A new report by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center for Peace Through Strength has given defense modernization in the U.S. a “D” grade, reflecting the country’s limited progress in transitioning innovative platforms into fielded national security capabilities.
According to the Reagan Institute’s second annual National Security Innovation Base Report Card, the grade reflects a downward trend and the lack of new programs of record that address NSIB priorities.
“Failure to act on innovation priorities and pull through technologies at scale is materially affecting overall readiness levels and ability to fight and win against a pacing competitor,” the report reads.
The use of other transaction authority agreements to accelerate the transition of new capabilities to the production phase rose 46 percent between 2022 and 2024, compared with 30 percent from 2018 through the end of 2023.
“Commercial space acquisition more than doubled since 2018, with a 7% increase of share seen from 2018-2019, demonstrating ability to leverage innovative private tech,” the report notes.
Apart from defense modernization, the report card assessed and graded the national security innovation ecosystem across nine other key indicators: innovation leadership; pull-through for broader national priorities; customer clarity; private sector innovator base; public/civil innovation base; government alignment; international alliances and partnerships; innovation capital; and talent base.
Innovation capital, pull-through for broader national priorities, government alignment and international partnerships and alliances are the indicators that exhibited improving trends in the report card.
The document also offered six signature recommendations to improve the NSIB ecosystem, including the need for the Department of Defense and Congress to fully fund the Replicator initiative in fiscal year 2025 and prioritize the development and maturation of novel manufacturing processes that support the production of munitions and other military capabilities.
Congress should establish a National Security Innovation Base Green Card Recapture Program to build up the STEM workforce and DOD should launch a pilot program for shared access to commercial classified infrastructure, according to the report.