Defense Acquisitions: DOD Management Approach and Processes Not  
Well-Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid	 
(30-JAN-06, GAO-06-211).					 
                                                                 
Department of Defense (DOD) officials currently estimate that the
department will spend approximately $34 billion through 2011 to  
develop the core network of the Global Information Grid (GIG), a 
large and complex undertaking intended to provide on-demand and  
real-time data and information to the warfighter. DOD views the  
GIG as the cornerstone of information superiority, a key enabler 
of network-centric warfare, and a pillar of defense		 
transformation. A high degree of coordination and cooperation is 
needed to make the GIG a reality. In prior work GAO found that	 
enforcing investment decisions across the military services and  
assuring management attention and oversight of the GIG effort	 
were key management challenges facing DOD. This report assesses  
(1) the management approach that DOD is using to develop the GIG 
and (2) whether DOD's three major decision-making processes	 
support the development of a crosscutting, departmentwide	 
investment, such as the GIG.					 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-06-211 					        
    ACCNO:   A45977						        
  TITLE:     Defense Acquisitions: DOD Management Approach and	      
Processes Not Well-Suited to Support Development of Global	 
Information Grid						 
     DATE:   01/30/2006 
  SUBJECT:   Accountability					 
	     Decision making					 
	     Defense capabilities				 
	     Defense procurement				 
	     Information resources management			 
	     Information systems				 
	     Information systems investments			 
	     Information technology				 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Interoperability					 
	     Investment planning				 
	     Policy evaluation					 
	     Program management 				 
	     DOD Global Information Grid			 

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GAO-06-211

     

     * Results in Brief
     * Background
     * DOD's Management Approach for the GIG Is Not Optimized to Ma
     * DOD's Key Decision-Making Processes Are Not Designed to Supp
          * JCIDS Process Not Yet Providing Departmentwide Assessment of
          * Resource Allocation Process Does Not Support Crosscutting In
          * Acquisition Process Not Suited to Managing Interdependent Pr
     * Conclusion
     * Recommendations for Executive Action
     * Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
          * Capstone Concept for Joint Operations
               * Joint Operating Concepts (JOC)
               * Joint Functional Concepts (JFC)
               * Joint Integrating Concepts
     * GAO Contact
     * Acknowledgments
     * GAO's Mission
     * Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony
          * Order by Mail or Phone
     * To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * Congressional Relations
     * Public Affairs

                 United States Government Accountability Office

Report to Congressional Committees

GAO

January 2006

DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS

DOD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support Development of
                            Global Information Grid

GAO-06-211

DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS

DOD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support
Development of Global Information Grid

  What GAO Found

DOD's management approach for the GIG-in which no one entity is clearly in
charge or accountable for results-is not optimized to enforce investment
decisions across the department. The DOD Chief Information Officer has
lead responsibility for the GIG development effort, but this office has
less influence on investment and program decisions than the military
services and defense agencies, which determine investment priorities and
manage program development efforts. Consequently, the services and defense
agencies have relative freedom to invest or not invest in the types of
joint, net-centric systems that are consistent with GIG objectives.
Without a management approach optimized to enforce departmentwide
investment decisions, DOD is at risk of not knowing whether the GIG is
being developed within cost and schedule, whether risks are being
adequately mitigated, or whether the GIG will provide a worthwhile return
on DOD's investment.

The department's three major decision-making processes are not structured
to support crosscutting, departmentwide development efforts such as the
GIG. In some significant respects, the department's processes for setting
requirements, allocating resources, and managing acquisitions encourage
investing in systems on an individual service and defense agency basis.
While the department has developed a new process for determining
requirements, the framework to assess capability needs is still evolving;
the new process is not yet identifying shortfalls and gaps in joint
military capabilities on a departmentwide basis; and requirements-setting
continues to be driven by service perspectives. In addition, the resource
allocation process is structured in terms of individual service programs
and outdated mission areas instead of crosscutting capabilities such as
net-centricity, and it is not flexible enough to quickly accommodate
requirements resulting from lessons learned or from rapidly emerging
technologies. Also, the process for managing acquisitions is unsuited to
developing a system of interdependent systems such as the GIG, and DOD has
struggled to achieve service buy-in on joint-service development programs
to address interoperability problems. Finally, the lack of integration
among these three processes makes it difficult to ensure that development
efforts are affordable and technically feasible.

                 United States Government Accountability Office

Contents

  Letter 1

Results in Brief 3 Background 5 DOD's Management Approach for the GIG Is
Not Optimized to

Make Departmentwide Investment Decisions 9 DOD's Key Decision-Making
Processes Are Not Designed to

Support Investments in Crosscutting Efforts Such as the GIG 14 Conclusion
27 Recommendations for Executive Action 27 Agency Comments and Our
Evaluation 27

Appendix I Scope and Methodology

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix III Five Major Acquisitions Related to the Core GIG Network and
Information Capability

Appendix IV Joint Family of Concepts

Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

  Figures

Figure 1: Scenario for Tracking Threats without Benefit of

Interoperable Systems 6 Figure 2: Comparison of Communications Exchanges
with and

without the GIG 8

Abbreviations

C4ISR           Command, Control, Communications, Computers,               
                   Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance              
CIO             Chief Information Officer                                  
DOD             Department of Defense                                      
FYDP            Five Year Defense Plan; Future Years Defense Program       
GIG             Global Information Grid                                    
GIG-BE          Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion                
IT              Information Technology                                     
JBMC2           Joint Battle Management Command and Control                
JCIDS           Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System      
JFC             Joint Functional Concepts                                  
JOC             Joint Operating Concepts                                   
JROC            Joint Requirements Oversight Council                       
JTRS            Joint Tactical Radio System                                
NCES            Network Centric Enterprise Services                        
OMB             Office of Management and Budget                            
PPBE            Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process    
PPBS            Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System                
SINCGARS        Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System            
TSAT            Transformational Satellite Communications System           
WIN-T           Warfighter Information Network-Tactical                    

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United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548

January 30, 2006

The Honorable John Warner Chairman The Honorable Carl Levin Ranking
Minority Member Committee on Armed Services United States Senate

The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter Chairman The Honorable Ike Skelton Ranking
Minority Member Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives

Despite recent progress by the Department of Defense (DOD), military
operations continue to be hampered by command, control, and communications
systems that lack the ability to interoperate. 1 While DOD has been able
to patch together disparate systems and networks to facilitate
communications on the battlefield, retrofitting systems after they have
already been fielded can be inefficient and is not sufficient to meet
DOD's stated goal of achieving a networked force where soldiers, weapon
systems, platforms, and sensors are closely linked and able to operate
seamlessly together. DOD believes it can solve these interoperability
problems and achieve a networked force by developing the Global
Information Grid (GIG). The GIG is a large and complex set of programs and
initiatives intended to provide an Internet-like capability allowing users
at virtually any location to access data on demand, share information in
real time, collaborate in decision making regardless of which military
service produced which weapon system, and have greater joint command of a
battle situation.

DOD began investing in the GIG in the late 1990s. We reported in 2004 that
DOD planned to spend at least $21 billion through 2010 to develop a core

1

GAO, Military Operations: Recent Campaigns Benefited from Improved
Communications and Technology, but Barriers to Continued Progress Remain,
GAO-04-547 (Washington, D.C.: June 2004).

    Page 1 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

network for the GIG. 2 Today, DOD officials estimate that the GIG
infrastructure will cost approximately $34 billion through 2011. 3 DOD's
investment in the GIG will extend far beyond development of the core
network, as DOD also intends to integrate the majority of its existing and
planned weapon systems, information technology systems, and other related
systems into the GIG over the long term. Accomplishing these objectives
involves developing and advancing new technologies, reaching consensus on
common standards and requirements, aligning systems with the attributes of
the GIG, and assessing whether the GIG is providing a worthwhile return on
investment.

