Several months into his second term, President Donald J. Trump has demonstrated his commitment to modernizing the U.S. military via executive order.
One of the most critical, signed in April, was aimed at modernizing defense acquisitions and spurring innovation in the defense industrial base.
“America’s defense acquisition workforce is a national strategic asset critical to maintaining military superiority,” the president wrote.
He added that military “personnel must deliver on enhancing warfighting capabilities rather than being bogged down with bureaucratic procedures.”
President Trump is absolutely correct: for America’s military to remain successful, it should prioritize scalable and effective solutions that are free from unnecessary regulations. We need strong oversight, but not administrative sclerosis. The government’s “Revolutionary” Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Overhaul is an excellent first step in streamlining the current FAR process. It will enable government contractors to innovate more effectively and support rapidly changing modern warfare requirements.
The world is moving far too quickly for the old, legacy methodologies to remain in place. That’s why the Heritage Foundation released an April 2025 report emphasizing that regulatory reform is crucial to modernizing the 21st-century defense industrial base.
“By reducing the excessive regulatory burden placed on American companies,” it noted, “the government could go a long way toward revitalizing the industry.”
This is an absolutely essential step, and the April EO is the foundation of the effort. But the ongoing FAR Overhaul and plans to reform regulatory language alone won’t be sufficient. The U.S. needs to also prioritize relationships with nimble innovators that can take defense dollars further. Every efficiency most be ruthlessly pursued and must leverage the innovative spirit organic to American industry.
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Numerous companies fit that bill. Take MetroStar, an AI-focused and venture-backed firm, and an innovator uniquely positioned to drive digital scalable transformation. It currently supports over 200,000 marines by playing a vital role in accurate and on-time pay, human resources, benefits administration, and effective manpower, and finance management in support of the USMC mission.
MetroStar’s collaboration and on-going partnership with the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) has positioned the branch to successfully pass audits in 2023 and 2024, becoming the Department of Defense’s first and only service branch to pass a financial audit.
Another example is BigBear.ai, the company selected to assist the U.S. Army in developing an integrated force structure and employment data system. The system is designed to enable effective planning, programming, and production of authoritative force structure data, ensuring the Army is properly manned, equipped, trained, and resourced. It has gone a long way toward tackling some of the Army’s most daunting tasks.
Combining the efforts of scalable government innovators with President Trump’s initiatives will position the U.S. to better prepare for today’s challenges, and for the next modern war. “Ruffled feathers” and cries of “That’s not how we do it here” should not be a consideration.
The work of MetroStar, BigBear.ai, and many other government tech contractors offer valuable starting points, complementing the ongoing FAR overhaul and other regulatory reform efforts. Any “revolution” in defense must have a foundation of processes. New weapons’ systems and new battlefield tactics, techniques, and procedures alone are never going to be enough.
They are the so-called bright and shiny objects that get the attention, but without improvement in the systemic base of our Armed Forces, what might appear as profound will be bogged down. The type of innovation that is available today is the place to start.
Steve Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a visiting research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
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