Welcome to a special series on the acquisition talk podcast that gives you an audiobook tour of my research project titled, Programmed to Fail: The Rise of Central Planning in Defense Acquisition 1945 to 1975. I’m Eric Lofgren of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. You can find this book for free and over 1,300 blog posts on my website, https://AcquisitionTalk.com.

This series traces the rise of the modern system for acquiring weapons between 1945 and 1975. It documents how pluralistic methods of market-like competition were replaced by industrial era concepts of top-down control. Technology developments became treated like reproducible goods moving down an assembly line. More decisions were consumed by an overly centralized bureaucracy obsessed with perfection on paper rather than experimentation and rapid scaling of what works.

This series argues that failure is built into modern defense acquisition. Attempts to detail financial plans by program output has corrupted the decision-making process. Hundreds of requirements are levied from all corners of the bureaucracy. Dozens of approvals are required to authorize funds. Years pass before the program can proceed, and once it does, plans become locked-in for five, ten, or twenty years into the future. The programming aspect of the budget is the ultimate source of rigidity in acquisition. Hence, the series title Programmed to Fail.

This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

Programmed To Fail - Introduction

In this final episode of Programmed to Fail, we explore the true importance of reforming the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process in the Department of Defense. Some may say that it is only a poor craftsman who blames his tools, that it is deficiencies in the workforce rather than problems of the acquisition and budgeting systems that are holding weapons innovation back. But certainly, it is not the lack of quality and drive in the people that has held North Korea back relative to their neighbors in South Korea, or that has stymied the growth of nations in the former Soviet Union. It was the ideologies of the political economy thrust upon the people that so devastated their culture. 

The PPBE is a similarly radical break from American values and traditions that has left good people burdened by a bad process. No longer can the defense acquisition workforce take joy in their hefty responsibility. No longer can the workforce see themselves in their work. They are tossed about in a system too large for them to affect, and the workforce is expected to be like a caretaker driving a train down pre-set tracks, rather than an explorer, a creator, and a builder with intrinsic value. Fulfilling individual desires to contribute to national security will more rapidly accelerate our common security than any top-down optimization and 30-year lifecycle plan. The problem is how large groups of people can be coordinated to achieve an end that is beyond the comprehension of any small group or plan. That is what we will explore in this final chapter of Programmed to Fail.

This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

Programmed to Fail - 10. Culture

A podcast on the management, technology, and political-economy of weapon systems acquisition.

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