FROM THE INSTITUTE
The FY26 NDAA, together with the Pentagon’s transition to a Warfighting Acquisition System, marks the most consequential structural realignment of U.S. defense procurement and sustainment policy in a generation. For the first time, Congress has moved beyond oversight and pilot programs to directly engineer how acquisition speed, industrial capacity, sustainment readiness, and portfolio-level risk are governed in statute. These reforms codify commercial-first procurement, establish Portfolio Acquisition Executives with broad termination authority, impose production and depot modernization mandates, and tie operational readiness to measurable sustainment and stockpile requirements.
