Author: growthadmin

DHS’ United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT),
developer of EINSEIN 3A intrusion detection and prevention system

In the aftermath of the OPM hack, which compromised the personal information of over 22 million people, and the subsequent resignation of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, the Federal Government undertook a 30 day long initiative to shore up its cybersecurity. Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Tony Scott explained that federal-civilian agencies would increase their use of multistep verification, decrease the number of privileged users that have access to sensitive information, and patch known vulnerabilities (Boyd, 2015). After 30 days, all federal agencies will report their progress with respect to implementation of the added security features to OMB and DHS. Since the start of the sprint, CIO Scott announced federal agencies have increased their use of two factor verification by 20% overall with select agencies implementing 100% two factor verification for privileged users. With the assistance of DHS, federal agencies have patched more than 60% of known cyber vulnerabilities since May this year according to DHS Director Jeh Johnson. 

In an Op-ed in Politico, Federal Cybersecurity Needs Improvement, Director Johnson revealed that many of the new cybersecurity procedures being enacted under the cyber sprint are part of a much larger government strategy to tackle cybersecurity. DHS’ National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) will perform a critical information sharing and coordination role in future federal incident response. Johnson stated that NCCIC is also responsible for the management of EINSTIEN, an advanced intrusion detection and prevention system. The latest version, EINSTEIN 3A, is deployed by 15 federal agencies covering roughly 45% of all federal-civilian employees; DHS plans to assist in the deployment of EINSTEIN 3A across all federal agencies by the end of the fiscal year. The government has also permitted EINSTEIN’s providers, AT&T, CenturyLink, and Verizon, to market the software to private sector firms: 

Sources

1. Contractor breach gave hackers keys to OPM data, Aaron Boyd, 2015.
   http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/omr/opm-cyber-report/2015/06/23/keypoint-usis-opm-breach/28977277/
2. Home Depot Has Better Cyber Security Than 25 US Defense Contractors, Aliya Sternstein, 2015.
   http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/07/home-depot-has-better-cyber-security-25-us-defense-contractors/116995/
3. Suddenly, Everyone Wants the NSA’s Cyber Defense Tech, Aliya Sternstein, 2015.
   http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/07/uddenly-everyone-wants-nsas-cyber-defense-tech/117673/?oref=d-river
4. Feds on ’30-day sprint’ to better cybersecurity, Aaron Boyd, 2015.
   http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/cybersecurity/2015/06/15/30-day-cybersecurity-sprint/71250654/
5. Cyber sprint increases use of two-factor authentication, Aaron Boyd, 2015.
   http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/cybersecurity/2015/07/13/cybersecurity-sprint-two-factor-authentication/30087313/
6. White House touts ‘cyber sprint’ successes, Cory Bennett, 2015.
   http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/247481-white-house-touts-cyber-sprint-successes 
7. White House sprints to patch security flaws, Cory Bennett, 2015.
   http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/246827-white-house-sprints-to-patch-security-flaws 
8. Federal Cybersecurity Needs Improvement, Jeh Johnson, 2015. 
   http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/federal-cybersecurity-needs-improvement-120061.html#.VaUvQPm3ExI
   

Motorola HC1 Headset Computer

Wearable technology, devices that are worn by users, is a rapidly expanding market which is set to exceed $32 billion by 2019 (IHS, 2014). Commercial wearable technology applications include biometric monitoring, camera and video functions, communication systems, and internet access. Many of these functions could be expanded upon to assist law enforcement by providing greater situational awareness to both officers and dispatchers. Furthermore, the use of body mounted cameras provides an additional means of ensuring accountability among law enforcement personnel, as per the Obama Administration initiative to field more than 50,000 police body cameras nationwide. 

