You want government to spend more wisely? Give it less money.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: DEFENSEWATCH

Fiscal responsibility is the mantra du jour in Washington. The government's biggest spenders--the Pentagon and defense agencies--are slowly coming to grips with the realization that lean times are indeed coming.

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Within organizations that oversee big-ticket military programs, there is also a growing recognition that austerity may finally achieve what reams of acquisition reforms have failed to do: Force the government to spend more wisely.

"Money is the enemy of innovation," said Elliott Branch, the U.S. Navy's executive director of acquisition and logistics management, and former executive director for contracts at the Naval Sea Systems Command.

With the largest discretionary budget of any government agency, the Defense Department is expected to step up and deliver big savings. Secretary Robert Gates has called for $100 billion in overhead and contract spending cutbacks over the next five years. "Much has been made of Secretary Gates' targets," Branch said at an industry conference in Washington, D.C. But it's only when the money is actually taken away that acquisition professionals can shine by showing they can give taxpayers value for their dollars, Branch said. "It's a propitious time for the acquisition work force," he said. "We now have the leverage to do what we know we always should have done." Gates' directive essentially tells acquisition professionals to go do their jobs, said Branch.

The Navy accomplished one of its most successful submarine modernization programs in the late 1990s, when its budgets were being slashed, Branch noted. That project, a comprehensive overhaul of submarine combat systems, departed from the norm by using commercial off-the-shelf technology, which saved billions of dollars over the long run, Branch said.

At the Pentagon, the notion that less money can be a good thing is likely to be as welcome as a skunk at a garden party. But several insiders privately are saying that budget cuts, at least in weapon programs, could be beneficial because they will engender much needed discipline and creative thinking. Defenders of the less-is-more approach to buying military hardware point to the Air Force's recent unveiling of a 500-teraflop supercomputer which, with a $2 million price tag, was built for less than a tenth of what a traditional system would have cost. The secret: Engineers used strictly off-the-shelf products, including 1,760 Sony PlayStations. The Marine Corps introduced a new...