Hegseth: "We Are Not Building for Peacetime"

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the U.S. Department of War, Pete Hegseth, explained on Friday that his department is radically changing how it purchases weapons, allowing the military to acquire technology more rapidly amid growing global threats.

In an address at the National War College, the Pentagon chief detailed the transformation of the Defense Acquisition System in accordance with an executive order signed by Donald Trump in April. "Today, under my direction, the Defense Acquisition System as you knew it is gone. It is now the system of acquisition for war, and this is not merely a name change, but a fundamental shift in how we view and conduct acquisition," Hegseth stated.

In this context, the senior official emphasized that these are not merely reforms concerning purchases, but the resolution of "life-or-death problems" for the nation's military personnel. "We are not building for peacetime. We are preparing the Pentagon and our industrial base for wartime," he asserted.

This is the reason the Department of War has introduced a plan to simplify testing and evaluation requirements, Hegseth detailed. "Conducting early and frequent testing is essential at certain stages of development, but testing for the sake of testing inhibits progress and delays delivery," he indicated. In this sense, he stressed the importance of operational availability and mission capability rates of current weapons systems.

Furthermore, Hegseth announced that the department will also focus on performance standards. "We are demanding portfolio scorecards with primary performance measures that focus on what really matters: the time it takes to put weapons into the hands of our men and women who use them when it is needed," he explained.