The most relevant capability of wearable technologies to law enforcement relate to increased situational awareness functions. For example, biometric sensors would be able to alert dispatchers of a potential emergency situation. Datalinks would enable officers to rapidly exchange information between networked officers and dispatchers including video feeds from body cameras, maps, floor plans, and data from platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles. Wolf Tombe, Chief Technology Officer of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, it is examining fielding a wrist mounted drone:

“[CBP] is considering are small unmanned aircraft, including a drone mounted on the wrist. Such technology would meet CBP new technology requirements: enhancing officer safety, increasing mission effectiveness — and reducing costs, he said. If it does any or all of those things, ‘bring it in and we’ll look at it’ – John M. Doyle, 2015

Interest in wearable technologies extends across multiple DHS agencies including the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) directorate. S&T recently launched “Emerge Accelerating Wearable Tech for First Responders,” a $750,000 program to develop wearable technologies to improve the situational awareness of first responders.

The Obama Administration is seeking to acquire wearable body mounted cameras for nonfederal law enforcement officers as a means of improving accountability between the police force and citizens. In response to the Ferguson Missouri riot following the death of Michael Brown, the Obama Administration announced the planned acquisition of 50,000 body cameras for officers nationwide. A total of $20 million in grants has been allocated towards purchasing police body cameras with a total of $75 million expected over the next three years pending Congressional approval (Edwards, 2015). 

Despite the substantial capabilities and potential of wearable technologies for law enforcement, significant barriers remain towards the widespread proliferation of wearable technology in law enforcement. Alternative existing equipment, such as mobile devices, could provide some of the situational awareness and data sharing capabilities at greatly reduced cost over proposed wearable systems. Relatively simple body cameras and biometric sensors will likely see expanded use over the next few years. However, until the cost of wearable computers and wearable UAS drops substantially, wearable technologies will not meet their full potential given the limited deployment of more expensive high-end wearable systems. 

Sources

1. Improving Our View of the World: Police and Augmented Reality Technology, Thomas J. Cowper & Michael E. Buerger, 2003.
   https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/police-augmented-reality-technology-pdf 
2. A Guide to the $32b Wearables Market, HIS Janes, 2014. 
   https://technology.ihs.com/515418 
3. RoboCop: Wearable Tech, Melanie Basich, 2015.
   http://www.policemag.com/channel/technology/articles/2015/04/robocop-wearable-tech.aspx 
4. FACT SHEET: Strengthening Community Policing, Office of the Press Secretary, 2014.
   https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/01/fact-sheet-strengthening-community-policing 
5. 5 wearable tech trends for police, Mary Rose Roberts, 2014.
   http://www.policeone.com/police-products/communications/articles/6989352-5-wearable-tech-trends-for-police/
6. The Future of Wearable Technologies in Law Enforcement, Sean Petty, 2014.
   http://www.lawofficer.com/articles/print/volume-10/issue-6/leadership/future-wearable-technologies-l.html
7. HOMELAND SECURITY: Customs and Border Protection Exploring Small Drone Use, John M. Doyle, 2015. 
   https://4gwar.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/homeland-security-customs-and-border-protection-exploring-small-drone-use/ 
   

Office of Personnel Management

The Office of Personal Management (OPM) is the victim of a highly intrusive cyber espionage operation conducted by “Deep Panda”, a state backed Chinese hacker group. The personal information of over 4 million current and former government employees dating back to 1985 has been compromised. Chinese hackers managed to circumvent the much vaunted EINSTEIN 3 cyber intrusion monitoring and blocking system (Sternstein, 2015). Once OPM’s network was penetrated, the hackers were easily able to access government records, as OPM’s personnel data was unencrypted (Perera, 2015). The breach was initially discovered by CyTech Services, which ran diagnostic software of OPM’s network in a sales demonstration in April of 2015.

Several US intelligence officials stated that the collection of OPM personnel records represents a goldmine for Chinese counterintelligence activities. In tandem with the Anthem Inc. and Premera Blue Cross breaches conducted by Deep Panda, the Chinese government has the medical records, security clearance statuses, social security numbers, performance ratings, addresses, and other compromising personal data of millions of US government employees (Barrett, 2015). The data is useful in both the recruitment of Americans by Chinese intelligence services and identification of American spies within the Chinese government.  

