A Battle Over Budget Authority
The Government Accountability Office has fired the latest salvo in a long-running debate about who should control the Pentagon's technology investments. In a new report, the congressional watchdog recommends granting "budget certification authority" to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, giving that office the power to review military department research and development budgets and determine whether they are adequate to meet the department's strategic technology priorities.
The recommendation strikes at a fundamental tension in the American defense establishment: the balance between centralized strategic direction and the autonomy of the individual military services. The Army, Navy, and Air Force each maintain their own research and development enterprises, with budgets that collectively total tens of billions of dollars annually. While the Office of the Secretary of Defense sets broad technology priorities, the services have traditionally exercised significant independence in deciding how to allocate their R&D spending.
The GAO's concern is that this decentralized approach leads to duplication, gaps, and misalignment with the joint force strategy that is supposed to guide the entire department. Without the authority to review and certify service budgets, the Pentagon's top technology leadership can identify priorities but cannot ensure that the services are actually investing in them.
The Services Push Back
The response from the military departments was swift and unequivocal. According to the GAO report, the Departments of the Army, Air Force, and Navy all disagreed with the recommendation. Their objections centered on several practical concerns: the potential for delays in an already slow budget process, the restriction of service autonomy in managing their own modernization programs, and the increased administrative workload that budget certification would entail.
These objections are not trivial. The defense budget process is already one of the most complex and time-consuming operations in the federal government, stretching over years from initial planning to final appropriation. Adding another layer of review could slow the process further at a time when speed of acquisition is widely regarded as a critical competitive advantage against potential adversaries like China and Russia.
The services also argue that they are best positioned to understand the specific technological needs of their domains. The Army's requirements for ground combat systems are fundamentally different from the Navy's needs for maritime platforms or the Air Force's priorities in aerospace and cyber operations. A centralized certification process, they contend, risks imposing one-size-fits-all judgments on inherently different technological ecosystems.
Critical Technology Area Roadmaps
At the heart of the GAO's critique is the finding that the Pentagon's research and engineering office has yet to ensure that its Critical Technology Area roadmaps consistently provide sufficient information for coordinated investment. These roadmaps are supposed to serve as the strategic backbone of the department's technology development efforts, identifying the technologies that are most important to national security and laying out the steps needed to develop them.
The GAO found that while the roadmaps identify broad technology areas, they often lack the specificity needed to guide actual investment decisions. Without detailed milestones, performance targets, and resource requirements, the roadmaps function more as aspirational documents than as actionable plans. This ambiguity makes it difficult for anyone, whether in the services or in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to assess whether the department's collective investment is adequate.
The report recommends that the roadmaps be strengthened to include more detailed technical and resource information, providing a common baseline against which service investments can be evaluated. This recommendation was less controversial than the budget certification proposal, as it does not directly challenge service autonomy but instead calls for better information to support decision-making at all levels.
Congressional Interest
The GAO's recommendations arrive in a congressional environment that is increasingly receptive to Pentagon acquisition reform. The Senate's draft of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act includes provisions for Portfolio Acquisition Executives, senior officials who would be responsible for coordinating acquisition efforts across service boundaries in specific technology domains. This concept aligns with the GAO's vision of stronger centralized oversight, though the details of implementation differ.
The House version of the NDAA takes a more cautious approach, requiring that these executives continue reporting to functional commands rather than operating with independent authority. The difference reflects a broader philosophical debate about whether the Pentagon's technology challenges are best addressed through tighter central control or through better coordination among autonomous services.
Reforming at the Speed of Relevance
The irony of the current debate is that it is taking place against a backdrop of urgent calls to accelerate the Pentagon's technology adoption. Senior defense leaders have repeatedly emphasized the need to field new capabilities faster, adopt commercial technologies more readily, and streamline the acquisition process to keep pace with adversaries who do not face the same bureaucratic constraints.
Pentagon leaders are already pursuing reforms aimed at achieving these goals. Initiatives to prioritize existing dual-use technology, meaning commercial products that can be adapted for military use, are designed to bypass the lengthy development cycles that have historically slowed defense innovation. Proposals to delegate purchasing authority to tactical commanders would allow units in the field to acquire the tools they need without waiting for approval from distant headquarters.
The GAO's recommendation for budget certification authority represents a different approach, one that emphasizes strategic coherence over speed. Whether these two priorities can be reconciled, giving the Pentagon both better coordination and faster execution, remains one of the central questions in American defense policy. The answer will shape the military's technological trajectory for years to come.
This article is based on reporting by Defense One. Read the original article.