In prior work, we identified management and investment challenges,
operational challenges, and technical challenges DOD faces in implementing
the GIG. 4 We found that enforcing investment decisions across the
military services and assuring management attention and oversight were key
challenges facing DOD. In this report, conducted under the authority of
the Comptroller General, we further examine management challenges by (1)
assessing the management approach that DOD is using to develop the GIG and
(2) addressing whether DOD's three major decision-making processes support
the development of a crosscutting, departmentwide investment, such as the
GIG. These major decisionmaking processes are the Joint Capabilities
Integration and Development System, which DOD uses to identify, assess,
and prioritize military capability needs; the Planning, Programming,
Budgeting, and Execution process, which guides how DOD allocates
resources; and the Defense Acquisition System, which governs how DOD
acquires weapon and information technology systems. We are addressing this
report to you because we believe it will be of interest to your committees
as you consider DOD's requests to authorize and appropriate funds for
developing the GIG.

To assess DOD's management approach for the GIG and the extent to which
the department's primary decision-making processes support the GIG, we
collected and reviewed (1) related legislation, directives,

2 GAO, Defense Acquisitions: The Global Information Grid and Challenges
Facing Its Implementation, GAO-04-858 (Washington, D.C.: July 2004).

DOD officials confirmed that most of the difference between the estimate
reported by GAO in 2004 and the $34 billion figure reported here can be
attributed to greater spending for information assurance activities.

4 GAO-04-858.

    Page 2 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

                                Results in Brief

instructions, and guidance; (2) DOD policies and guidance related to the
GIG and network-centric (or "net-centric") governance; and (3)
programmatic and technical documents pertaining to core GIG systems. We
also conducted a review of relevant literature, analyzing studies on
net-centric warfare, systems interoperability, and DOD management and
investment decision making. These studies were collected from defense and
public policy research databases as well as the online collections of DOD
organizations (such as the Defense Science Board and the Joint C4ISR
Decision Support Center), individual think tanks, and congressional
agencies. We also drew upon previous GAO reports on defense acquisition,
information technology investments, and interoperability issues. We
conducted interviews with and received briefings from officials with a
number of DOD organizations (including the Office of the Secretary of
Defense; the Joint Staff; and the three military services-the Departments
of the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy) that have responsibility for
achieving the GIG. We also interviewed several subject matter experts from
academic, think tank, or consulting organizations who have senior-level
DOD experience or who have recently written on the operation of DOD and
its key decision-making processes. Additional information on our scope and
methodology is in appendix I. We conducted our work from December 2004
through January 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards.

DOD's decentralized management approach for the GIG is not optimized for
the development of this type of joint effort, which depends on a high
degree of coordination and cooperation. Clear leadership and the authority
to enforce investment decisions across organizational lines are needed to
achieve the level of coordination and cooperation required, but no one
entity is clearly in charge of the GIG or equipped with the requisite
authority, and no one entity is accountable for results. For example, DOD
assigned overall leadership responsibility for the GIG to the DOD Chief
Information Officer, to include responsibility for developing,
maintaining, and enforcing compliance with the GIG architecture; advising
DOD leadership on GIG requirements; and providing enterprisewide oversight
of the development, integration, and implementation of the GIG. However,
the Chief Information Officer generally has less influence on investment
and program decisions than the military services and defense agencies,
which determine investment priorities and manage program development
efforts. Consequently, the services and defense agencies have relative
freedom to align or not align their investments with GIG objectives. A
result of this shared responsibility for the GIG is that the various
offices and programs managing development of initiatives related to the
GIG lack a clear understanding of what the GIG concept is and neglect to
coordinate with each other. Without a management approach optimized to
enforce investment decisions across the department, DOD is at risk of not
knowing whether the GIG is being developed within cost, schedule, and
performance objectives. In prior work, GAO has stated that a decentralized
management structure and the absence of an effective central enforcement
authority are leading causes for the interoperability problems experienced
in past military operations. We have also reported that an essential
ingredient for better ensuring that overall DOD business transformation is
implemented and sustained is to create a Chief Management Officer position
to address key stewardship responsibilities in areas such as information
technology.

In addition, DOD's major decision-making processes are not structured to
support crosscutting, departmentwide efforts such as the GIG. Overall,
these processes were established to support service- and platformoriented
programs rather than joint, net-centric programs, and in some significant
respects, they remain configured in this way. The Joint Capabilities
Integration and Development System (JCIDS) was implemented in 2003 to
enhance the department's ability to determine requirements for joint
military capabilities, but its analytical framework is still evolving, and
it is not yet providing assessments of capability needs on a
departmentwide basis. Consequently, JCIDS is of limited use for the time
being in terms of developing a departmentwide investment strategy for the
net-centric systems critical to the GIG. The Planning, Programming,
Budgeting, and Execution process does not foster integration of the
military services' and defense agencies' budgets to allow for a more
cooperative, joint investment approach for the acquisition of joint
capabilities. In addition, the resource allocation process, which has
tended to favor longer-term weapon system development efforts, is not
flexible enough to accommodate emerging requirements resulting from
lessons learned in recent military operations or the rapidly advancing
information technologies that are characteristic of command, control, and
communications systems. DOD's acquisition process continues to move
programs forward without sufficient knowledge that technologies can work
as intended; consequently, weapon systems cost more and take longer to
develop than originally planned and deliver less capability than initially
promised. In addition, with increased emphasis on joint, netcentric
capabilities, key transformational systems under development depend on
capabilities being provided by other acquisition programs, and they depend
on integrated architectures and common standards as a foundation for
interoperability. However, the acquisition process is not well-suited to
managing interdependencies among programs and fostering

                                   Background

joint-service cooperation in development of weapon and information
systems. Finally, the lack of integration among these three processes
makes it difficult to ensure that development efforts are affordable and
technically feasible.

We are recommending DOD adopt a management approach with more clearly
defined leadership, authority to enforce investment decisions across
organizational lines, and accountability for ensuring the objectives of
the GIG are achieved. In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD
concurred with our findings and recommendation (DOD's letter is reprinted
in app. II).

DOD has increasingly emphasized joint military operations where, to the
extent possible, service components are closely aligned and employed as a
single joint force. To function effectively as a joint force, DOD has come
to recognize the vital role of achieving information superiority over its
adversaries by having better access to, and greater ability to share,
information across the battlefield. In the late 1990s, the department
began to articulate a vision for network-centric (or "net-centric")
warfare in which networking military forces improves information sharing
and collaboration, which leads to enhanced situational awareness. Enhanced
situational awareness enables more rapid, effective decisionmaking, which
in turn enables improved efficiency and speed of execution and results in
dramatically increased combat power and mission effectiveness.

A high degree of interoperability is required to achieve battlefield
information superiority. DOD defines interoperability as the ability of
systems, units, or forces to exchange data, information, materiel, and
services to enable them to operate effectively together. 5 A lack of
interoperability can make it difficult to hit time-critical targets and
distinguish "friend" from "foe." Figure 1 shows a scenario in which a
seabased system and a land-based system are tracking aircraft and are
unable to integrate their views of a battlefield. This lack of
interoperability can delay U.S. military response or contribute to a
lethal mistake involving

U.S. personnel and equipment.

5

DOD Directive 4630.5, Interoperability and Supportability of Information
Technology (IT) and National Security Systems (NSS) (May 5, 2004).

Page 5 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

    Figure 1: Scenario for Tracking Threats without Benefit of Interoperable
    Systems

Enemy aircraft

Source: DOD (data); GAO (analysisand presentation).

