

One top official said DOD needs more time to experiment before identifying a joint force trainer and provider.

“We’ve been required to identify a joint IO force trainer and joint IO force provider, in much the same way as U.S. Cyber Command is the joint force trainer and joint force provider for cyber forces, but we can’t do that until we’ve experimented more with these different capabilities with the right mix of space, cyber, electronic warfare and psychological operation forces to do these types of missions,” Maj. Gen. Matthew Easley, deputy principal information operations advisor in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, said at an NDIA-hosted event on Oct. 12.

Since information operations, along with the much larger information environment, are so all-encompassing, what Congress is likely looking for with this provision is to integrate all facets together, Kirschbaum said.

The information environment “involves offensive, defensive elements, protecting individual, it crosses elements of operational security, information security … it crosses over into cyber and [electromagnetic spectrum operations] areas,” he said. “That is a huge, daunting task to think about in terms of integrating existing plans, existing doctrines, and existing training in order to make sure that the joint force is getting the right consistent training across those areas so they understand where all the integrations are. They can test them out, they can find out where things aren’t working and then make changes and immediately test them again.”

Part of the concern for Congress and others is the confusion of lexicon. Information warfare, more broadly, encompasses a raft of capabilities such as information operations, cyber, electronic warfare, psychological operations and others. However, there is no set definition for the term.

In fact, each of the services has gone down its own path regarding terminology, with the Marine Corps opting for “operations in the information environment,” the Air Force and Navy “information warfare,” and the Army “information advantage.”

Kirschbaum noted that it can be tough to get all the services on the same page.

“It’s also true that DOD continues to have a hard time running herd on individual services because they will go their own way and use the term. Some services will absolutely want to use the term ‘information warfare’ all the time. Some want to use ‘information operations’ and some want to just use ‘operations in the information environment,’” he said. “They are all roughly talking about the same things. It is hard to expect that the department will always have a universally accepted lexicon for those things.”

However, Congress is now trying to force the military to develop the same lexicon. It has so far failed to do so as outlined in the same NDAA provision that created the principal IO adviser office. As a result, in this year’s NDAA, the House side will be withholding travel funds if the department doesn’t develop joint terms.

“Information operations have been a real focus area for our members, particularly given what’s going on in Ukraine. Right now, each service defines information operations differently,” a committee aide told reporters in June. “If you were to go to the Army and say, ‘How do you define information operations?’ that would actually be different than how the Navy defines it, which makes synchronizing these capabilities often very difficult.”

“As a nudge and a push, we’re doing a funding limitation of the office of the secretary of Defense travel … to encourage and really push the department to do that work, which we’ve seen is really important and important to the members,” the aide added.

Congressional concern

In the fiscal 2020 NDAA, Congress outlined several directives DOD must meet to bolster its prowess in the information domain. For many members, the Pentagon simply hasn’t been doing enough.

“I am concerned the Department leadership has been slow to adapt to the changing nature of warfare in this domain,” Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems, said in opening remarks during a hearing last year.

“Too often, it appears the Department’s information-related capabilities are stove-piped centers of excellence with varied management and leadership structures, which makes critical coordination more difficult. Further, the Pentagon has made limited progress implementing its 2016 Operations in the Information Environment Strategy, which raises questions about the Department’s information operations leadership structure,” he added.

Moulton, who has taken a keen interest in this space, had a sharp line of questioning for DOD officials during an April hearing, asking if the department has the right organizational structure for information operations. The official noted that they’d have to get back to the committee.

“You saw from that line of questioning how the DOD was completely unprepared to answer even the most basic questions about how information operations is structured within the department,” he told DefenseScoop. “This is not just a theoretical problem. One of the most common themes I hear from commanders in the field is that they’re doing great work and they have no way to communicate it effectively to the broader environment, to the people and the places they’re operating. And I’ve heard this all over the world.”

Moulton is also concerned that information ops is too nestled within the cyber domain.

