Military acquisition



Military acquisition is the bureaucratic management and procurement process dealing with a nation's investments in the technologies, programs, and product support necessary to achieve its national security strategy and support its armed forces. Its objective is to acquire products that satisfy specified needs and provide measurable improvement to mission capability at a fair and reasonable price.

Military acquisition has a long history spanning from ancient times (e.g., blacksmithing, shipbuilding) to modern times.

Modern military acquisition is a complex blend of science, management, and engineering disciplines within the context of a nation's law and regulation framework to produce military material and technology. This complexity evolved from the increasing complexity of weapon systems starting in the 20th century. For example, the Manhattan Project involved more than 130,000 people at an estimated cost of nearly $24 billion in 2008 dollars.

In the twenty first century, the trend has been for countries to cooperate in military procurement, due to the rising cost-per-unit of digital age military hardware such as ship and jets. For example NORDEFCO (established 2009) is a grouping of Nordic countries that cooperate in defence spending, the Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty was signed between the United Kingdom and France in 2010, and Joint Strike Fighter program which selected the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II in 2001 included the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Israel and Japan.

Activities
Major activities related to military acquisition are:


 * Project management/program management
 * Risk management
 * Earned value management
 * Product management
 * Product life cycle management
 * Contract management
 * Systems engineering
 * Software engineering
 * Computer engineering
 * Human factors
 * Modeling and simulation
 * Security
 * Procurement

In the United States
The US Department of Defense has three principal decision-making support systems associated with military acquisition:


 * Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) Process - Process for strategic planning, program development, and resource determination.
 * Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System - The systematic method established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for assessing gaps in military joint warfighting capabilities and recommending solutions to resolve these gaps.
 * Defense Acquisition System - The management process used to acquire weapon systems and automated information system.

Because of the size and scope of such a bureaucracy, the US Department of Defense instituted an extensive training program, known as the Defense Acquisition University.