DoD's S&T Strategy 2023 is a "wish list" not strategy

OUSD R/E recently published "National Defense Science and Technology Strategy 2023"  that contains ZERO consequential strategy and parrots what others have said ad nauseam.   The document correctly identifies that there is a very serious problem with the government system for delivering the fruits of taxpayer funded R&D efforts.  It identifies point A and points to B, but offers absolutely no practical guidance or ideas of how to get there.  In the case of contracting and the business of taxpayer funded, government R&D activities, it's always  groundhog day.  Each workforce generation does what the last one did, but pretends this time it is innovative... always 1 step forward, 2 steps back.     

The problems are known, remedies have been provided, even mandated, in policy and law.  Solutions and potential solutions are known or are waiting to be explored.  Yet, the DoD remains entrenched in business-as-usual, as insiders are extremely invested and well furnished in the status-quo.   Leadership, lawyers, and academia generally admonish innovative contracting and business practices, instead they actively instill fear, road block, and narrow thinking within the workforce...  obey and comply, do not think!  They say the current system is the gold-standard, and everything else weird, evil, or must illegal.  They prefer what they know, the "Soviet-style" acquisition system, a perfect example of institutional corruption, for R&D.  It is a system of controls contrived by bureaucrats lacking in practical and applied business experience, or an appreciation for the gestalt.   The worsening trajectory, the extraordinary waste of the system will continue unabated until leaders are held accountable and take responsibility.   It shouldn't be too much to ask that government leaders follow the law.  For if they did, many problems and issues would already be solved.

It's time for action!  The talk, incessant rhetoric, and never ending analysis is a doom loop.  Who will take up the mantle for positive change, returning value, and providing timely and appropriate solutions to benefit something greater than self?  It could be you. 

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than creation of a new system.  For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.”  – Niccolo Machiavelli

 National Defense Science and Technology Strategy 2023