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Not Well-Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid' 
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Report to Congressional Committees: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO: 

January 2006: 

Defense Acquisitions: 

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

GAO-06-211: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-06-211, a report to congressional committees: 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

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. 

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. and programs managing development of the GIG’s 
core network lack a clear understanding of the GIG concept. Moreover, 
Without a management approach optimized to enforce departmentwide 
investment decisions, and the various entities involved frequently 
neglect to coordinate with one another, 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 analytic framework for determining requirements, the new 
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 among programs is also unsuited to acquisitions developing 
a system of interdependent systems such as the GIG, and, as it 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. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO is 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. DOD concurred with GAO’s recommendation. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-211. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Michael J. Sullivan at 
(202) 512-4841or SullivanM@GAO.GOV. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

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

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

Conclusion: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

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: 

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

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: 

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.[Footnote 
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 network for the GIG.[Footnote 2] Today, DOD officials estimate 
that the GIG infrastructure will cost approximately $34 billion through 
2011.[Footnote 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.[Footnote 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 
decision-making 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, 
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. 

Results in Brief: 

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 
platform-oriented 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, net-centric 
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 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). 

Background: 

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.[Footnote 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 sea-based 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. 

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

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

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.[Footnote 6] In 
2003, we found that DOD's process for certifying systems 
interoperability did not work effectively for ground-surface-based 
intelligence processing systems.[Footnote 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.[Footnote 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. 

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

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

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. 

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

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.[Footnote 9] 
However, the 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.[Footnote 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."[Footnote 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.[Footnote 
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." [Footnote 13] The study also found that there was a 
lack of common 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.[Footnote 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).[Footnote 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 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 are 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,[Footnote 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 has long 
faced in managing its business systems[Footnote 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.[Footnote 
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. 

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 net-centricity, and it is inflexible 
in terms of accommodating emerging near-term 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,[Footnote 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.[Footnote 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 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,[Footnote 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,[Footnote 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 representatives.[Footnote 23] DOD has included 
representatives from the combatant commands on the Functional 
Capabilities Boards, along with representatives from nine other 
organizations[Footnote 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,[Footnote 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.[Footnote 26] These concepts 
are intended to 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.[Footnote 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, department-level 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." [Footnote 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 department- 
level (in collaboration with the combatant commands, Joint Staff, 
defense agencies, services, and Office of the Secretary of Defense). 

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 net-centricity. 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.[Footnote 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),[Footnote 
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.[Footnote 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 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: 

* 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. 

* 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. 

* PPBS was structured to allocate resources to meet longer-term, more 
predictable needs, which made it difficult to accommodate (1) near-term 
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.[Footnote 32] 

* 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.[Footnote 33] This situation in turn 
creates incentives to produce overly optimistic cost and schedule 
estimates and to over promise capability. 

* 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.[Footnote 34] In prior work, GAO also found 
that the FYDP did not provide visibility over some high-priority items, 
including information technology.[Footnote 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.[Footnote 
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: 

* 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 
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. 

* 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. 

* 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[Footnote 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.[Footnote 38] DOD believes that managing its information 
technology investments by mission-oriented portfolios[Footnote 39]--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 
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. 

Acquisition Process Not Suited to Managing Interdependent Programs: 

DOD has taken various steps in recent years to improve acquisition 
outcomes and focus acquisition decision-making on developing joint, net-
centric 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.[Footnote 
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.[Footnote 41] 

DOD has taken steps in recent years to address these issues. In May 
2003, DOD issued a revised acquisition policy that incorporated 
knowledge-based 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 systems. [Footnote 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.[Footnote 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.[Footnote 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.[Footnote 45] With increased efforts 
to promote net-centric 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 adequately funded for a dedicated 
communications capability and the other was still in the concept 
development phase).[Footnote 46] In addition, the Army's Future Combat 
Systems[Footnote 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.[Footnote 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[Footnote 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 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.[Footnote 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,[Footnote 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, 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.[Footnote 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.[Footnote 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 
Capability[Footnote 54]--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[Footnote 55] for the legacy 
SINCGARS[Footnote 56] radios). 

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 decision- 
making 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, 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 (sullivanm@gao.gov). 
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. 

Signed by: 

Michael J. Sullivan: 
Director: 
Acquisition and Sourcing Management: 

[End of section] 

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 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. 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: 

* the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) database, which 
collects thousands of research and development project summaries from 
defense organizations; 

* 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: 

* 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 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. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: 
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER: 
6000 DEFENSE PENTAGON: 
WASHINGTON, DC 20301-6000: 

January 11, 2006: 

Mr. Michael J. Sullivan: 
Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management: 
US General Accounting Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Sullivan, 

This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the General 
Accounting Office (GAO) draft report "Defense Acquisitions, DoD 
Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support 
Development of Global Information Grid," dated December 19, 2005 (GAO 
Code 120383/GAO-06-211). 

