Intelligence Shortfalls Threaten Pentagon's Push for Faster Weapons Development

The U.S. military is accelerating weapons development to keep pace with global threats, but a critical oversight—the lack of robust intelligence—could undermine these efforts. Without comprehensive intelligence gathering and analysis, the military risks deploying weapons vulnerable to enemy countermeasures, compromising national security and battlefield effectiveness.

The Pentagon’s focus on speed and data-driven decisions, often referred to as decision superiority, has led to a misplaced emphasis on rapid deployment over thorough intelligence integration. While this approach aims to maintain a technological edge, it overlooks the historical importance of intelligence in shaping military outcomes. During World War II, for instance, Allied codebreakers provided crucial insights into enemy strategies, directly contributing to military success.

The Role of Intelligence in Military Advancement

Intelligence plays a dual role in military advancement: innovation during peacetime and adaptation during wartime. Peacetime innovation allows militaries to study potential conflicts and develop strategies to counter emerging threats. For example, insights from a Soviet scientist during the Cold War helped the Pentagon advance its electronic warfare capabilities, demonstrating the value of intelligence in driving technological progress.

Adaptation, on the other hand, occurs during active conflicts, where real-world combat experiences challenge existing assumptions. The capture and analysis of a Japanese A6M Zero fighter after the Battle of Midway provided the U.S. Navy with invaluable data, leading to improvements in aircraft design and tactics. These historical examples underscore the importance of intelligence in both preparing for and responding to military challenges.

Challenges in Acquisition Intelligence

Acquisition intelligence is essential for developing new weapons, ensuring that military programs align with the latest intelligence assessments. However, intelligence gathering is resource-intensive, and agencies often struggle to secure the funding and personnel needed to analyze threats effectively. As a result, intelligence support for acquisitions is frequently sidelined in favor of more immediate operational needs, leading to delays and a perception that the intelligence community is too slow to keep up with the pace of weapons development.

The Pentagon’s Adaptive Acquisition Framework, designed to expedite the development and deployment of new capabilities, further exacerbates this issue. While the framework includes pathways for Urgent Capability and Middle Tier acquisitions, it prioritizes speed over thorough intelligence integration. This inconsistency creates several risks, including less stringent intelligence requirements for fast-track programs and an assumption of alignment between the intelligence community and acquisition enterprise that does not always hold true.

Risks of Overlooking Intelligence

Prioritizing major capability programs can lead to intelligence gaps for fast-track initiatives. Current policies may not incentivize the intelligence community to keep pace with smaller, innovative programs that address critical operational problems. The most significant risk is that weak intelligence requirements could result in weapons that are ineffective against enemy countermeasures, increasing the likelihood of military defeat. The pressure to meet deadlines and cost targets could further incentivize shortcuts and a disregard for the intelligence record.

Recommendations for Improvement

To address these challenges, acquisition policies should explicitly require intelligence for all acquisition pathways. Congress should allocate funds to ensure the intelligence community prioritizes warfighter lethality, and acquisition programs should be evaluated on how well they address evolving threats. Additionally, the intelligence community should build strong relationships with new commands and offices focused on rapid capability development, ensuring they have access to authoritative threat intelligence.

The intelligence community should also study how to support rapid adaptation during prolonged conflicts. While artificial intelligence is increasingly seen as a key driver of adaptation, the sophistication of modern weapons necessitates human expertise. A shortage of intelligence expertise could hinder warfighters’ ability to adapt quickly, as demonstrated by China’s investment in AI, which highlights the critical importance of superior intelligence.

Intelligence: A Decisive Factor

Despite a growing intelligence budget, policies must be updated to ensure resources are directed where they are needed most. National leaders must recognize how intelligence enhances America’s lethality. In future conflicts, the U.S. military will need better decisions, superior concepts, and more effective weapons to overcome its adversaries. Intelligence is crucial for guiding the lethal edge of American weapon systems, and it is needed now to prepare the nation for future challenges.