Cyber security experts have been widely critical of OPM’s failure to safeguard its networks given the sensitivity and volume of its personnel files. Adam Firestone, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Kaspersky’s Government Security Group, remarked that the government needs to reassess its approach to cyber security from “perimeter defense” to the internal defense of networks:

“The issue is how the network was prepared for the breach. And what were the internal security mechanisms inside the network to prevent the information inside the network from being used and useful for an adversary who got in. From our perspective we assume a breach, we assume that everything is porous, but we prepare. The idea is to prepare the network and your systems for the breach such that even though they do get in, what they retrieve is not useful.”

Navy Cyber Command has demonstrated the viability of this approach as it has managed to fend off every cyber intrusion since the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet breach in 2013. Cyber Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Jan Tighe attributed the success of Navy Cyber Command to the prompt internal defense of its networks, noting that initial breaches were inevitable. It is unclear how the United States will respond to China given the Department of Defense’s newly released cyber strategy which emphasizes the US will retaliate against cyber-attacks (Stewart, 2015). The distinction in the OPM case is the hacker group did not destroy OPM networks or hardware, but committed an act of espionage. 

Sources

1. Chinese hackers may have breached the federal government’s personnel office, U.S. officials say, Fred Barbash and Ellen Nakashima, 2015.
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/09/report-chinese-hacked-into-the-federal-governments-personnel-office/
2. Navy, Marine Cyber Fought Off All Net Attackers Since 2013, Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr.,2015.
   http://breakingdefense.com/2015/05/navy-marine-networks-have-defeated-all-attacks-since-2013-cyber-admiral/
3. Anthem Breach May Have Started in April 2014, Brian Krebs, 2015.
   http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/crowdstrike/
4. The Chinese Have Your Numbers, 2015. 
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-chinese-have-your-numbers-1433716388
5. U.S. Weighs Extent of Suspected Data Breach by Hackers in China, Devlin Barrett, 2015.
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-weighing-extent-of-suspected-data-breach-by-hackers-in-china-1433537206
6. U.S. Suspects Hackers in China Breached About 4 Million People’s Records, Officials Say, Devlin Barrett, Danny Yadron and Damian Paletta, 2015.
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-suspects-hackers-in-china-behind-government-data-breach-sources-say-1433451888
7. Opm Hackers Skirted Cutting-Edge Intrusion Detection System, Official Says, Aliya Sternstein, 2015. 
   http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2015/06/opm-hackers-skirted-cutting-edge-interior-intrusion-detection-official-says/114649/?oref=ng-HPtopstory 
8. China’s Cyber Attack, Defense News, 2015. 
   http://www.defensenews.com/videos/defense-news/2015/06/09/28644395/ 
9. U.S. Spy Agencies Join Probe of Personnel-Records Theft, Damian Paletta, 2015.
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spy-agencies-join-probe-of-personnel-records-theft-1433936969
10. Pentagon’s new cyber strategy cites U.S. ability to retaliate, Phil Stewart, 2015.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/23/us-usa-pentagon-cyber-idUSKBN0NE0AS20150423

Draganflyer X6 small unmanned aerial system (sUAS)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced a series of guidelines for the use of unmanned aerial system by domestic law enforcement and federal agencies. While the DOJ report is fully cognizant of the significant potential for UAS within law enforcement, the document states that all UAS use must conform to existing privacy and civil liberty protections: 

“UAS must be operated consistent with the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures and generally requires law enforcement to seek a warrant in circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Moreover, Department personnel may never use UAS solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment or the lawful exercise of other rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” – DOJ, 2015 

The restrictions outlined by the DOJ largely apply to existing manned surveillance platforms. In an effort to improve accountability and transparency, the Deputy Attorney General will review DOJ UAS issues on an annual basis and will require federal agencies to keep logs of every flight (Moon, 2015). Furthermore, all data retrieved by UAS is subject to existing data storage and protection laws. 

