How (I hope) They Designed Deal Team Six
When I was younger, I had a commander who said, “doctrine is for those who can’t.” This is a pithy way of saying that he expected people to problem-solve and defend rationales for why we should do something, not just fall back on “because the book said so.” In some ways, this seems anathema to David Epstein’s new book Inside the Box How Constraints Make Us Better. The same commander would also say, “you have to define the box to be able to think outside of it.” That is a core issue facing the Pentagon today in new technology acquisitions.
Semafor’s coverage of “Deal Team Six,” the Defense Economic Unit, and the Pentagon’s continued pronouncement highlight the Pentagon’s focus on headhunting deals. These are undoubtedly smart and capable individuals who are proven dealmakers. It is also a fundamental break with how the U.S. has worked acquisitions in the past. Rather than a litany of civil servants owning deals, a single leader is taking responsibility for every major defense area. This is positive in that it will provide greater oversight and help incentivize dealmaking. I have only heard and read about smart dealmakers with great pedigrees. Deal Team Six will only matter if it defines “best deal” as battlefield relevance, not just price, speed, or commercial pedigree. I worry that the box this team operates from is not the same as the box modern warfare is drawing for future weapons.
One of the advantages of the Iran War—and I am on record that there are not many—is that the U.S., through Central Command, has greatly sped up its defense acquisition and fielding. Central Command now counts new tech emergence in days, not weeks. That rapidity has allowed them to move more systems into testing and disqualify more systems. It has also shown that not all theaters are created equally. Not all Ukrainian systems, built and tested against Russia, work in the Persian Gulf. Why would they? Looking at one aspect of the conflict, electronic warfare jamming, shows the difference in difficulty.
In the Ukraine War, the jamming is pernicious, effective, ubiquitous, and largely comes from two sources: Ukraine and Russia. This is something that makes the Middle East, with jamming sources from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Iraq, and Iran, more dynamic and harder to plan both for and against. Those differences are not subtle. Friendly jamming does not distinguish between our drones and their drones; it just jams. Having multiple friendly countries all desperately jamming everything they can to stop attacks affects everything else. I refuse to repeat Russian-backed claims of Ukrainian weapons’ failures. It is true that operations in the Middle East are different enough that weapons optimized for the Russian invasion may struggle.
This brings me back to Deal Team Six and the box they are defining. Weapons are developing in real time. Right now, we are seeing constant iteration and changes in systems. New techniques and technologies are being integrated into existing systems. Searching for the best deals means more than getting the lowest price. A low-priced system that fails is, in the end, much more expensive than a higher-priced system. This is where I hope Deal Team Six is incorporating a wide team with knowledge not only of deals or systems, but also of tactical operations and strategic effects and, importantly, someone who is not in uniform right now.
The military has a history of creating good systems and turning them into bureaucratic nightmares. One that we have talked about on WarTalk was Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG). AWG was great until it became part of the bureaucracy. This will also happen to someone wearing the uniform and paid to tell hard truths. Expertise in the military is never in short supply. The issue becomes a master sergeant or major telling a general officer that his units are: 1) poorly trained, 2) poorly equipped, and 3) poorly led. Commanders have to be very open to criticism to take that type of feedback, and a non-zero number are not.
Who would be the right people for this job? That is where building the team will really matter. I think the first thing is people with experience in the military but not experience in the Pentagon. I do not say that because I think the Pentagon is bad, only that it has a culture of its own, and that culture becomes engrained in people who live and work there. Someone who has never been there does not have the pre-existing baggage of “this is how things work.” To be clear, this is not a call for a DOGE-like team that tries to overhaul the whole system. Instead, it is a call for a group of technical and tactical advisors who can speak truth unencumbered by yearly reviews, promotions, or future changes of station.
These tactical experts need to understand what is happening in the Middle East, Asia, and Ukraine from more than reports. The systems each theater needs are drastically different. Imagine drones that are perfect for the relatively placid Black Sea, on the surface or underneath, but are not necessarily suited for the waves of the Pacific or the South China Sea. Reading reports is not enough to have a deep understanding of the terrain and environments where we are looking to employ future systems.
More important than regional experience is understanding how the U.S. military fights today and what changes to doctrine and training will need to occur alongside new tech acquisitions. This is really where new munitions, weapons, and technology matter. How quickly new weapons reach the battlefield relies at least as much on how well trained and familiar our soldiers are with the weapons as on their employment. This means that at least a portion of every new acquisition deal needs to include: 1) new equipment training, 2) fielding, and 3) doctrine updates. Without these, the commanders who revert back to “doctrine says” will not successfully employ new systems.
Tying together this team would be a group of engineers, software, hardware, and systems, who can confirm that systems are what they purport to be. In total, a team like this would be able to focus not just on deals, but on deals that have the greatest impact in the medium term for the U.S. That is where we need to be concentrating: the medium term. Procurement for the long term, given the current rate of change, is likely a fool’s errand beyond 5-10 years. However, over the next 3-5 years, the Davidson Window shuts, the U.S. and the globe should have developed counters to the rare-earth minerals and fuel restrictions of 2024-2026, and the U.S. can be in a position to have adapted the way it fights to modern techniques.
I have high hopes that a deal team, properly empowered and staffed with heavy hitters who do not stand on ceremony, will do good things for the Pentagon.