DOD has recognized that interoperable systems are critical to conducting
joint military operations and that patching systems after the fact to
improve communications is inefficient, and the department has established
policies to promote systems interoperability. However, GAO and DOD's
Inspector General have reported in the past that these efforts have not
been very effective. For example, in the first of a series of reports
beginning in 2002, DOD's Inspector General found that policies governing
systems interoperability were inconsistent and that without consistent
guidance the department was at risk of developing systems that lack the
ability to fully interoperate. 6 In 2003, we found that DOD's process for
certifying systems interoperability did not work effectively for
ground-surface-based intelligence processing systems. 7 In addition, DOD
officials have said that added emphasis on joint operations and reliance
on information technology creates an increasing requirement for more
systems to exchange information, which in turn makes achieving
interoperability among systems increasingly complex.

DOD views the GIG as the cornerstone of information superiority, a key
enabler of net-centric warfare, and a pillar of defense transformation.
DOD defines the GIG as the globally interconnected, end-to-end set of
information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel for
collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, and managing information.
8 The GIG's many systems are expected to make up a secure, reliable
network to enable users to access and share information at virtually any
location and at anytime. Communications satellites, next-generation
radios, and a military installations-based network with significantly
expanded bandwidth will pave the way for a new paradigm in which DOD
expects to achieve information superiority over adversaries, much the same
way as the Internet has transformed industry and society on a global
scale. Rather than striving for interoperability through efforts to
establish direct information exchanges between individual systems, the
focus of the new paradigm will be to ensure that all systems can connect
to the network based on common standards and protocols. Figure 2 shows a
general depiction of how DOD enables data exchanges in systems that lack
the necessary connections and how DOD expects the GIG to break through
such limitations.

6

DOD Inspector General, Implementation of Interoperability and Information
Assurance Policies for Acquisition of DoD Weapon Systems, D-2003-011
(October 2002).

7

GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Steps Needed to Ensure Interoperability of
Systems That Process Intelligence Data, GAO-03-329 (Washington, D.C.:
March 2003).

8

DOD Directive 8100.1, Global Information Grid (GIG) Overarching Policy,
Enclosure 2, E2.1.1.1 (Sept. 19, 2002).

Page 7 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

Figure 2: Comparison of Communications Exchanges with and without the GIG

              Source: DOD (data); GAO (analysisand presentation).

  DOD's Management Approach for the GIG Is Not Optimized to Make Departmentwide
  Investment Decisions

DOD has adopted a two-pronged approach to realizing the GIG: (1) invest in
a set of new systems and capabilities to build a core infrastructure for
the eventual GIG network (an overview of the five major acquisitions
related to the GIG's core network are listed in app. III) and (2) populate
the network with weapon and information systems that are able to connect
when the core network infrastructure becomes available.

The effort to make the GIG a reality represents a different, inherently
joint type of development challenge that requires a high degree of
coordination and cooperation, but DOD is using a management approach that
is not optimized for this type of challenge. Responsibility for developing
and implementing the GIG resides with numerous entities, with no one
entity clearly in charge or accountable for investment decisions. Because
the GIG will comprise a system of interdependent systems, it needs clearly
identified leadership that has the authority to enforce decisions that cut
across organizational lines. Without a management approach optimized to
enforce investment decisions across the department, DOD is at risk of
continuing to develop and acquire systems in a stovepiped and
uncoordinated manner and of not knowing whether the GIG is being developed
within cost and schedule, whether risks are being adequately mitigated,
and whether the GIG will provide a worthwhile return on DOD's investment.
Consequently, interoperability problems could continue to hamper DOD in
fielding a joint, net-centric force.

Development of the GIG is essentially a shared responsibility in DOD, with
no single entity both equipped with authority to make investment decisions
and held accountable for results. For example, as laid out in policy
directives, DOD's Chief Information Officer has overall responsibility for
leadership and direction of the GIG. This includes developing,
maintaining, and enforcing compliance with the GIG architecture; advising
DOD leadership on GIG requirements; providing enterprisewide oversight of
the development, integration, and implementation of the GIG; monitoring
and evaluating the performance of information technology and national
security system programs; and advising the Secretary of Defense and the
heads of DOD components on whether to continue, modify, or terminate such
programs. 9 However, the

9

DOD Directive 8100.1, Global Information Grid Overarching Policy (Sept.
19, 2002); DOD Directive 5144.1, Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Networks and Information Integration/DOD Chief Information Officer (May 2,
2005).

Page 9 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

Office of the Chief Information Officer generally has less influence on
investment and program decisions than the services and defense agencies,
which determine investment priorities and manage program development
efforts. Consequently, the services and defense agencies have relative
freedom to invest or not invest in the types of joint, net-centric systems
that are consistent with GIG objectives. The end result of this shared
responsibility is that neither the CIO nor the military services and
defense agencies can be held fully accountable for the department's
success or failure in developing the GIG.

More broadly, another result of this environment of shared responsibility
is that the various offices and programs that are managing initiatives
related to the GIG do so in a disparate manner. For example, a 2002 DOD
study found that there was little unity of effort among the 80 separate
initiatives and actions under way associated with joint command and
control. 10 The next year, DOD's Defense Science Board reported that joint
warfighting needs-such as joint battle management and joint intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance-are "neglected or spread in an
uncoordinated fashion across multiple service and defense agency
programs." 11 In 2004, the DOD Inspector General found that DOD lacked a
strategy to integrate its net-centric initiatives, including clearly
defined net-centric goals and organizational roles and responsibilities.
12 In responding to this study, DOD's Deputy Chief Information Officer
(CIO) indicated that improvements could be made in the department's
guidance and approach to achieving net-centric goals, but that elements of
a strategic plan have been or are being developed. However, according to
the study, management comments from other DOD entities "clearly illustrate
that DoD components needed leadership and strategic guidance and were
unaware that the...[CIO] had the lead for network-centric concepts." 13
The study also found that there was a lack of common

10

Joint Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance (Joint C4ISR) Decision Support Center
(DSC), Joint Requirements Acquisition Study, Closeout Report (July 15,
2002), 13.

11 Defense Science Board. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force
on Enabling Joint Force Capabilities, (August 2003), 9.

12

DOD Inspector General, Joint Warfighting and Readiness: Management of
Network Centric Warfare Within the Department of Defense, D-2004-091 (June
22, 2004), 7.

13

D-2004-091, 13. The management entities are Office of Force
Transformation, Joint Staff, Department of the Navy, U.S. Strategic
Command, and the Defense Information Systems Agency.

understanding across DOD of what constitutes net-centric warfare-of which
the GIG is a key enabler. Officials we interviewed in the Office of the
Chief Information Officer stated that there is also a lack of common
understanding throughout DOD about what is included in the GIG. DOD's
management approach to realizing joint, interoperable capabilities puts
DOD at risk of duplicated efforts and suboptimal investment outcomes for
command, control, and communications systems.

Almost 20 years ago, we identified DOD's decentralized management
structure and the absence of an effective central enforcement authority
for joint interoperability as two causes for joint command, control, and
communications interoperability problems experienced in past military
operations. We concluded that solving the interoperability problem would
require "a great deal" of cooperation among the services and a willingness
among them to pursue interoperability even when it conflicts with their
traditional practices. 14 In 1993, we found DOD had not made significant
progress in improving on this situation. We recommended that DOD establish
a joint program office with directive authority and funding controls for
acquiring command, control, and communications systems and that DOD
consolidate responsibility for interoperability in U.S. Atlantic Command
(now U.S. Joint Forces Command). 15 DOD responded that our recommendations
would unnecessarily complicate DOD management, and DOD stated that planned
and recently implemented policy, procedural, and organizational changes
intended to address the problem needed time to take effect.

In recent years, however, DOD has recognized that its approach to
developing and fielding command, control, and communications systems was
somewhat disjointed. In an effort to improve the situation, DOD tasked
Joint Forces Command in 2003 to lead the development of advanced,
integrated joint battle management command and control (JBMC2)
capabilities departmentwide. While Joint Forces Command was given
responsibilities to lead this effort, it does not control the resources
for materiel solutions, and the command may not have sufficient influence
over the services' resource decisions to ensure the assessment framework
it has developed for improving JBMC2 capabilities will be executed

14

GAO, Interoperability: DOD's Efforts to Achieve Interoperability Among C3
Systems, GAO/NSIAD-87-124 (Washington, D.C.: April 1987).