The DOD has “subordinated it under cyber, when really cyber is just one of many delivery methods for information operations,” he said.

Signs of improvement

It’s not all bad news, however, as some believe there is progress being made.

Kirschbaum pointed to the office of the principal IO adviser and the activities that office is undertaking.

“I’m pleased with the momentum right now because frankly, the momentum really wasn’t there a few years ago when we were looking at the state of their implementation planning and their strategies,” he said. “The temptation for them was just every time they did a strategy and they couldn’t really follow through on it … Rather than trying to get that implementation going, they just stopped and started rewriting a strategy again. This time, they seem to be a lot more serious about the implementation part … That’s in no small degree due to the fact that they’ve been getting a lot of pressure from Congress to do just that.”

The Joint Staff in September updated its doctrine for Information in Joint Operations, which Kirschbaum also welcomed.

He explained that while not the most glamorous topic, once doctrine is established, it lays the foundation for how to fight, allowing the DOD to move forward in establishing training, capabilities and policy, among other focus areas.

Others noted that while this is a positive step, the proof will be in the pudding in terms of how it actually gets implemented and adopted by commanders.  

Similarly, other services have either published or are readying strategies and doctrine in this space to include the June publication of Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication-8, Information, the Air Force’s Operations in the Information Environment Strategic Plan — which was released in early 2022 but is not publicly released yet — and the Army’s information advantage doctrine, which officials say should be published at the end of next year.

Moulton noted other bureaucratic challenges.

“I spoke with a [Marine Expeditionary Unit] commander, who certainly recognized the criticality of these resources, but I still didn’t see any department-level coordination, or I didn’t see effective department-level coordination for what’s going on,” he said. “What that means is that someone at a junior level can have something to communicate to people in the area he or she is operating [in] and it often takes too long to coordinate or approve what they want to send out.”

Moulton would like to see a better and faster structure to be more adaptive to this dynamic environment.

“What they need to develop is a structure that is especially nimble and fast,” he said. “Right now, approvals for information operations can take days or weeks. The end result of these reforms has to be that we’re not only good at information operations, but we’re fast.”

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In its annual weapon system assessment, the GAO asserted that despite steps being taken in recent years to modernize its software development and acquisition approach, the majority of major defense acquisition programs and middle-tier acquisition programs reviewed “reported delivering software to users much less frequently, sometimes a year or more.”

“Modern software development approaches, such as Agile, emphasize early and continuous software delivery, and fast feedback cycles so that software is being continuously evaluated on functionality, quality, and user satisfaction,” the report said, noting that 39 of 59 major defense acquisition programs and middle-tier acquisition programs reported using at least one modern software approach.

The Defense Innovation Board as well as commercial agile practices encourage delivery of working software to users as frequently as every two weeks, GAO said. Information from frequent iterations can assist in measuring progress and allowing developers to respond faster with feedback on technical glitches and risks.

DOD officials said they consider a software delivery goal of six months to a year as more suitable to account for the safety and security requirements of many of its systems.

Additionally, GAO found 59 programs reported little progress on implementing five practices on recommendations made by the Defense Science Board in 2018 to improve software development. While 39 programs said they use a modern approach, only 10 use a software factory, which was a base recommendation by the Defense Science Board underlying all others.

GAO did note that in February, DOD issued a new software modernization strategy for which several of its goals are consistent with the aforementioned practices such as using software factories.

GAO also discovered that programs continue to report workforce challenges related to software development efforts.

Over half of the programs reported at least one workforce challenge this year, with the most common challenge reported being finding staff with required expertise.

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In February, DISA issued a contract award worth up to $11.5 billion to Leidos for Defense Enclave Services, an effort to consolidate the networks of the department’s non-warfighting support agencies known as the “Fourth Estate.” However, on March 10 General Dynamics Information Technology filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office.

