Defense acquisition in an unaccountable world.

• Author: Sledge, Nathaniel H. Jr.
• Position: Viewpoint

* In the 1960 screwball romantic comedy, Tall Story, the college coach, frustrated that his star player was ineligible to play the big game, said in anguish, "I'd love to work at a college that had no faculty. We're wasting too much time on academics!"

With all due respect to academics and the advancement of knowledge, those were better days. No star college players are sitting out big games today because they are failing courses.

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Basketball works as metaphor for many of today's ills, particularly in the world of weapon system acquisitions, namely because there is no accountability.

Current and former government officials testified in March before the subcommittee for financial management of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is looking into cost overruns on weapons development programs. The panelists made promising statements, indicating progressive thinking on the part of senior executives, particularly in competition, accounting tools, requirements scrubbing and incentives to improve efficiency. The candor on display was impressive and unusual. Still, given the recurring patterns in the history of defense acquisition and the increasingly regressive trends in politics and public management, it is not clear that those in high positions will or can make the changes to leadership, management and culture that are critical for improving the cost performance of major defense acquisition programs.

For years, acquisition professionals have known that competition and disciplined administrative accounting can improve management performance. Yet competition is insufficient and there is poor adherence to tracking tools. And these are tools for achieving accountability. Increasingly more time and money are being thrown at failing programs. Officials seem to lack the will and cooperation to enforce discipline.

The fundamental reason for past, present and, sadly, prospective failure is lack of accountability.

Systems of accountability should follow first principles. Performance against mandates must be traceable. This implies transparency and data collection. Officials must also be answerable to someone outside and above their organization. This reduces conflicts of interest and provides a clearly defined chain of authority for apportionment of blame and praise. And programs must be controllable through a regimen of consistently and fairly applied sanctions and rewards.

In government, there has rarely been effective accountability. For example, our defense budget cannot be balanced (trace-ability). Millions of items of information are, but...