15

GAO, Joint Military Operations: DOD's Renewed Emphasis on Interoperability
Is Important but Not Adequate, GAO/NSIAD-94-47 ( Washington, D.C.: October
1993).

Page 11 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

effectively. The framework for specific mission areas within JBMC2 will
begin to be implemented in 2006, but formal agreements involving
resourcing and level of service participation in these assessments have
not yet been worked out. In addition, in 2004, the Joint Staff initiated
the Net-Centric Operating Environment project in part to improve
coordination of the GIG core network systems currently under development.
The Joint Staff has proposed options to establish a stronger joint
management structure for these systems, such as placing them under a
single acquisition authority, and this analysis is being considered as
part of DOD's Quadrennial Defense Review effort. In the meantime, a study
released in 2005 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
bipartisan think tank, reiterates the need for DOD to instill a greater
joint focus in its management approach to achieving systems
interoperability by transferring budget and acquisition authority for
joint command, control, and communications from the services to a single
joint entity.

In the broader context of defense transformation-of which the GIG is a key
component-we have pressed DOD to adopt a more centralized management
approach to integrate and improve its business processes, human capital,
and military capabilities. In 2004, we reported that no one person or
entity had overarching and ongoing leadership responsibilities or
accountability for the department's transformation efforts, 16 and we
recommended that DOD establish clear leadership and a formal crosscutting
transformation team with the responsibility for overseeing and integrating
DOD's transformation strategy and the authority to perform these
responsibilities. DOD disagreed with our recommendations, indicating that
the Secretary of Defense provides the leadership needed and that a
crosscutting transformation team would represent an unneeded and confusing
bureaucratic layer. However, we pointed out that (1) the day-to-day
demands placed on the Secretary of Defense make it difficult for him to
personally maintain the oversight, focus, and momentum needed to sustain
transformation efforts and (2) that without a crosscutting team, DOD has
no routine vehicle for maintaining a continued focus on transformation
goals and no mechanism for resolving implementation issues that may arise.
Similarly, to address problems DOD

GAO, Military Transformation: Clear Leadership, Accountability, and
Management Tools Are Needed to Enhance DOD's Efforts to Transform Military
Capabilities, GAO-05-70 (Washington, D.C.: December 2004), 3-4.

Page 12 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

has long faced in managing its business systems 17 and to guide the
department's business transformation efforts, we have proposed that DOD
establish a more centralized management structure to control the
allocation and execution of funds for DOD business systems. 18
Specifically, due to the complexity and long-term nature of business
transformation efforts, we reported that strong and sustained executive
leadership is needed if DOD is to succeed. We believe one way to ensure
strong, sustained leadership for DOD's business management reform efforts
would be to create a full-time, senior executive position for a chief
management official, who would serve as the Deputy Secretary of Defense
for Management. This position would serve as a strategic integrator to
elevate and institutionalize the attention essential for addressing key
stewardship responsibilities, such as strategic planning, enterprise
architecture development and implementation, information technology (IT),
and financial management, while facilitating the overall business
management transformation within DOD. DOD's position has been that the
Deputy Secretary of Defense has the requisite position, authority, and
purview to perform the functions of a Chief Management Officer. Although
DOD has recently begun taking some positive steps to transform the
department's business operations, including establishing the Business
Transformation Agency in 2005, we continue to believe that a Chief
Management Officer position may better ensure that overall business
transformation is implemented and sustained.

17

These would include business systems related to acquisition and contract
management, financial management, supply chain management, support
infrastructure management, human capital management, and other key areas.

18

GAO, DOD Business Transformation: Sustained Leadership Needed to Address
Longstanding Financial and Business Management Problems, GAO-05-723T
(Washington, D.C.: June 2005), 4; GAO, Defense Management: Foundational
Steps Being Taken to Manage DOD Business Systems Modernization, but Much
Remains to be Accomplished to Effect True Business Transformation,
GAO-06-234T ( Washington, D.C.: November 2005), 28.

  DOD's Key Decision-Making Processes Are Not Designed to Support Investments in
  Crosscutting Efforts Such as the GIG

DOD's major decision-making processes are not structured to support
crosscutting, departmentwide efforts such as the GIG. In some significant
respects, the processes remain configured for investing in weapon and
information systems on an individual service and defense agency basis. In
addition, the department's new process for determining requirements is
still evolving, and it is not yet identifying shortfalls and gaps in joint
military capabilities on a departmentwide basis. The resource allocation
process remains structured in terms of individual service programs and
outdated mission areas instead of crosscutting capabilities such as
netcentricity, and it is inflexible in terms of accommodating emerging
nearterm requirements and rapidly advancing technologies. DOD's
acquisition process continues to move programs forward without sufficient
knowledge that their technologies can work as intended; consequently,
systems cost more and take longer to develop than originally planned and
deliver less capability than initially promised. In addition, the
acquisition process is not well suited to managing interdependencies among
programs and fostering joint-service cooperation in development of weapon
and information systems. Finally, the lack of integration among the three
processes makes it difficult to ensure that development efforts are
affordable and technically feasible.

The three processes assessed in this report are the Joint Capabilities
Integration and Development System (JCIDS); the Planning, Programming,
Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process; and the Defense Acquisition
System.

    JCIDS Process Not Yet Providing Departmentwide Assessment of Military
    Requirements

Implemented in 2003, 19 JCIDS is intended to enhance the process DOD uses
to identify, assess, and prioritize joint military requirements, but
service perspectives continue to drive requirements setting, a condition
that has tended to impede the development of interoperable systems in the
past. 20 JCIDS is not yet identifying shortfalls and gaps in existing and
projected joint military capabilities on a departmentwide basis, and the
analytical framework that underpins JCIDS (capability-based assessments)
is still evolving. Without crosscutting, department-level assessments, DOD

19

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction, Joint Capabilities
Integration and Development System, CJCSI 3170.01E (May 11, 2005). The
original instruction was CJCSI 3170.01C (June 24, 2003).

20 See GAO, Challenges and Risks Associated with the Joint Tactical Radio
System Program , GAO-03-879R (Washington, D.C.: August 2003), 2 and 22;
Joint C4ISR Decision Support Center (July 15, 2002), iii and 17.

Page 14 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

is limited in its ability to develop a departmentwide investment strategy
to support development of the net-centric systems critical to the GIG.

JCIDS replaced the approximately 30-year-old Requirements Generation
System, which DOD states frequently resulted in systems that were service
rather than joint-focused, programs that duplicated each other, and
systems that were not interoperable. Under this process, requirements were
often developed by the services as stand-alone solutions to counter
specific threats and scenarios. In contrast, JCIDS is designed to identify
the broad set of capabilities that may be required to address the security
environment of the 21st century. In addition, requirements under the
JCIDS' approach are intended to be developed from the "top-down," that is,
starting with the national military strategy, whereas the former process
was "bottom up," with requirements growing out of the individual services'
unique strategic visions and lacking clear linkage to the national
military strategy. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) has
overall responsibility for JCIDS and is supported by eight Functional
Capabilities Boards, 21 which lead the capabilities-based assessment
process.

The requirements process remains service-focused to a significant extent.
For example, the four members of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council
are the services' Vice Chiefs of Staff and the Assistant Commandant of the
Marine Corps, 22 an arrangement some studies contend grants too much
influence to the services in setting requirements. The services are force
providers-they supply the forces and develop the systems for military
operations-but combatant commanders conduct joint military operations and
thus represent the demand side of the requirements process. Combatant
commanders are not, however, members of the Joint Requirements Oversight
Council, and analyses conducted both prior to and following the
implementation of JCIDS recommend either replacing the current members
with representatives from the combatant commands or enlarging the Council
to include such

21

The eight boards are Command and Control, Battlespace Awareness, Focused
Logistics, Force Management, Force Protection, Force Application,
Net-Centric, and Joint Training.

