WASHINGTON -- In two separate interviews just prior to the Association of the US Army's annual conference, Defense News sat down with the top Army acquisition leaders – acquisition chief Katrina McFarland and her military deputy Lt. Gen. Michael Williamson -- to talk about how the service's effort to reform acquisition is taking shape and its procurement priorities based on a concentrated assessment on the present and future threat picture.

 Here are some edited excerpts.

 Q. There has been a big push for acquisition reform in the last year. How are the reforms affecting your office?

 McFarland. I consider it more revitalizing than reform, but there are things that we are doing in reform. Revitalizing the army's ability to have an agile acquisition system that supports the equip part of [procurement], it's very important if not imperative, to have the [Army] chief [of staff] and the [Army] secretary as central figures.

I think the recognition of that came out in part because of the change in our adversaries. We have been dealing with the threat [where we] ha[d] overmatch, … but now there are adversaries that have more "peerish" [capabilities]. Frankly, because we were engaged at war and had sort of neglected to really embrace the threat the way we needed to, we need to revitalize and here we are in a bad place, right? The budget is less than what we would desire to have so we have to make constructive and deliberate decisions.

Senior leadership has stepped up, they are taking a holistic look across the full acquisition spectrum. … Let me say, for example, with the standup of the Army's Requirements Oversight Council and the direct involvement of the senior staff, including myself with the requirements process, to deliberate and ensure that when requirements are discussed in the bedding process and are determined achievable, that we understand why and what risk we have right up front.

The other piece … is the Army Systems Acquisition Review Council (ASARC) process which … is essentially where I make the acquisition decisions and now the [Army] vice [chief of staff] has attended as well as representatives from the [Army] chief to make sure that what we are doing to set the program in motion has a full vetting across the Army.

Q. What are you currently pushing to acquire more rapidly or use what you already have to bring more capability?

Williamson. I think you are seeing it in a couple of areas. As we move forward with the Long Range Precision Fires, that is the one that jumps out right away.  And using things in a different way… when you start talking about acquiring things quicker, really it's how do I leverage existing capabilities or the combination of existing things that give us capability.

We start our day with threshold and objective requirements and so if you are going to use a non-developmental approach to acquire things quicker you have to say, "Am I willing to accept these?" … [If my] objective is get something that is 1,000 kilometers worth of range but I could get something today that gives me 600 and it's better than what I have in my hands today, then the decision space is is that acceptable, does that meet our needs? And that I think is what you are going to find the Army doing is thinking our way through what gives us capability and fills a gap that we have today. That doesn't mean we are not going to pursue that objective but it does mean that in an environment that is fiscally constrained how do we get more capability to our soldiers.

Q. How will your office support the new Rapid Capabilities Office?

McFarland. I have a history where I was there to help stand up the Air Force's rapid capabilities office. … And I was there when there was a desire to stand up the Strategic Capabilities Office … and there has been a lot of lessons learned and opportunities and a broader understanding by the enterprise of what that means in terms of risk. And so we are, I think, in a very good position of being able to adapt what those efforts have brought to bear.

Q. What is the Army prioritizing in procurement now?

Williamson. I don't set priorities … but in each of our portfolios, let's go with ground vehicles, the Army has communicated very strongly that mobile protected fire power is a priority for us. I think one we just talked about, Long Range Precision Fires, that is important to us, aircraft survivability, degraded visual environments for crew protection, those types of things, position, navigation and timing, those are all things we view as being very critical for us.

We had an AROC on mobile protected fires so we are now about to start an [analysis of alernatives] that gives us the opportunity to look at what are potential solution sets that are out there that we can incorporate very quickly. As we talk about protection you should have seen a tremendous investment on our part working on [science & technology] and development centers on protection. That is an area that we believe we can provide more protection, survivability to our soldiers today.

Q. What is the Army doing to make sure it's getting its procurement efforts right in terms of timing, cost and quantity?

McFarland. We have not completed this analysis -- this is coming up in the fall – but it is called the SPAR [Strategic Portfolio Analysis Review] where we are looking at how, in terms of the total capabilities, are we going to make a trade and balance against what we procure or buy.

We are trying to change from the program, the commodity into capability. We are trying to divorce ourselves from saying I want a tank, an aircraft; we are saying capability. How do I create the effects-based outcomes that I want to achieve in the battle for the spectrum of warfare?

At the SPAR we take that threat, we lay it in at the top. We take a look at what organic capability we provide, which is endorsed not just by equipment, but our [tactics, techniques and procedures] in the specific environments that we carry across that spectrum, and then we pile those in against the budget … and we will do as best as we can in this first iterative to determine what is above the line. It will take years for this conversion to occur. The equities are broad, they are not just organic to the Army; they have a defense industrial base consideration to take. We have constituencies, but we have to change the dynamic if we are going to have a modernized Army.

Q. When might we see some of these decisions reflected in the budget?

McFarland. I think numbers may come out as early as this next fiscal year because we are going to have to understand as we approach Milestone C what we are going to afford inside of the total [Total Obligation Authority] trade space, our budget. … And so what we are going to see is people coming out and saying, our acquisition objective remains the same because we understand that should the Army have to go to war with all of its arms and legs, we would need to field to this level so we know what our total acquisition objective should be, but we are going to buy to this basis of issue. It will obviously have the context of why in the terms of the numbers…. I will make a deliberate decision if I am going to continue on with a procurement as funding in the trade space evolves.

Q. Can you point to some examples where you have been able to take capability and change it so that it is meeting a new mission set?

McFarland. I think in several domains right now, that is actually very active. I will take a look at sensors as a simple one. ... Sensors do not care what they are tracking. They really do not. So, the data can be utilized by more than one asset in the battle space. So when we think of sensors neutrally and we think of them in terms of function, I should be able to change my architecture of the data and where it is distributed to cover more than one user of that data. … I need to break that architecture open so that that data can be shared by more than one user. It reduces cost and burden to the Army. It makes our Army more, not only situationally aware, but tactically aware.

Q. How is the Network Integration Evaluation changing since the decision to hold just one a year as well as an Army Warfighting Assessment and move away from having a dedicated unit at Fort Bliss, Texas?

Williamson. The Army was looking at all the requirements, all the demands that we had on our brigade structure. Having that unit dedicated to the two NIEs a year was really becoming problematic with all the demands that were occurring across the world. As a result of that, the Army leadership came to the conclusion we could not have that unit solely dedicated to NIEs. … As we look at the battle rhythm for our formations we are still going to ID units to support the activities out there. … We are going to get our first look at this in July so this will be our opportunity to assess. … Now what we have to do is work to make sure that when we bring units in we still allocate the right amount of time, the right amount of training.

Q. You said July, while NIEs are normally in the spring, is that to give time for a new unit to prepare?

Williamson. This one will move to the July time frame. It really is. … The 101st will be in the NIE.

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

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