Opinion / Acquisition, Strategy

Bad Idea: Expecting the Private Sector to Drive Innovation in National Security

It’s bipartisan Washington gospel that America’s private sector will deliver the innovation the country needs. However, at the front-end of an era of rapid, disruptive technological change in which global competition is heating up, such expectation is increasingly a bad idea without a far more strategic, centralized, and White House-driven approach to the challenges ahead.

Analysis / Acquisition

The Year of the Industrial Base

The industrial base review coupled with policy and strategy documents gives DoD and its inter-agency network a great deal of homework for the upcoming year. While it is clear that the Department will be rigorously working toward supporting and reinvigorating industries as well as deeply engaging with its partners and allies, it will have to overcome the challenge of the competing interests associated with these two core strategic goals.

Analysis / Acquisition

Acquisition Trends 2018: Executive Summary

Acquisition Trends 2018: Defense Contract Spending Bounces Back analyzes the current state of affairs in defense contracting at a time when the defense acquisition system sits at an inflection point. Defense contracting has rebounded these past two years, but there are unanswered questions about continued defense budget growth and the long-term effects of the last few years’ acquisition reform efforts.

Analysis / Acquisition, Budget, Forces, Reform, Strategy

Defense Outlook 2018: Report

As the Trump administration has moved into its second year in office, it has laid out its vision for national security. This volume presents CSIS experts’ assessment of the Trump administration’s strategy documents and FY 2019 budgets for defense.

Analysis / Acquisition

A Strategic Approach to Defense Investment

The NDS issues an urgent call to action to a community—the National Security Innovation Base—that has never been called out so explicitly before. The strategy calls upon the National Security Innovation Base to gear up for a “long-term strategic competition” to maintain DoD’s technological advantage. Significantly, the strategy states that the accelerating pace and increasingly commercial nature of technological advancement will require the National Security Innovation Base to adopt “changes to industry culture, investment sources, and protection.”