The Defenestration of JCIDS

...a good start...

There was something in the air about JCIDS in the spring. I’d encourage you to review my Substack from March then come back.

I’ll do one of my favorite things and quote myself from the above post.

The process has become the product. It is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was.

As we have often discussed, the accretions encumbered acquisition process that has become the greatest impediment to a military prepared to face the world’s threats. No serious person without a stake in the current system supports keeping it. It stifles innovation, is comically bureaucratic, and is intentionally designed to get between those who have to fight our wars and the equipment they need to fight them.

I had no idea what I was going to write about until this came through my scan last night via Anastasia Obis over at FNN.

Amid a push to streamline and accelerate acquisition, the Defense Department is dismantling its decades-old Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process and overhauling how the DoD sets and validates military requirements.

In an Aug. 20 memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg directed the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to immediately start the “disestablishment” of JCIDS and ordered the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), which oversees the process, to stop validating service-level requirements to the “maximum extent permitted by law.”

Instead of the JROC validating service-level requirements through the JCIDS process, the services will now be responsible for determining and validating its own requirements.

I cannot begin to tell you how important this is.

…the services will now be responsible for determining and validating its own requirements.

For over two decades here and over at the Midrats Podcast, we have begged for something to be done about the dead hand of Goldwater-Nichols and the Cult of the Joint on our military in general, but our Navy specifically. You cannot overstate how much of a groundbreaking development this is.

To make it stick, Congress will need to act, but this is unquestionably a step in the right direction of reform. From shortening timelines, decreasing bureaucratic bloat, and even more importantly—increasing accountability—this is superb.

This doesn’t mean the nomenklatura and rent seekers whose rice bowls are being overturned and cheese is being moved won’t resist and try to warp reform in their favor, but that is a fight worth having. A good fight.

BZ to all who brought us here, and best of luck in fighting for a better system. Many more steps to take, but the journey has started.

Behold what we are trying to leave behind. Just look at this slide from a little under a decade ago. Heck, review the entire slide deck.

No sane person can defend this. Good riddance.

Next, CAPE.