Text taken from a news article which appeared in firstbreakfast.com
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] A number of American experts believe that the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) has long been a brake on military innovation and the rapid deployment of new technologies in the United States. Instead of ensuring flexibility and speed of decision-making, it has created an impenetrable bureaucratic environment, where the process of approving requirements can drag on for years before a project receives funding. In the context of global competition, especially with China, which is rapidly introducing advanced military technologies, the United States simply cannot afford such delays.
In an article titled “Time to Blow Up JCIDS,” published on the First Breakfast platform, authors Shyam Sankar, Madeline Zimmerman, and Greg Little sharply criticize the system and call for its radical reform. They cite research by Bill Greenwalt and Dan Patt of the Hudson Institute, which argues that the U.S. Department of Defense’s push for “jointness” has created a bureaucratic machine that actually stifles innovation and reduces combat effectiveness. Instead of allowing the military to quickly adapt to new challenges, JCIDS adds another layer of delay and complexity to an acquisition process that is already prohibitively long.
According to Greenwalt and Patt, it takes an average of 852 days (about 2.5 years) for JCIDS to approve a joint requirement before the program enters the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process, which takes about three years. That’s nearly six years of waiting before a military technology project is funded and can be put into production. In a world where technology changes every few months, that pace is simply unacceptable.
The authors note that the system is not focused on dynamic strategic analysis, but is completely mired in bureaucratic procedures. The focus is not on the actual assessment of combat requirements, but on paperwork and administrative formalities. This results in officers responsible for project evaluation spending time checking compliance with papers rather than analyzing their strategic importance. Moreover, any party in the process can use minor comments to block or delay the implementation of new solutions, which further exacerbates the problem.
Despite numerous statements from senior military officials about the need for reform, JCIDS continues to operate without changes. In response to this crisis, Greenwalt and Patt propose to abandon JCIDS entirely and replace it with a new mechanism, the Joint Operational Acceleration Pathway (JOAP). This approach is based on the concept of “operational imperatives” — short statements of critical warfighting missions that must be defined by the combatant commands and supported by the senior leadership of the Department of Defense. Instead of endless bureaucracy, JOAP will enable rapid development, prototyping, and iteration of military solutions in close cooperation between the various branches of the military.
The United States must immediately abandon the outdated bureaucratic model and move to a more agile and pragmatic approach. As Arseniy Dabbakh, founder of Dsight, notes, “true jointness is not about bureaucratic processes, but about creating effective feedback loops between the military and innovators that enable rapid improvements in warfighting capabilities.” A similar principle operates in China, where artificial intelligence systems, autonomous combat platforms and advanced drones are being developed and deployed many times faster than in the United States.
All of the experts listed agree that today's wars require flexibility and speed, not paralyzing bureaucracy. As long as JCIDS remains unchanged, the United States risks not only losing its technological superiority, but also being unprepared for future conflicts. Congress and the Pentagon must intervene immediately in reforming the procurement system, otherwise America risks ceding strategic leadership to its adversaries.
This also concerns us. During the war in Ukraine, a large number of problems were identified related to excessive military bureaucracy, which at best did not help, and at worst - harmed the cause.