They Shouldn't Let Him Touch it with a Ten-Foot Pole

General Cartwright

"Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright has commissioned a broad independent review to help the Pentagon more rapidly develop and buy urgently needed military equipment."  So begins a piece over at InsideDefense.Com, about how the Vice Chief is taking a hard look at "new ways to execute the joint requirements process" to replace the slow, bureaucratic" system known as JCIDS.  The Small Wars Journal also has a link to the piece, but theirs is accompanied by this headline:  Top Commanders Bemoan JCIDS.

JCIDS is shorthand for the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System.

They taught us at the Army Force Management School (AFMS) that General Cartwright is considered the "father of JCIDS."

If you've ever seen this Pentagon chart, which I wrote about recently, you know a little something about JCIDS already ...

JCIDS, DAS, and PPBE

JCIDS, along with the Defense Acquisition System and the DOD's Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution framework, is the process through which we get capabilities into the hands of our warfighters seven to ten years after they ask for them.

It's a system bemoaned by the military's top commanders.  It's the subject of a 4-week course at the AFMS.   Some of the instructors have had to go through the course multiple times before they could teach it.

General Cartwright is the father of it - the JCIDS part.

Again, it is a system that is bemoaned by top commanders - hence, the referenced article about General Cartwright looking at fixing it.

Look at the (JCIDS, DAS, and PPBE) chart again and ask yourself this question:  would you trust the man who gave you that to be able to fix it?

Now does that 10-foot pole make sense?