U.S. troops deserve a competitive equipment advantage.

• Author: Kern, Paul J.

The Army's 2nd Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division Mechanized was on the left hook into Iraq in 1991. Fuel and communications were the limiting factors of its advance, not the enemy.

The radios in the brigade's combat vehicles, the A/N VRC-46 and the radios for the dismounted infantry, the PRC-77, were the same configuration that I had as a platoon leader and troop commander in Vietnam in the late 1960s. They were replaced by S1NCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) radios in 1992 after the Army returned from combat operations.

The point is, as the Army stands on the brink of introducing wideband tactical radios, I do not want this to be the same technology our troops must rely on 20 to 30 years from now.

The Army can do better than this by taking advantage of commercial competitive practices for fast-moving technologies, rather than lengthy bureaucratic processes. The armed forces should have the best capability when they need it--and at a more affordable price in a time of lean defense budgets.

Ironically, we have already learned how to leverage commercial competition and done so successfully.

Just as the Internet was exploding, 1 was privileged to command the 4th Infantry Division Mechanized during the period when we were evaluating new concepts, technologies and organizations for the 21st Century Army. We experimented with networked systems using existing radios and commercial network protocols. We proved it could work and that it was effective in improving our operations.

The Army adopted the new technology in the form of the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below, known as FBCB2, and later as Blue Force Tracking. It was so successful that the 3rd Infantry Division Mechanized employed these capabilities in their takedown of Baghdad in 2003.

The lesson we learned was that commercial and defense companies in competitive experimentation could rapidly field systems to improve the military's war-fighting capabilities. This was all accomplished during the low point of Defense Department budgets and with forces continuously engaged in the Balkans and the Middle East.

U.S. high-tech firms are well situated to win in the relentless competition of global markets. But they must learn how to integrate products into the defense acquisition process.

In 2011, the Army launched a series of "network integration evaluations," or NIEs, at Fort Bliss, Texas.

Now in its fourth iteration, the NW has proven an effective way to...