The release of DOJ guidelines on the use of UAS by law enforcement indicates the growing momentum of the civilian UAS market. The release of UAS guidelines by the DOJ follows the FAA’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) with respect to non-recreational sUAS operations, which was released in March of this year. The NPRM details daytime flight, altitude, operator certification, and line of sight restrictions under consideration by the FAA. Pending the implementation of domestic UAS regulations, the domestic UAS market will comprise an increasing share of the global civilian UAS market growth of nearly $100 billion over the next decade. The market for law enforcement UAS will provide significant opportunities for firms with experience providing sUAS systems to the US Military, such as AeroVironment, which produces the the “Wasp,” “Raven,” and “Puma” (Finnegan, 2013). 

Sources

1. Department of Justice Policy Guidance 1 Domestic Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), 2015 
   http://thehill.com/sites/default/files/dojdronememo.pdf 
2. DOJ lays down some privacy rules for feds flying drones, Mariella Moon, 2015.
   http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/23/doj-drone-privacy/ 
3. Game of drones: As U.S. dithers, rivals get a head start, Jeremy Wagstaff, 2015. 
   http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/08/us-tech-drones-idUSKBN0M40VM20150308 
4. Justice Department releases guidelines on domestic drone use, Dante D’Orazio, 2015. 
   http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/23/8650459/justice-department-domestic-drone-guidelines-published 
5. Public safety market offers growth for UAVs, Philip Finnegan, 2013.
   http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/documents/aerospaceamerica-pdfs-2013/march-2013/aa-industryinsights_mar2013.pdf

US trade with TPP negotiating partners. Image Credit: The Wall Street Journal

The United States Senate passed a bill over Memorial Day weekend which would grant the President Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) with respect to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. The TPA, or “fast track” authority, is critical to securing a final TPP free trade agreement with eleven other countries, as it effectively grants the President authority to negotiate on behalf of the United States. Furthermore, the TPA would limit Congress to a simple up or down vote on the final TPP terms, without the ability to subsequently add amendments pending the conclusion negotiations. The 62-37 vote in favor of the TPA overcame the objections of labor groups and progressives who have railed against the perceived lack of labor protections, secrecy of negotiations, and stringent intellectual property regulations. The House will take up the TPA after returning on June 1st, where it will face numerous hurdles from pro-labor democrats, “poison pill” amendments such as the proposed currency manipulation measure – which the President indicated he would veto, and conservatives, who are hesitant to grant the President negotiating authority on behalf of the United States.

The TPP will eliminate tariffs across 11,000 categories among the twelve nations in the agreement, and will affect $882 billion in US import and $727 billion in US export flows (Ferguson, McMinimy, and Williams, 2015). While estimates on US growth as a result of the TPP vary, a consensus exists that the induced US growth would be a minimal net positive within the range of 0.13-0.19% GDP, or less than a $40 billion net increase in social welfare. The calculations of net benefits accrued as a result of the TPP factor the relative increases in US economic sectors as a result of losses in other areas of the economy, e.g. US agricultural exports are expected to rise as a result of the TPP, in contrast to a decline in manufacturing. Overall, the changes will be minimal, as the United States economy is comparatively open relative to other TPP partners such as Japan and Vietnam, and US firms already compete with low wage manufacturing centric economies: 

“For those who worry that, after the TPP, the United States would have to compete against low-wage countries — it’s too late. As Zachary Karabell notes, we are already living in a free-trade world. The average tariff in the developed world is about 3 percent. And in the past three decades, developing countries have cut their tariffs substantially as well. The World Trade Organization notes that China’s average is less than 10 percent today, down from about 40 percent in 1985.” – Fareed Zakaria, 2015

