Pentagon’s technology office can’t direct spending to counter threats from China, Russia

The Pentagon’s office for researching new technologies lacks the authority to actually direct investments, leaving critical capabilities to counter China and Russia underfunded even as warfighters request them, according to a government watchdog report.

The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress built to provide research to lawmakers, found the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering lacks the power to certify military department budgets.

The findings have caused unease among U.S. lawmakers overseeing Department of Defense spending, which is set to approach $840 billion in 2026.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering — known in military parlance as the OUSD(R&E) — has “developed a national strategy to guide DoD’s science and tech efforts and investments,” according to the watchdog report.

Emil Michael, who heads the office, has publicly pushed for a venture capital approach to procurement.

The problem is that the “tech strategies” of the different military services “don’t always line up with DoD’s, which might lead to competing or conflicting efforts,” states the report circulated this month. “Also, the office doesn’t receive detailed and timely budget information. So, it can’t determine whether the military services’ tech budget priorities align with DoD’s.”

The report highlights key questions about the efficiency of major spending outlays at a moment of rapidly evolving technology, according to Sen. Jack Reed, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat.

“A lot of these new programs are very big,” Mr. Reed, of Rhode Island, told The Washington Times in an interview. “Where’s the details and the plan and how is it going to be evaluated, etc. That’s what we’re trying to glean first, then second, how is the money being spent effectively or not.”

At issue specifically is the reality that the OUSD(R&E) is forced to rely on persuading the joint force to work with the office, rather than having direct authority for how and where the different services spend their development funds.

The result, according to the watchdog report, finds each service pursuing technologies that don’t always align with each other or a broader defense strategy, duplicating research investments and letting already developed technologies languish as forever prototypes.

Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the report highlighted how there needs to be more clarity and efficiency in how the Pentagon acquires new advanced technology products for the different services.

“We have some built-in challenges for having good fidelity,” Mr. Rounds told The Times.

He said that while the intelligence community is out looking at threats around the world and making recommendations for technology investments, those recommendations aren’t always in line with what the Defense Department is promoting.

“Those two do not necessarily always speak with each other about programs,” Mr. Rounds said. “Or the need for some programs to continue on or whether or not there’s a duplication of efforts.”

Black holes

Many of the technologies highlighted by the Government Accountability Office report have become black holes of information to Congress. The past year’s highest areas of spending have become difficult to track.

Hypersonics, artificial intelligence, advanced computing and space technology each received more than a billion dollars in funding in 2025, but the OUSD(R&E) estimates it only knows about 70% to 80% of what the services are actually developing in these areas.

The GAO report says the military services disagree with the idea of giving OUSD(R&E) the authority to control their budgets for acquiring new technology, because doing so “would lead to delays, restricted autonomy and increased workload.”

However, there are examples throughout the watchdog report of inefficient and poorly used funding.

In one case, a system designed to help commanders coordinate attacks across military services languished after prototyping with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Under that command, the Army is developing its Next Generation Command and Control system (NGC2) with a heavy emphasis on strikes and targeting.

The original prototype is being given to the Air Force as a program.

The research and engineering office had led the prototyping, but didn’t have the authority to tell a service of the military to fund it. It left them outside the rest of the military, working on a problem that almost every branch had said needed updating.

The result finds the Army, the Navy and the Air Force making their own investments, often without coordination, in their own research projects. And the pursuit of trying to track spending and the status of different projects is often a matter of “who you know,” according to the watchdog report.

Furthermore, keeping new technology development projects outside the realm of traditional oversight from Congress, or from the OUSD(R&E), leaves many of the projects as targets for budget constraint only after they’ve started development and need more money.

NGC2, for example, was developed internally by the Army. In this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, Congress limited continued funding for the project by half until the Pentagon could provide lawmakers with a report on “the Army’s detailed funding plans for current and new procurements” and show with “high assurance” that the project was secure.

Defense officials told the GAO that more oversight would hurt, not help, their technology research and development. The military services opposed the recommendation, telling the watchdog that budget certification authority would cause delays, restrict their independence, and increase workload without improving results.

Meanwhile, Congress has given the Pentagon increased authority to start and stop parts of its budget. Lawmakers have grown in a rare bipartisan chorus to decry the spending on major contracts as deadlines are broken and budgets balloon.

Several lawmakers have questioned whether the Defense Department can keep pace with adversaries in areas like artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.

House and Senate committees overseeing defense spending are expected to consider mandating a new budget certification process as part of any 2027 military spending plan.

The concern among lawmakers is that without authority to direct investments, the OUSD(R&E) risks funding technologies that don’t match the national priorities and defense strategy, leaving some already developed prototypes sitting on the shelf — all while Russia and China continue their rapid buildup and spending on new weapons.