Your editorial “Trump and a New ‘Arsenal of Freedom’ ” (Nov. 17) notes what the Pentagon will need to implement Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition reforms: a sense of urgency, demand signal stability, program management continuity and perhaps, most important, money. The department is attacking process and organizational barriers to the way it generates and approves requirements, manages programs and budgets, executes contracting agreements and updates the training and culture of the workforce.
Unless it also successfully works with Congress to get enough money on time and to modify appropriations law—which establishes spending accounts and rules for those funds—it will continue to struggle to make necessary sustainable changes.
The Pentagon is currently finalizing the fiscal 2027 budget, due to Congress in February and operational from October 2026 through September 2027, right as the acquisition reforms are supposed to be realized. If the money isn’t requested and justified in the right way, or if appropriators aren’t on board, the entire transformation could fail.
