OPINION:
What’s going on in the U.S. Navy today reminds me a lot of “The Muppet Show” of the 1970s.
Two old guys, Statler and Waldorf, sat in a balcony overlooking a stage and often had critical commentary on what was happening below. These characters delivered some of the best slapstick humor on TV — and sometimes, the humor edged toward the absurd.
Fortunately, it seems that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth heard some of that grousing. On Wednesday, he reportedly fired Navy Secretary John Phelan (though the White House insists Mr. Phelan quit).
Whatever the terms, Mr. Phelan’s exit is a start to fixing what ails the U.S. Navy, but much more needs to be done to get things right when it comes to acquisition reform in shipbuilding.
Just last week at the Sea Air Space maritime exposition, Mr. Phelan and dozens of admirals sang the song of defense acquisition reform and promised that this time, things would be different.
Still, most defense industry attendees had seen the act before, and they remained skeptical.
Defense industry folks are the ones who have to deal with the 84,000 Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) bureaucrats employed to help the Navy buy ships and submarines. They are the ones who must put up with hundreds of pages of specifications and onerous reporting requirements, combined with demands for excruciating detail in any response to requests for proposal (when those demands for detail are designed to let the bureaucrats reject proposals from highly qualified firms so they can award contracts to their preferred suppliers).
The bureaucrats have hundreds of ways to pretend they are encouraging competition, even though, in reality, they have already made their choice. I have seen many of these maneuvers over the years.
One recent example is an obscure pre-solicitation notice for a contracting opportunity posted on the U.S. Navy’s federal contract opportunities website in January. The announcement was for research, development and production of a new technology sonar system called the Large Vertical Array.
A year ago, the Navy was advertising that it would have open competition and seek nontraditional suppliers to bid on this multibillion-dollar program for a new LVA sonar system. In January, however, it did a 180 and posted a solicitation for a sole-source award.
The solicitation was posted on a Tuesday, and the response was due two weeks later — leaving only 11 business days for submitters to put together a competent and detailed proposal.
The fix was in, and the bureaucrats were getting their way. Their plan was to award a sole-source contract worth billions of dollars, locking in a prime contractor and locking out dozens of small, innovative companies from developing a new technology.
Only a dummy would conclude anything other than that the U.S. Navy bureaucrats fully intend to award the contract to a major prime contractor that just happens to be located near Groton, Connecticut.
Such an action would be totally contrary to the very clear policies established by President Trump and Mr. Hegseth in various executive orders and directives.
Unless we make real change, the newly appointed “submarine czar,” Vice Adm. Rob Gaucher, will just be moving around chairs on the upper deck, making promises, while the bureaucrats below continue to do the driving. They will keep doing Navy procurement the way they always have, and they will intentionally thwart the policies established by Mr. Trump and by Congress in specific legislation.
If Statler were here today, he would be shouting at the admirals, telling them they need to get off the poop deck and start steering.
A good place to start is with a quick review of the Navy’s recent pre-solicitation notice for the Large Vertical Array program. The rot and bureaucratic sludge will soon become obvious, as will a sensible path forward.
There are times and circumstances in which a sole-source contract is the right answer, but certainly not for the multiyear development of special technology systems.
Let the shipbuilders stick to shipbuilding, and let the small and innovative companies out onto the playing field.
• Christopher M. Lehman Sr. is a national security analyst with extensive experience, having served since the 1970s in senior defense and national security positions.
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