Pentagon must tread carefully on 'joint' weapon acquisitions.

• Author: Haber, Alex
• Position: DEFENSE ACQUISITION

With downward budgetary pressures on U.S. defense spending, it will be worth watching how the Pentagon moves forward with joint-service acquisitions. The cost savings, interoperability advantages and efficiency gains that joint programs can offer will only grow more enticing.

The multi-service approach, though a potential game-changer, should be employed cautiously and only after thoroughly analyzing several key parameters.

Even if two or more services are both hungry for the same capability or are driven by closely related missions, different design needs cause potential savings to fade quickly. Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings Institution, claims a decision-maker's rule of thumb for a program to be joint should be roughly 90 percent commonality, if not more. In the advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, the Navy and Air Force brought highly aligned requirements to Raytheon, and, consequently, development and deployment was relatively smooth.

Due in part to less commonality, the F-35 joint strike fighter became the poster child for troubled joint programs. As JSF critics have noted, coordinating different weights, software systems and other service-unique requirements can be a significant lift, eroding potential savings and resulting in compromised final designs.

Going forward, those requirements that have the greatest potential to derail development should get the closest looks. Andrew Hunter, director of defense industry initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that, without needing to develop a short takeoff and vertical landing capability for the Marine Corps, the program could have had a far cleaner and swifter development process.

Beyond requirements, if similar systems in the past have fallen flat in the joint environment, then industry and government decision-makers would do well to steer a new program away from this path.

The Defense Department's Better Buying Power 3.0 references the U.S. defense enterprise as a "joint force," but joint solutions could cause more harm than good.

For ground systems, on the other hand, the joint narrative has been more uplifting. The joint lightweight tactical vehicle (JLTV) has been lauded as a leader in implementing Better Buying practices, going on to win the 2013 David Packard Award in Acquisition Excellence.

Not everyone across the defense enterprise buys this "past precedent" argument. In the world of rotorcraft, the discouraging stories...