WASHINGTON — With an eye toward technological competition with China, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a lofty \u201ccall to arms\u201d for the American businesses to work with the Pentagon, to \u201cbring the American way of war to the 21st century\u201d and together \u201cmeet this moment with all the innovation and ingenuity that America can muster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One problem? There are few Senate-confirmed acquisition officials at the Pentagon to welcome them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly a year into President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, the U.S. defense industrial base<\/a> is confronting a supply chain crisis<\/a>, challenges implementing Biden\u2019s vaccine mandate, congressional budget gridlock<\/a> and unpredictability about how the Pentagon will use new authorities to quickly buy and field cutting-edge tech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, only about half of the defense nominees<\/a> Biden has sent to the Senate have been confirmed, and the president has yet to nominate officials for key acquisition and sustainment jobs. Where critical jobs are vacant, career civilians lead in their place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be sure, there are longstanding leap-ahead efforts at the Pentagon. In his speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum<\/a> in California, Austin pointed to DARPA<\/a> programs, small business grants and Pentagon-sponsored innovation hubs<\/a>, all meant to \u201ctransform the way that we do business\u201d and put advances in unmanned systems, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence in the hands of troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, defense advocates say the vacancies slow the U.S. military as it races to compete with China and undermine effective stewardship of billions of dollars of acquisition and sustainment programs across the military. Temporary office-holders often lack the authority and direction to carry out major bureaucratic reforms or take new approaches, they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCongress has actually given quite a few authorities to accelerate acquisitions \u2015 but the regulations to apply it, the leadership to go out and do it, is just not happening,\u201d National Defense Industrial Association President Herbert \u201cHawk\u201d Carlisle told Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Pentagon drafts its National Defense Strategy and builds its annual budget, which accounts for more than half of the government\u2019s discretionary spending, its acquisition community \u2015 typically a key voice for modernization \u2015 will have limited representation by Senate-confirmed senior officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\t