Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Finance

Advisor/Mentor

Logan Miller

Abstract

This thesis examines the structural contradictions and systemic failures that have defined the United States defense acquisitions system across eight decades of reform. Beginning with the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 and proceeding through the Hegseth-era reforms of 2025, this analysis traces the cyclical pattern by which each successive administration identified procurement dysfunction, issued legislative remedies, and declared progress — only to produce new failures while leaving the underlying pathologies intact.

The central argument is that the defense acquisitions system has never suffered primarily from mismanagement or insufficient oversight, but from a structurally embedded incentive architecture that systematically rewards behavior antithetical to the system's stated purpose. Cost overruns, schedule delays, and industrial stagnation persisted not because individual actors were negligent, but because the tripartite relationship between the Department of Defense, private industry, and Congress created conditions in which self-serving behavior was rational and often unavoidable. Every reform era — from McNamara's centralization, to Packard's decentralization, to Rumsfeld's deregulation, to the Better Buying Power initiatives — addressed symptoms of this misalignment rather than its structural root.

The thesis further argues that effective reform has historically been constraint-dependent and threat-reliant, succeeding only under conditions of fiscal pressure or acute strategic urgency, and collapsing when those conditions subsided. Russia's invasion of Ukraine exposed the terminal consequences of this cyclical dysfunction, revealing an industrial base incapable of sustaining near-peer competition. The current Hegseth-era reforms, including the Warfighting Acquisition System, the Acquisitions Transformation Strategy, and concurrent congressional legislation in the SPEED and FoRGED Acts, represent the most structurally ambitious intervention in the system's history. Whether this effort can produce a durable institutional foundation — one capable of surviving leadership transitions, budgetary oscillation, and the permanent tension between state authority and industrial autonomy — remains the defining and unresolved question of American defense policy.

Keywords

Defense, Business, Government, Military

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