22

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the JROC Chairman, though the
functions of the JROC chairman are delegated to the Vice Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. The JROC Secretary is the Joint Staff Director for
Force Structure, Resources, & Assessment (J-8).

Page 15 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

representatives. 23 DOD has included representatives from the combatant
commands on the Functional Capabilities Boards, along with representatives
from nine other organizations 24 (under the former requirements process,
only representatives from the military services and the Defense
Intelligence Agency served in a similar capacity). DOD officials indicate,
however, that combatant commander participation on the boards is in
reality limited and of ongoing concern, and a July 2005 Joint Forces
Command briefing indicates that, so far, the combatant commands'
requirements do not drive the requirements process. In May 2005, DOD
introduced a new mechanism for the combatant commands to identify
capability gaps, 25 and a DOD official told us the combatant commands are
embracing this opportunity. However, the official also indicated that much
requirements setting continues to be driven by the services at this point
and that it is unclear how the services will respond to this type of input
from the combatant commands.

The JCIDS process is still evolving. A key enabler for capability
assessments under JCIDS are joint concepts, which are visualizations of
future operations that describe how a commander might employ capabilities
to achieve desired effects and objectives. The majority of the joint
concepts have completed an initial phase of development, but they continue
to be evaluated and revised. 26 These concepts are intended to

23

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Beyond
Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New Strategic
Era, Phase 2 Report (July 2005). M. Thomas Davis, "The JROC: Doing What?
Going Where?" National Security Studies Quarterly (Summer 1998); Joint
Forces Command point paper on combatant command input to capability
development (July 25, 2005). In recent testimony before Congress, Chief
Executive Officer of CSIS and former Deputy Secretary of Defense John J.
Hamre recommended giving representation on the Council to the combatant
commanders: Testimony before the Subcommittee on AirLand, Senate Armed
Services Committee (Washington, D.C.: November 2005), 4.

24

Offices of the Under Secretary of Acquisition, Technology, & Logistics;
Under Secretary of Intelligence; Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller;
Under Secretary of the Air Force (Space); and Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Networks and Information Integration/DOD Chief Information
Officer; Director, Program Analysis & Evaluation; Mission Requirements
Board; the military services; and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

25

The Joint Capabilities Document.

26

The Joint Operating Concepts are currently being revised and are expected
to be submitted for approval by June 2006; subsequently, Joint Functional
Concepts will be revised over the following year. Most of the more
detailed concepts-Joint Integrating Concepts- have also completed an
initial phase of development and also continue to be tested, but it is not
clear when or if they will be further refined. See appendix IV for a
description of each joint concept.

describe future capability needs in sufficient detail to conduct a
capabilities-based assessment, which is the methodology through which
capability gaps and excesses are identified. A Joint Staff official states
that capability-based assessment continues to be refined daily and has yet
to produce a common framework or set of rules. 27 At present, it can take
several years to conduct a capabilities-based assessment under JCIDS,
which is too slow according to a Joint Staff official associated with the
process. However, the biggest challenge posed by a change such as JCIDS
may be a cultural one: Joint Staff officials stated that the services are
struggling with JCIDS, and the officials observed that the new process
requires the services to change their behavior and think in a joint way.

JCIDS is not yet functioning as envisioned to define gaps and redundancies
in existing and future military capabilities across the department and to
identify solutions to improve joint capabilities. At this point,
requirements continue to be defined largely from the "bottom up"- by the
services-although DOD uses the JCIDS framework to assess the services'
proposals and push a joint perspective. The importance of defining
capability needs and solutions from a crosscutting, departmentlevel
perspective was highlighted in a prominent 2004 study chartered by the
Secretary of Defense, which stated that "a service focus does not provide
an accurate picture of joint needs, nor does it provide a consistent view
of priorities and acceptable risks across DOD." 28 The study observed that
the analytical capability for determining requirements largely resides in
the military services, and it recommended that analyses of both joint
needs and solutions to meet those needs be conducted at the
departmentlevel (in collaboration with the combatant commands, Joint
Staff, defense agencies, services, and Office of the Secretary of
Defense).

27

Under JCIDS, the capability-based methodology consists of four stages: a
Functional Area Analysis, which is to produce a prioritized list of
capabilities and tasks needed to achieve military objectives; a Functional
Needs Analysis, which is to produce a list of capability gaps that require
solutions and the relative priority of the gaps identified; a Functional
Solution Analysis, which identifies potential approaches to providing the
capability needed; and a Post Independent Analysis, which provides for an
independent review of the Functional Solution Analysis results.

28

Joint Defense Capabilities Study Team (DOD), Joint Defense Capabilities
Study: Improving DoD Strategic Planning, Resourcing and Execution to
Satisfy Joint Capabilities. Final Report (Jan. 2004), iii.

    Resource Allocation Process Does Not Support Crosscutting Investments

The resource allocation process is not structured to facilitate
investments in crosscutting capabilities such as the GIG. Unlike JCIDS,
the resource allocation process is structured in terms of individual
service and defense agency programs rather than in terms of joint
capability areas, such as netcentricity. In this structure, the military
services have come to dominate in the development of the DOD budget,
designing their programs and budgets based more on individual,
service-focused systems than on crosscutting capabilities with broad joint
utility. In part, this situation reflects the persistence of a
service-centric culture rooted in the services' interpretation of their
Title 10 authority to organize, train, and equip military forces. 29 This
resource allocation culture has contributed to DOD's interoperability
problems and made it difficult to capitalize on rapid advancements in
information technology that can improve joint operational effectiveness.

The predecessor to PPBE was the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting
System (PPBS), established in the early 1960s to be DOD's central
strategic planning, program development, and resource allocation
decision-making process. DOD expected the system to align the department's
investments in defense programs with overarching national security
objectives and military strategy, integrating the previously unrelated
programs and budgets of the military services into a coherent program and
budget for DOD as a whole. One of the central products of this system was
the multiyear Five Year Defense Plan (FYDP), 30 which the Secretary of
Defense could use to assess each military service's contribution to DOD's
overall capability in crosscutting mission areas, termed as Major Force
Programs. 31 By categorizing service programs into a structure of Major
Force Programs, the FYDP was intended to give the Secretary of Defense
visibility over the totality of DOD's capabilities, and

29

Sections 3013, 5013, and 8013 of Title 10 grant authority to the
Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, respectively, to
conduct all affairs of their Departments including recruiting, organizing,
supplying, equipping, training, servicing, mobilizing, demobilizing,
administering, maintaining, and military construction and maintenance.

30

Initially conceived as a 5-year plan, the FYDP has subsequently been
extended to 6 years and re-designated the Future Years Defense Program.

31

Original Major Force Programs were Strategic Forces; General Purpose
Forces; Command, Control, Communications, and Space; Airlift and Sealift;
Guard and Reserve Forces; Research and Development; Central Supply and
Maintenance; Training, Medical, General Personnel Account; Administration
and Associated Activities; and Support to Other Nations. An eleventh Major
Force Program, Special Operations Forces, was established in response to
congressional direction in 1987.

thus enable the Secretary to make trade-off decisions among service
investments in support of overall DOD objectives. The PPBS process fell
short of these expectations in several respects:

     o The services and defense agencies tended to receive the Secretary's
       planning guidance after they had begun preparing their proposed
       programs and budgets, and the guidance has been criticized for not
       clearly articulating DOD funding priorities, reflecting resource
       constraints, containing performance measures, or providing enough
       detail to be useful. Together, these factors contributed to the
       services' latitude to define their own investment priorities
       independent of the Secretary's stated objectives.
     o The Office of the Secretary of Defense reviews of the services'
       program and budget submissions occurred late in the process. As a
       result, opportunities to build joint priorities (such as interoperable
       systems) into the services' program and budget submissions were
       limited, and joint initiatives were often addressed late in the
       process when it was more difficult to make changes.
     o PPBS was structured to allocate resources to meet longer-term, more
       predictable needs, which made it difficult to accommodate (1) nearterm
       requirements such as those identified by combatant commanders based on
       lessons learned from recent or ongoing military operations and (2)
       rapidly advancing technologies. For example, commercially developed
       information technology tends to advance quickly, and it has been
       difficult to plan for advances in these technologies through the
       normal planning and budget process. 32
     o PPBS was not well integrated with the requirements determination and
       acquisitions processes to ensure that development efforts were
       affordable and technically feasible. For example, more acquisition
       programs are started than DOD can afford, with the result that many
       programs must compete for funding. 33 This situation in turn creates
       incentives to produce overly optimistic cost and schedule estimates
       and to over promise capability.

