Description:

The Section 809 Panel reports represent the culmination of more than 2 years of collective brainstorming, engagement, and intense research about how to change defense acquisition from an outdated, industrial-era bureaucracy to a more streamlined, agile system able to evolve in parallel with the speed of technology innovation. The Section 809 Panel proposed both evolutionary and revolutionary changes. The panel’s recommendations, in part, will allow DoD to make purchases in a manner similar to the way private-sector businesses do—which is difficult, and in some cases impossible under the current acquisition system. If implemented, these recommendations would reduce barriers that deny DoD timely access to innovative technology and creative solutions from nontraditional companies and bridge the technical superiority gap that is beginning to develop today between the United States and near-peer competitors and nonstate actors.

To defend against potential enemies, DoD must move to a war footing approach for acquiring and delivering capabilities to ensure warfighters have the tools they need. The DoD acquisition system’s ability to meet threats that exist today is questionable. DoD lacks flexibility the nation’s near-peer competitors have, limiting its ability to field innovative solutions before potential adversaries do. In deliberating its recommendations, the Section 809 Panel considered ways in which DoD still uses Cold War-era approaches while operating in a cyber-war-era society. In total, 98 recommendations were made by the Panel in 3 volumes and an interim report. It was no small task to tackle the formidable challenges facing the United States as it strategizes how best to defend its citizens and interests when the pace of technological change dramatically affects the nature of the threats the nation faces and the capabilities at its disposal. Ultimately, the Section 809 Panel aimed to make recommendations that allow DoD to deliver and sustain technologically superior capability inside the turn of near-peer competitors and nonstate actors.