“GDIT challenges DISA’s conduct of discussions, technical evaluation, price evaluation, past performance evaluation, and the resulting tradeoff decision,” according to a source familiar with the protest who requested anonymity to discuss the situation.

GAO’s decision is expected no later than June 20.

Defense Enclave Services is a high priority for the Pentagon.

Under the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, which has a potential 10-year period of performance with a base ordering period that runs through February 2026 and three optional two-year periods to extend, Leidos was tasked to lead the Fourth Estate Network Optimization (4ENO) initiative — an effort to move 22 agencies and field activities to a single platform.

The new platform, called DoDNET, will house common IT elements like personnel, contracting and communications systems. Leidos was chosen to lead the management and operation of the greater network architecture and to be responsible for helping the agencies optimize their IT portfolios in the move over to the single platform.

“We have to evolve the [Defense Agencies and Field Activities] from unique information environments to a single digital enterprise. This will address the cost, security and integration issues that result from having separate networks, compute, and cybersecurity services and it will allow us to establish the modern infrastructure foundation and unified architecture needed to deliver cohesive combat support capabilities to the warfighter,” Don Means Jr., director of DISA’s Operations and Infrastructure Center, said in a statement after the contract award was announced.

Unifying the 22 agencies on a single, streamlined network will provide cost-efficiency, defendability from cyberattacks and agility for modern IT development by eliminating “unnecessary complexity within the IT space,” DISA said in a release.

Matthew Moriarty, a member at Schoonover & Moriarty LLC, who specializes in federal government contracting litigation, said he isn’t surprised that such a lucrative contract award is being protested by a company that lost the competition.

“When you’re talking about dollar figures of this amount … I would consider it unusual to not see a protest,” Moriarty told FedScoop.

Moriarty is not involved in this dispute over Defense Enclave Services, and he declined to discuss the merits of GDIT’s case and the likelihood that it will succeed, noting that he hasn’t seen any documentation related to it.

But speaking of these types of bid protests more broadly, “I think that these companies spend a great amount of time and effort on their proposals, and they genuinely believe that they should have been selected to receive these contracts,” he said. “When you talk about $11 billion, it’s not a hard decision to make to try to stay in the fight.”

He added: “I don’t want to be cynical about it either because, you know, a lot of work goes into these proposals and … these companies genuinely believe that they are providing the best option. I am not trying to suggest that it’s just part of the game. I’m saying the sunk cost analysis would indicate that you’re not losing a lot” by protesting.

Large IT services programs can be especially competitive because of the number of providers that can potentially do the work, he noted.

One potential outcome of the Defense Enclave Services dispute is the Government Accountability Office sustaining GDIT’s protest. When GAO sustains a protest, it typically recommends that the agency that issued the award reevaluate the proposals and determine a new awardee, Moriarty explained.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean [there will be] a different awardee, it just means a different evaluation process,” he said. “What GAO is saying when it sustains a protest is that it believes that there was an error in the process that led to the award decision. And it’s not going to necessarily suggest that you start over at the beginning with a fresh procurement, but it may suggest start over at the beginning of your evaluation process and reevaluate proposals.”

If a new award decision is made, the loser of that competition could make another protest bid, according to Moriarty.

“They would not be precluded from bringing another GAO protest because it would be a new award decision,” he said. “It would be a new decision … that they would have a right to challenge.”

It’s also possible that GDIT’s protest will be denied.

“If all the [government contracting] paperwork is bulletproof for lack of a better word, then GAO is going to deny the protest and … you would think that the parties involved would take a look at that, you know, and examine whether it would make sense to keep fighting,” he said.

If it loses its bid protest at the Government Accountability Office, GDIT could choose to take its arguments to a different venue — the Court of Federal Claims — to continue the legal battle, Moriarty noted.

“Ultimately, it could turn into a protracted fight, or perhaps not,” he said.

GDIT, Leidos and DISA declined to comment about the bid protest.

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