32 Defense Science Board, Enabling Joint Force Capabilities, 7.

GAO, Best Practices: Better Support of Weapon System Program Managers
Needed to Improve Outcomes, GAO-06-110 ( Washington, D.C.: November 2005),
5.

Page 19 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

        * The Major Force Programs that comprise the FYDP have changed little
          since the inception of PPBS in the early 1960s, despite changes in
          the operational environment and the emergence of strategic
          objectives such as the GIG. Some observers have recommended that
          the major program areas be substantially reconfigured to focus
          service programs on transformation initiatives, including creating
          a Major Force Program dedicated to C4ISR programs. 34 In prior
          work, GAO also found that the FYDP did not provide visibility over
          some high-priority items, including information technology. 35
          Information technology investments as an area of funding are
          difficult to identify in the DOD budget, and the Office of the
          Secretary of Defense reports separately to Congress and OMB on
          DOD's information technology expenditures. However, we have found
          material inconsistencies, inaccuracies, or omissions that limit the
          reliability of this reporting effort. 36
        * In an effort to streamline the process and make it more efficient,
          DOD revised PPBS in 2001 to make department-level reviews of
          service and defense agency programs and budgets concurrent rather
          than sequential. In 2003 DOD further revised the process to
          increase its effectiveness and emphasize budget execution by
          requiring a full budget development cycle every other year rather
          than every year. DOD named the revised process the Planning,
          Programming, Budgeting and Execution process. These recent changes
          have not addressed some of the characteristics of the process that
          in the past made it difficult to address joint needs-such as
          systems interoperability:
     o The services and defense agencies continue to have control over
       resources for command, control, and communications systems critical to
       the GIG, a condition that has in the past fostered development of
       service-specific systems with limited interoperability. As a DOD-wide
       interoperability solution, however, the GIG represents a different
       type of development challenge that requires a more cooperative, joint
       investment approach than has been typical of DOD in the past. If those
       who are responsible and accountable for the success of the GIG do not

34

Stuart E. Johnson, "A New PPBS Process to Advance Transformation," Defense
Horizons, No. 32 (Sept. 2003). Defense Horizons is a publication of the
National Defense University's Center for Technology and National Security
Policy.

35

GAO, Future Years Defense Program: Actions Needed to Improve Transparency
of DOD's Projected Resource Needs, GAO-04-514 (Washington, D.C.: May
2004), 2.

36

GAO, Information Technology: Improvements Needed in the Reliability of
Defense Budget Submissions, GAO-04-115 (Washington, D.C.: December 2003),
2.

have control over resources, the department may continue to employ a
stovepiped approach to investing in systems, and thus fail to
fundamentally improve interoperability outcomes.

     o PPBE is still not sufficiently integrated with the requirements and
       acquisition processes. In addition, the requirements determination
       process is now structured in terms of capabilities, but the resource
       allocation process continues to be structured in terms of individual
       service and defense agency programs rather than capability areas (such
       as net-centricity). Also, the Major Force Programs established with
       the FYDP remain virtually unchanged and no longer adequately reflect
       the needs of current and future missions.
     o The PPBE process is still not flexible enough to quickly accommodate
       emerging technologies or requirements resulting from lessons learned.
       In recent years, some budgetary flexibility has been created through
       such mechanisms as the congressionally established Limited Acquisition
       Authority 37 granted to U.S. Joint Forces Command to meet urgent,
       unanticipated warfighting needs. However, because there are no funds
       budgeted for this authority, the command has faced challenges in
       finding funding for projects.

In response to GAO recommendations, DOD has issued a policy and taken
initial steps toward implementing a portfolio-based management approach to
investing in information technology systems. However, DOD was slow to
formalize its policy, and it is too early to assess its effectiveness. 38
DOD believes that managing its information technology investments by
mission oriented portfolios39-a concept emphasized in the commercial
sector- will (1) ensure information technology investments support the
department's vision, mission, and goals; (2) ensure efficient and
effective delivery of capabilities to the warfighter; and (3) maximize the
return on DOD's investment. However, the DOD directive establishing
information

37

P.L. 108-136, National DefenseAuthorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (Nov.
24, 2003). The Limited Acquisition Authority is intended to allow U.S.
Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) to provide battle management, command and
control, communications, and intelligence equipment, and any other
equipment the JFCOM commander determines is necessary and appropriate to
facilitate the use of joint forces in military operations or enhance the
interoperability of equipment used by joint forces.

38

  DOD Directive 8115.01, Information Technology Portfolio Management (Oct. 10,
                                     2005).

39

DOD's mission-oriented portfolios are Warfighting, Business, DOD portion
of Intelligence, and Enterprise Information Environment.

    Acquisition Process Not Suited to Managing Interdependent Programs

technology portfolio management indicates that portfolio management
processes must work within the bounds of DOD's three major investment
decision-making processes. Given this guidance and the limitations of the
PPBE process, it is unclear whether portfolio managers would be
sufficiently empowered to meaningfully influence DOD components'
information technology investments.

DOD has taken various steps in recent years to improve acquisition
outcomes and focus acquisition decision-making on developing joint,
netcentric systems, but the Defense Acquisition System remains essentially
structured to support investments in service-oriented systems. To
effectively develop the GIG and enable net-centric capabilities, the
acquisition process must ensure that programs critical to the GIG not only
achieve desired cost, schedule, and performance objectives, but-because
the programs are interdependent and must work together to deliver a
capability-it must also ensure that their development is closely
synchronized and managed. In addition, to be interoperable, systems must
be developed from a joint perspective and aligned with the architecture,
standards, and data strategies established for the GIG. Further, the
acquisition process must be adaptive to keep pace with the rapid advances
that have taken place with information technology in recent years.

Although DOD produces the best weapons in the world, GAO has found that
the department's acquisition process has long been beset by problems that
cause weapon systems to cost more, take longer to develop and field, and
deliver less capability than originally envisioned. 40 In recent years, we
recommended that DOD adopt a knowledge-based approach to acquisitions that
reduces risk by attaining high levels of knowledge in three elements of a
new product-technology, design, and production-at key consecutive
junctures in development. 41

DOD has taken steps in recent years to address these issues. In May 2003,
DOD issued a revised acquisition policy that incorporated knowledgebased
and evolutionary acquisition principles employed by leading commercial
companies, with the aim of fostering greater efficiency and flexibility
and reducing risk in the development and acquisition of weapon

40 GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-05-207 (Washington, D.C.: January
2005).

41

GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Major Weapon Programs ,
GAO-04-248 (Washington, D.C.: March 2004).

