Frank Kendall, defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, has said the lack of funds to support new product development efforts within the Defense Department will pose a challenge for the U.S. to maintain its military advantage, DoD News reported Sunday.
“What we need is the money that will make things into real products and put them in the hands of our warfighters… That’s where we need to rebuild,†Kendall said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California.
Kendall cited the need for adequate budget and efforts to end sequestration and put financial resources in order as factors that must be prioritized if the Pentagon were to rebuild, Terri Moon Cronk writes.
“The first order of business for the new administration should be to look at the health of the [national defense] enterprise and to understand all the different elements of that enterprise — not just at its near-term immediate requirements, but five, 10, 15, 20 years down the road,†he added.
Kendall also commented on the final version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that would remove and split the AT&L role into two positions in which an undersecretary will focus on acquisition and sustainment and another one will handle research and engineering functions, according to a report by Aaron Mehta for Defense News.
“The fundamental concern I had was the three major phases of a life cycle — development, production and sustainment — stay under the same leadership. The research and engineering job is defined to be the basic science and technology, the laboratory system and some of the experimental prototyping. I’m fine with that,â€Â he said, according to the report.