The primary US motivation for passing the TPP given the minimal gains to domestic economic growth is geopolitics. The TPP is cornerstone of the Obama Administration’s economic aspect of the Asian rebalance, which seeks to assert and preserve US influence in the Pacific as a hedge to China’s increasing military and economic influence. The greatest beneficiaries of the TPP are countries whom both the United States and China are vying for influence rather than traditional stalwart US allies such as Japan and Australia. Vietnam and Malaysia are expected to benefit disproportionately from the TPP with 28% and 6% additional GDP growth, respectively, by 2025 (Petri, Plummer and Zhai, 2013). Proponents of the TPP, such as former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, argue the TPP is a means to demonstrate long-term US commitment to Asia and prevent China from creating trade policies in the region contrary to US interests. Secretary of Defense Aston Carter made similar remarks and stressed, “Passing TPP is as important to me as another aircraft carrier”. 

The Obama Administration has been hard-pressed to continue with the economic and diplomatic aspects of the re-balance given the series of crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, but the Military aspect of the re-balance is well underway. The Navy will base 60% of all its ships in the Pacific by 2020 including additional forward deployed ships and both the Navy and the Air Force will prioritize their most modern equipment to PACOM including all DDG-1000 destroyers and the first F-35s to be deployed overseas.

Sources

1. Senate advances fast-track trade bill sought by Obama, Richard Cowan, 2015.
   http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/us-usa-trade-idUSKBN0O61WJ20150521 
2. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Negotiations and Issues for Congress, Ian F. Fergusson, Mark A. McMinimy, and Brock R. Williams, 2015. 
   https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42694.pdf 
3. Trans-Pacific Partnership: Geopolitics, Not Growth, Samuel Rines, 2014.
   http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/trans-pacific-partnership-geopolitics-not-growth-10157 
4. A Trade Deal With a Bonus For National Security, Michèle Flournoy and Ely Ratner, 2015. 
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/michele-flournoy-and-ely-ratner-a-trade-deal-with-a-bonus-for-national-security-1425854510 
5. Protecting the Future of Trade in Asia, Cathy Holcombe, 2015.
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/protecting-the-future-of-trade-in-asia-1432140387?KEYWORDS=TPP
6. White House Threatens to Veto Trade Bill Over Currency Measure, William Mauldin, 2015.
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-threatens-to-veto-trade-bill-over-currency-measure-1432068819?KEYWORDS=TPP
7. You can’t stop the trade machine, Fareed Zakaria, 2015.
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/you-cant-stop-the-trade-machine/2015/05/14/208d74a2-fa6e-11e4-a13c-193b1241d51a_story.html
8. On TPP, it looks like 1993 all over again, Raoul Lowery Contreras, 2015.
   http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/finance/242347-on-tpp-it-looks-like-1993-all-over-again
   http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/242583-reid-obama-loves-the-export-import-bank
9. Reid: Obama ‘loves’ the Export-Import bank, Jordain Carney, 2015.
   http://thehill.com/policy/finance/overnights/242734-overnight-finance-moderate-dems-deal-blow-to-shelbys-bill

The National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) recently awarded its Chief Information Officer–Commodity Solutions (CIO-CS) Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), valued at $20 billion, to 65 companies. CIO-CS is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity information technology (IT) contract with a duration of ten years (Boyd, 2015). While the contract is primarily a health IT vehicle, it will also include a host of other services such as deployment and installation, engineering studies, web and video-conferencing, big data, virtualization and health and biomedical IT, maintenance and training, enterprise licenses and extended warranties, and cyber security (NIH, 2015). The NIH incorporated numerous changes into the CIO-CS as a result of the previous Electronic Commodities Store (ECS) III GWAC. 