The DoD has reviewed the findings of the report and appreciates the 
efforts of the GAO staff to present objective viewpoints regarding 
Management Approach and Processes of the Global Information Grid. After 
reviewing the draft report, DoD concurs with the findings and 
recommendations and provides the enclosed comments. 

My point of contact is Mrs. Bonnie Hammersley, Resource Planning and 
Budget Office. She can be reached at 703-695-3937, or via e-mail at 
bonnie.hammersley@osd.mil. 

Signed by: 

Cheryl J. Roby: 
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Resources): 

Enclosure: As Stated: 

GAO DRAFT REPORT DATED JANUARY 2006: 
GAO-06-211: 

"Defense Acquisitions: DoD Management Approach and Processes Not Well- 
Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid" 

DEPARMENT OF DEFENSE COMMENTS TO THE GAO RECOMMENDATION: 

RECOMMENDATION: To better accommodate the crosscutting nature of the 
Global Information Grid (GIG) development effort, the GAO recommended 
that the Secretary of Defense 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. 

DOD RESPONSE: DoD concurs with the recommendation. DoD agrees that a 
management approach and specific measures are necessary to better 
assess and enforce GIG investment decisions that cut across 
organizational lines. Departmental Directive 5144.1, dated May 2, 2005, 
indicates that the ASD(NII)/DoD CIO is responsible for integrating 
information and related activities and services across the DoD. It 
specifically states that the ASD(NII)/DoD CIO is the principal staff 
assistant and advisor to the Secretary of Defense on networks and 
network-centric policies and concepts; command and control (C2) 
communications; non-intelligence space matters; enterprise-wide 
integration of DoD information matters; Information Technology IT, 
including National Security Systems and (NSS) information resources 
management (IRM); spectrum management; network operations; information 
systems, information assurance, position, navigation, and timing 
policy, including airspace and military-air-traffic control activities; 
sensitive information integration; contingency support and migration 
planning and related matters. 

Under the leadership of the DoD CIO, DoD has established policy for 
management of information technology by portfolios at the enterprise 
level and below. DoD Directive 8115.01, IT Portfolio Management, dated 
October 10, 2005, establishes four IT portfolios: Business, 
Warfighting, DoD Intelligence, and the Enterprise Information 
Environment. The core GIG network and information capability cited in 
Appendix III of the draft GAO report (TSAT, GIG-BE, JTRS, NCES and 
Cryptography Transformation (part of Information Assurance) are 
acquisition programs for which ASD NII/CIO is the principal staff 
assistant. DoD Directive 8115.01 requires that DoD perform cross- 
cutting management of IT investments, including National Security 
Systems, to include integration with JCIDS, PPBE, and Defense 
Acquisition cited in the draft GAO report. This portfolio management 
approach provides a critical tool with which DoD can improve 
integration across these decision systems. 

[End of section] 

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

Program or initiative: Transformational Satellite (TSAT); 
Purpose: To develop satellites to serve as the cornerstone of a new 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; Manager: Air 
Force. 

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

Program or initiative: Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-
BE); 
Purpose: To provide additional bandwidth and information 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; Manager: Defense Information 
Systems Agency. 

Program or initiative: Network Centric Enterprise Services (NCES); 
Purpose: To enable network users to identify, access, send, 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; 
Manager: Defense Information Systems Agency. 

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

[End of table] 

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

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Joint Family of Concepts: 

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

Capstone Concept for Joint Operations: 

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

Joint Operating Concepts (JOC): 

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

Joint Functional Concepts (JFC): 

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

Joint Integrating Concepts: 

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. 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Michael J. Sullivan, (937) 258-7915: 

Acknowledgments: 

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. 

FOOTNOTES 

[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). 

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

[3] 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. 

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

[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). 

[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). 

[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. 

[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). 

[16] 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. 

[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 Long-standing 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. 

[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. 

[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). 

[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. 

[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. 

[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, de- 
mobilizing, 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. 

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

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

[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. 

[37] P.L. 108-136, National Defense Authorization 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. 

[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). 

[42] DOD Directive 5000.1, The Defense Acquisition System (May 12, 
2003) describes the management principles for DODís acquisition 
programs. 

[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. 

[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. 

[50] GAO-03-879R. 

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

[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. 

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