Page 22 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

systems. 42 The revised policy requires program managers to reduce risk by
demonstrating attainment of essential knowledge at key program junctures
and establishes as DOD's preferred strategy developing systems
incrementally, an approach in which the customer may not get the ultimate
capability right away, but the product is available sooner and at a lower
cost. However, we continue to see many programs move forward with a high
degree of risk. For example, programs that are critical to the GIG, such
as the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and Transformational Satellite
Communications System (TSAT), have progressed without sufficient knowledge
that their technologies could work as intended. 43 Consequently, these
programs have faced cost, schedule, and performance issues that have
complicated DOD's efforts to deliver these key GIG components as
originally planned. 44

Under the Defense Acquisition System, programs that are intended to
produce interdependent systems are too often managed independently rather
than as a system of systems. 45 With increased efforts to promote
netcentric capabilities, key transformational systems under development
depend on capabilities being provided by other acquisition programs.
However, DOD program management and acquisition oversight tend to focus on
individual programs and not necessarily on synchronizing multiple programs
to deliver interdependent systems at the same time, as required to achieve
the intended capability. This focus has affected some recent DOD efforts
to develop such systems of systems. We recently reported, for example,
that the Army's effort to develop a high-capacity communications network
for higher-level command units, a program called the Warfighter
Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T), was at risk because critical
capabilities to be provided by other programs-unmanned aerial vehicles-may
not be available when needed (one platform was not

42

DOD Directive 5000.1, The Defense Acquisition System (May 12, 2003)
describes the management principles for DOD's acquisition programs. DOD
Instruction 5000.2, Operation of the Defense Acquisition System (May 12,
2003), outlines a framework for managing acquisition programs.
Collectively, these are known as the 5000 series.

43

The JTRS and TSAT programs are or have recently been restructured and may
be on a path toward a more evolutionary acquisition approach.

44

GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Resolving Development Risks in the Army's
Networked Communications Capabilities Is Key to Fielding Future Force,
GAO-05-669 (Washington, D.C.: June 2005), 3; GAO-04-248, 27.

45

DOD defines a system of systems as a set or arrangement of interdependent
systems that are related or connected to provide a given capability. The
loss of any part of the system will significantly degrade the performance
or capabilities of the whole.

adequately funded for a dedicated communications capability and the other
was still in the concept development phase). 46 In addition, the Army's
Future Combat Systems 47 program is at risk because its development
schedule is not consistent with the fielding schedules for the Joint
Tactical Radio Systems, on which it is critically dependent.

Although DOD has acknowledged the growing importance of interoperability
and recognizes the corresponding need to improve joint coordination in
acquisitions, the military services continue to develop and acquire
systems that have limited interoperability with other systems on the
battlefield. This condition persists in part because the military services
have traditionally focused on developing and acquiring systems to meet
their own specific missions and have placed relatively less emphasis on
developing and acquiring the types of interoperable systems needed to meet
the demands of joint operations. 48 Consequently, systems have often been
developed to perform service-specific tasks and to support vertical
exchanges of information. Rather than being developed around integrated
architectures 49 and common standards, systems have been designed and
developed using different standards and protocols, and operate in
different portions of the radio-frequency spectrum.

DOD has had policies in place for several years to improve systems
interoperability, including the designation of interoperability as a key
performance parameter for all systems that exchange information and
required testing for interoperability, but recent military operations have
shown that interoperability problems persist. Recently, DOD has introduced
new initiatives to improve interoperability and focus on the need for
joint, net-centric systems. For example, in 2003, DOD replaced the
requirement for an interoperability key performance parameter with a

46 GAO-05-669, 28.

47

The Future Combat System is a large and complex effort to develop a suite
of new manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles, sensors, and munitions
linked by a new information network.

48 GAO, Military Operations: Recent Campaigns Benefited from Improved
Communications and Technology, but Barriers to Continued Progress Remain,
GAO-04-547 ( Washington, D.C.: June 2004), 21-22.

49

An architecture is the structure of components, their relationships, and
the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over
time. An integrated architecture consists of multiple views or
perspectives (operational view, systems view, and technical standards
view) that facilitates integration and promotes interoperability across
capabilities and among related integrated architectures.

net-ready key performance parameter. Whereas the interoperability key
performance parameter sought to ensure a system could exchange information
directly with several other systems, the new net-ready key performance
parameter requires a system to be able to exchange information with the
"network." In addition, DOD's Chief Information Officer launched a
net-centric program review effort in 2004, intended to improve the
department's focus on developing systems with net-centric attributes.
While these efforts represent some commitment by DOD to improving the
interoperability of the systems it develops and acquires, they may be of
limited value unless interdependent programs are managed more effectively.

One mechanism DOD has used for a relatively longer period of time to help
address the systems interoperability problem is combining similar service
requirements into joint-service development programs in an effort to
ensure closer up-front coordination between services and to realize
economic efficiencies. However, in practice the department has long
struggled to achieve service buy-in, which is essential to joint
acquisition success. For example, in 2003 we reported that the Joint
Tactical Radio System program had difficulty getting the military services
to agree on joint requirements and funding necessary to execute the
program. We further found that the lack of joint-service cooperation on
the program hampered production of necessary program documents such as the
concept of operations and migration plans and that together these factors
caused schedule delays. In the meantime, the Army made unplanned purchases
of additional legacy radios to meet operational needs. 50 We recommended
that DOD strengthen the joint-program management structure by establishing
centralized program funding, realigning the Joint Program Office under a
different organizational arrangement, and placing the cluster development
programs under the Joint Program Office. In the fiscal year 2004 National
Defense Authorization Act, 51 Congress directed DOD to take steps
consistent with most of our recommendations. Similarly, DOD's efforts to
develop a Single Integrated Air Picture capability-whereby airborne
tracking information from different sensor systems can be fused into a
single picture-have also encountered joint management challenges. Although
Joint Forces Command was given new oversight responsibilities in 2003 to
promote stronger joint management of the Single Integrated Air Picture
development effort, it has been difficult,

50 GAO-03-879R.

P.L. 108-136 sec. 213 (Nov. 24, 2003).

according to officials from Joint Forces Command and the Single Integrated
Air Picture program office, to resolve differences with the services
regarding requirements and funding.

While DOD's acquisition policy now includes knowledge-based and
evolutionary acquisition principles, the acquisition system operates too
slowly and is too inflexible to keep pace with the rapid development of
communications technologies essential to modern, interoperable command,
control, and communications systems. For example, the National Research
Council found in 1999 that the program management and oversight processes
of the acquisition system operate on metrics optimized for weapon system
acquisitions in which underlying technologies change more slowly than do
the information technologies essential to modern command, control, and
communications systems. 52 The study concludes that metrics oriented to
long acquisition cycles and full performance capability often do not allow
for the timely integration of commercial technologies into command,
control, and communications systems. More recently, in a 2002 study, DOD's
Joint C4ISR Decision Support Center concluded that technology for joint
command and control capabilities progresses by a generation or more before
the acquisition system can field them. 53 The end result of these problems
is that the acquisition system is not sufficiently responsive to
warfighter needs for interoperable systems. DOD entities have developed
short-term interoperability solutions (e.g., a communications network-the
Joint Network Transport Capability54-deployed to Iraq in 2004) and
invested supplemental appropriations in legacy (largely commercial
off-the-shelf) command, control, and communications systems urgently
needed on the battlefield (e.g., in fiscal year 2005, Congress
appropriated $767 million in supplemental funds 55 for the legacy SINCGARS
56 radios).

52

Realizing the Potential of C4I: Fundamental Challenges, 20 and 221.

53

Joint Requirements Acquisition Study (July 15, 2002), 14. 54 GAO-05-669 ,
29.

55

See House Report 109-72 (May 3, 2005), 110.

56

Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System.