In contrast to the ECS III, the CIO-CS and will place a premium on the adaptability of companies providing IT services:   

“With CIO-CS we saw an evolving, enormous change in the IT marketplace when it comes to commoditized services and managed services and cloud services…We wanted to build a contract that had contract holders that were going to be able to meet those needs as they change. They are changing very, very quickly to be able to not only provide the straight laptops, desktops and hardware equipment; but to be able to buy those more sophisticated software licenses, being able to get the cloud services that they need. They will continue to evolve with mobility and infrastructure services that agencies are looking at…Contract holders really had to prove that they are going to be able to be relevant and meet those ever-changing needs that the government has over the next 10 years.” – NITAAC Program Director Robert Coen 

The CIO-CS contract awardees include a wide range of firms including multibillion dollar companies such as AT&T and Hewlett Packard, as well as 44 small businesses of varying types:  

• 6 service-disabled veteran-owned small business
• 8 HUBZone
• 14 women-owned
• 6 8(a), seven economically disadvantaged women-owned small business

A full listing of CIO-CS contract holders available at the NITAAC website. The number of small business participating in CIO-CS is consistent with prior NIHAAC commitments to award fifty percent of the total $8 billion awarded in previous GWACS over the past two and a half years (Coen, 2015).

In summary, NITAAC requirements reflect the growing interest within the NIH to modernize its IT services, transition towards a more cloud-based infrastructure, and address cyber security issues. Growing concerns over inadequate cyber security measures are likely to profoundly affect federal health IT contractors in the coming years. For example, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released draft requirements relating to the management of controlled unclassified sensitive information; the new NIST requirements will supplement existing Federal Information Security Management Act (Ravindranath, 2015).
           

Suggested Reading     

• Big Data Developments within NIH
• DoD Seeks Significant EHR Overhaul

Sources

1. NIH awards new government-wide IT contract, NIH, 2015.
   http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2015/nitaac-17.htm 
2. Chief Information Officer – Commodities and Solutions (CIO-CS), FBO, 2015.
   https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=c225c2cac56ee3a5ac1a34b922c844dc&tab=core&_cview=1
3. Coen dissects the CIO-CS GWAC, Aaron Boyd, 2015.
   http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/interview/program-view/2015/04/14/coen-dissects-cio-cs-gwac-coming-soon/25773019/ 
4. NIH launches competition for $20B CIO-CS program, Steve Watkins, 2014.
   http://archive.federaltimes.com/article/20140508/ACQ03/305080006/NIH-launches-competition-20B-CIO-CS-program
5. Robert Coen: NIH Seeks To Adapt It Needs In ‘Evolving’ Marketplace Through New GWAC, Anna Forrester, 2015. 
   http://www.executivegov.com/2015/04/robert-coen-nih-seeks-to-adapt-it-needs-in-evolving-marketplace-through-new-gwac/
6. NIH awards $20B CIO-CS acquisition contract for IT, Michael O’Connell, 2015.
   http://www.federalnewsradio.com/459/3838919/NIH-awards-20B-CIO-CS-acquisition-contract-for-IT
7. Contractors Could Get New Rules For Handling Sensitive Government Data, Mohana Ravindranath, 2015 
   http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2015/04/nist-refining-rules-non-federal-groups-handling-federal-data/109399/
8. NIH Awards New Government-Wide IT Contract, Covers Cybersecurity, Big Data Solutions, Homeland Security Today Staff, 2015
   http://www.hstoday.us/briefings/news-shorts/single-article/nih-awards-new-government-wide-it-contract-covers-cybersecurity-big-data-solutions/c1579750346dd8aef8eed11db1b22d81.html

The inability of the Pentagon to rapidly assimilate new technologies and cut bureaucratic red tape is increasingly being perceived as not merely a poor use of tax dollars, but as a strategic liability by both senior DoD officials and members of Congress (Freedburg, 2015). In a March address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman John McCain compared the 18 month standard innovation cycle in the private sector to the Pentagon acquisition cycle, which can last for up to 18 years. McCain argued that the glacial pace of Pentagon acquisitions threatens to undermine the nation’s technological superiority, and the inefficient allocation of taxpayer dollars during sequestration further exacerbates the acquisition processes negative impact on national defense. 

