Peace Through Strength Starts with Reforming the Pentagon
By Megan Milam
June 03, 2025
Former Navy Secretary John Lehman once quipped that the best way to enhance the defense procurement process was to take all its regulations and appeals paperwork and burn it in the Pentagon parking lot. He was onto something.
We can end decades of inefficiencies by simply cutting onerous regulations and updating outdated statutes governing defense procurement. Advances in military technology desperately demand the Pentagon change how it does business. Capitol Hill and the White House are poised to drive those changes.
While everyone recognizes the United States military needs the most advanced technology, it’s less understood that how it buys those weapons is outdated by at least 50 years. Federal acquisition requirements are a thicket of red tape, and congressional oversight of this regulatory mess has become similarly byzantine.
This bureaucracy-driven contracting regime no longer supports the core mission of the Department of Defense: ensuring our military has the tools to deter great power conflict. It shuts the door for opportunities to expand the defense industrial base, which would bring in new capacity and private capital to a sclerotic system.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/06/03/peace_through_strength_starts_with_reforming_the_pentagon_1114091.html