Page 26 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

  Conclusion

DOD's current approach to developing the GIG does not foster the level of
coordination and cooperation needed to make the GIG a reality. DOD's
management approach for the GIG effort and the department's decisionmaking
processes contain fundamental structural impediments to success that
recent changes to them have not been able to overcome. In fact, these
vertically-oriented or "stovepiped" ways of doing business have helped
perpetuate the very interoperability problem that the GIG is intended to
overcome. We believe DOD will not be successful in "horizontal" or
crosscutting initiatives such as the GIG unless it substantially changes
its decentralized management approach and the service-centric, poorly
integrated processes it uses to make investment decisions. The stakes are
high. Management inefficiencies that were accepted as the cost of doing
business in the past could jeopardize crosscutting efforts like the GIG
because greater interdependencies among systems will mean that problems in
individual development programs will ripple through to other programs,
having a damaging effect on the overall effort. In addition, the
likelihood of slowed growth and perhaps even reductions in DOD's future
budgets that may result from the nation's long-term fiscal imbalance will
limit the department's ability to mitigate the impact of these problems
with additional budgetary resources. Without significant change in DOD's
management approach and processes, we believe the department will not be
able to achieve the GIG as envisioned and may have to settle for a
different, more expensive solution farther out in the future than planned.

  Recommendations for Executive Action

To better accommodate the crosscutting nature of the GIG development
effort, we recommend DOD adopt a management approach that will ensure a
joint perspective is taken. In doing so, DOD should

(1) consolidate responsibility, authority, and control over
resources-within the existing management structure or in a new
entity-necessary to enforce investment decisions that cut across
organizational lines and (2) hold the organization accountable for
ensuring the objectives of the GIG are achieved.

                       Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with our
findings and recommendation (DOD's letter is reprinted in app. II). In
commenting on our recommendation, however, DOD noted that Department of
Defense Directive 5144.1 (May 2, 2005) indicates that the DOD Chief
Information Officer is responsible for integrating information and related
activities and services across the department. While this directive is
intended to help strengthen the department's management of investments
such as the GIG, we remain concerned that the responsibility,

Page 27 GAO-06-211 GIG Investment

authority, and accountability for developing the components of the GIG
reside among many organizational entities across the department. DOD also
noted in its comments that Department of Defense Directive 8115.01
(October 10, 2005) establishes policy for managing information technology
by portfolios and that this portfolio approach should provide a critical
tool for improving integration across the department's major decision
support systems (JCIDS, PPBE, and the Defense Acquisition System). We
agree that the concept of portfolio management holds promise; however, we
are not confident that DOD will be able to effectively implement the
policy unless it substantially changes its decision-making processes and
ensures that portfolio managers are sufficiently empowered to influence
DOD components' information technology investment decisions.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the
Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy; the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Networks and Information Integration; the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; the Under Secretary of
Defense (Comptroller); the Director of the Defense Information Systems
Agency; and interested congressional committees. We will provide copies to
others on request. This report will also be available at no charge on
GAO's Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you have any questions about this report or need additional
information, please call me at (202) 512-4841 ([email protected]). Contact
points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may
be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major
contributions to this report are listed in appendix V.

Director Acquisition and Sourcing Management

                       Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To assess the Department of Defense's (DOD) management approach for the
Global Information Grid (GIG) and the extent to which the department's
primary decision-making processes support the GIG, we collected and
reviewed (1) related legislation, directives, instructions, and guidance;
(2) DOD policies and guidance related to the GIG and networkcentric (or
"net-centric") governance; and (3) programmatic and technical documents
pertaining to core GIG systems. We also conducted a review of relevant
literature, analyzing studies on net-centric warfare, systems
interoperability, and DOD management and investment decision making. We
conducted this literature review by searching several types of databases
using such search terms as Joint Capabilities Integration and Development
System; Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process; Defense
Acquisition System; interoperability; jointness; requirements; defense
budget; Global Information Grid; etc. The databases were:

     o the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) database, which
       collects thousands of research and development project summaries from
       defense organizations;
     o Policy File, which provides abstracts and full-text articles on public
       policy research and analysis from research organizations, think tanks,
       university research programs, and publishers; and
     o Dialog Defense Newsletters, which contains full-text newsletters on
       defense companies, products, markets, technologies, and legislation.

We identified related analyses by searching online archives at GAO,
individual think tanks such as RAND, and congressional agencies. We also
individually searched online collections of various DOD organizations,
including the Defense Science Board, the Office of Force Transformation,
the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Joint C4ISR Decision Support
Center. We examined the selected documents to identify the positions taken
within them regarding the nature and causes of problems related to
interoperability, jointness, and DOD's decision-making processes. We
placed these results in a series of matrices to identify commonalities in
the literature-such as concerns about organizational structure and the
lack of integration among the three decision-making processes-and we used
this synthesis to develop and support our findings.

In addition, we conducted interviews with and received briefings from
officials with a number of DOD organizations (including the Office of the
Secretary of Defense; the Joint Staff; and the three military services-the
Departments of the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy) that have
responsibility for achieving the GIG. We also interviewed several subject

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

matter experts (from academic, think tank, or consulting organizations)
who have senior-level DOD experience or who have recently written on the
operation of DOD and its key decision-making processes.

We conducted our work from December 2004 through January 2006 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix III: Five Major Acquisitions Related to the Core GIG Network and
Information Capability

                     Program or initiative Purpose Manager

Transformational Satellite (TSAT) To develop satellites to serve as the
cornerstone of a new Air Force DOD communications infrastructure and
provide high bandwidth connectivity to the warfighter. Some of the
technologies that TSAT plans to use are laser cross-links, space-based
data processing and Internet routing systems, and highly agile
multibeam/phased array antennas.

Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) To develop family of software-defined
radios to Joint service program responsible interoperate with different
types of existing radios and for the software communications significantly
increase voice, data, and video architecture and waveforms; military
communications capabilities. service-led programs responsible for
developing radios

Global Information         To provide additional       Defense Information 
Grid-Bandwidth Expansion   bandwidth and information   Systems Agency      
(GIG-BE)                   access at key military      
                              installations within the    
                              United States and overseas  
                              via a combination of        
                              acquiring bandwidth from    
                              commercial providers as     
                              well as extending fiber     
                              optic networks to bases and 
                              installations that are      
                              located away from           
                              commercial networks.        
Network Centric Enterprise To enable network users to  Defense Information 
Services (NCES)            identify, access, send,     Systems Agency      
                              store, and protect          
                              information. Also to enable 
                              DOD to monitor and manage   
                              network performance and     
                              problems. Is expected to    
                              require development of new  
                              capabilities and tools for  
                              tagging data so it is       
                              useful, providing users     
                              with capability to identify 
                              relevant information based  
                              on content and allowing     
                              users to freely exchange    
                              and collaborate on          
                              information.                

Cryptography    To enable DOD to protect the             National Security 
Transformation  network and sensitive                      Agency, Defense 
Initiative      information. To provide information    Information Systems 
                   assurance and                                  Agency, and 
                   encryption support, including       the military services  
                   cryptography equipment              
                   (e.g., Internet protocol            
                   encryptors), firewalls, intrusion   
                   detection systems, etc.             

              Source: DOD (data); GAO (analysis and presentation).

                     Appendix IV: Joint Family of Concepts

Capstone Concept for Joint Operations

Joint Operating Concepts (JOC)

Joint Functional Concepts (JFC)

Joint Integrating Concepts

In descending order, the joint family of concepts consists of the
following:

The overarching concept of the joint family of concepts. It broadly
describes how the joint force is expected to operate in the mid- to
farterm, reflects enduring national interests derived from strategic
guidance, and identifies the key characteristics of the future joint
force.

Describe how a Joint Force Commander will accomplish a strategic mission
through the conduct of operational-level military operations within a
campaign.

Describe how the future joint force will perform a particular military
function across the full range of military operations.

Distill JOC- and JFC-derived capabilities into the fundamental tasks,
conditions, and standards of how a joint force commander will integrate
capabilities to generate effects and achieve an objective in 10 to 20
years.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Michael J. Sullivan, (937) 258-7915

  GAO Contact

In addition to the contact named above, staff making key contributions to

this report were John Oppenheim, Assistant Director; Marie Ahearn; Lily
Chin; Joel Christenson; Lauren M. Jones; Ron Schwenn; Jay Tallon; Hai
Tran; and Susan Woodward.

(120383)

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