In an effort to address these concerns, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall ordered the implementation of the DoD’s new acquisition reform effort, “Better Buying Power (BBP) 3.0.” The BBP 3.0 memo, released Thursday, offers a series of initiatives to improve the efficiency of future acquisition programs, with the intent of cultivating the long-term technological superiority of the US military in the face of increasingly advanced systems fielded by both Russia and China. The BBP memo concentrates on 34 areas of focus, such as increasing the use of prototyping and experimentation, emphasizing technology insertion, modular system design and open system architectures, the ability to strengthen cybersecurity throughout a product’s lifecycle, increased access to small business research and development, etc. Many of the new measures are aimed at incentivizing nontraditional defense contractors, such as Silicon Valley technology companies, to engage with the Pentagon, and at increased collaboration with allied nations (Mehta, 2015). 

Undersecretary Frank Kendall described the design of the long range strike bomber (LSRB) as an example of BBP 3.0 recommendations including planned technology insertion that would enable competitions for bomber upgrade and sustainment contracts

Overall, the document underscores the DoD’s renewed vigor to rapidly assimilate new technologies and manage excessive bureaucracy. BBP 3.0 will likely be accompanied by new legislation being drafted by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry in consultation with SASC Chairman John McCain. Thornberry’s legislation will take an incremental realist approach to acquisition reform, which starts by mitigating the unintended consequences of past reform efforts such as the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 (Freedburg, 2015). Thornberry’s bill would also consolidate program requirements and reduce redundant reporting standards:

“Many reports and requirements that are currently handled as separate, time-consuming processes would be consolidated into a single strategy document. Other reports and requirements would simply go away. ‘Probably one of the biggest things,’ the staffer said, is downgrading many ‘certifications’ to mere ‘determinations’: That’s not just a change in terminology. It marks a major reduction in the amount of time and lawyers involved. Milestone A decisions to start developing technologies no longer require any certifications at all, only determinations. Milestone B decisions to start actual engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) would still require certifications, but not as many.” – Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., 2015

DoD officials have been largely receptive of Thornberry’s proposals, including Undersecretary Kendall. In summary, the combination of BBP 3.0 and new acquisition reform legislation has the potential to mitigate the damage of prior acquisition reform efforts and improve the efficacy of new programs. BBP 3.0 will enable the DoD to make the required investments in its third offset strategy such as robotics, big data, miniaturization, autonomous systems, etc. 

Sources

1. Work: Better Buying Power 3.0 Strives to Enhance U.S. Tech Edge, Jim Garamone, 2015 
   http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128558
2. Pentagon Begins Better Buying Power 3.0, Aaron Mehta, 2015
   http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/budget/2015/04/09/better-buying-power-3-launches/25519245/
3. Pentagon spotlights cyber in Better Buying Power 3.0, Amber Corrin, 2015 
   http://www.c4isrnet.com/story/military/tech/2015/04/09/pentagon-spotlights-cyber-in-better-buying-power-30/25538627/
4. Frank Kendall: Better Buying Power 3.0 Implementation Guide in The Works, Ross Wilkers, 2015 
   http://www.executivegov.com/2015/03/frank-kendall-better-buying-power-3-0-implementation-guide-in-the-works/
5. Cut Red Tape: HASC Chair Thornberry Rolls Out 1st Major Acquisition Changes , Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., 2015 
   http://breakingdefense.com/2015/03/thornberry-to-roll-out-increment-one-of-acquisition-reform/
6. The Imperative of Defense Reform: Serious Challenges for a Serious SecDef. , John G. McGinn, Stephen Rodriguez and Peter Lichtenbaum, 2015
   http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/the-imperative-of-defense-reform-serious-challenges-for-a-serious-secdef/ 
7. Kill Old Procurement Laws, Congress! Stackley, Punaro, Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., 2015 
   http://breakingdefense.com/2015/01/kill-old-procurement-laws-congress-stackley-punaro/