How the Pentagon buys, fields and pays for capability: programs, contracts, budgets and force structure.
The expected time for major defense acquisition programs to deliver an initial capability rose by 18 months in the past year, to almost 12 years from a program's start, per GAO's Weapon Systems Annual Assessment of June 11, 2025. Combined estimates for 30 major programs rose $49.3 billion, with…
The Department of Defense announced an Acquisition Transformation Strategy on November 7, 2025, that would replace the program executive offices at the center of Pentagon buying with "portfolio acquisition executives" empowered to decide and accountable for delivery, Defense Secretary Pete…
The US defense industrial base is the network of public and private facilities, suppliers, and workers that builds and sustains American weapons, and its weakness is visibility: GAO reported July 24, 2025 that DOD supply chain efforts are uncoordinated and give little insight into most…
The Pentagon's budget justification documents — the service-by-service books explaining what each requested dollar buys — have no appropriations bill to accompany them this fall, because the lapse that began October 1, 2025 has left the department on shutdown rules instead of enacted fiscal 2026…
Most Pentagon contracts keep running during the shutdown that began October 1, 2025, because DoD's September 2025 guidance says contracts are not terminated or paused unless new funding is needed or the work lacks excepted status. As of November 4, day 35 of the lapse, the effect is uneven, not…