JCIDS is dead. Thank God. Here’s what comes next.

When the secretary of defense signed a new memorandum last week, few outside DoD acquisition circles may have noticed, with the curious exception of Laura Loomer on X. There was not much fanfare, but this memo, which effectively kills the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System — JCIDS to its survivors — could prove as positively disruptive as the Goldwater‑Nichols Act (GNA) was in 1986.

The GNA rewired the way America fights; The Hegseth-Feinberg memo rewires the way DoD builds the force. It rips out the baroque machinery that once took 800 days to bless a single requirement document and replaces it with a time-bounded pathway that pairs joint problems with joint money. The DoD memorandum charts a new course that could transform how the Pentagon approaches capability development by focusing on outcomes.

For more than two decades DoD has refused to fix the requirements problem. JCIDS held modernization hostage. Under JCIDS, the military services first wrote paper “Initial Capabilities Documents” that the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) eventually rubber stamped a couple years later, and then nothing else happened. Budgets continued to flow along legacy stovepipes; prototypes died on the vine; combatant commanders watched threats evolve in real time while their wish lists aged in inboxes. Earlier this year, I coauthored the report “Required to Fail,” which documented JCIDS’s six active harms, the most damning of which was simple: The process divorced needs from resources. JCIDS served as a cathedral of paperwork disconnected from dollars or impact.

By shuttering JCIDS, the JROC returns validation authority to the individual services, allowing the Joint Staff to concentrate on a concise annual list of Key Operational Problems (KOPs) —essential, outcome-focused warfighting challenges that the joint force must urgently address. Gone are the endless stacks of validated memos that once piled up without actionable progress.

Meanwhile, a newly created Requirements & Resourcing Alignment Board (RRAB), co-chaired by the deputy secretary of defense and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, will align strategic priorities with budget decisions, ensuring critical needs receive resources in the very same budget cycle they’re identified.

Complementing this, a Joint Acceleration Reserve (JAR) has been established — a year-of-execution funding tool designed to quickly direct resources to the service lines best positioned to deliver effective solutions. The JAR specifically targets the notorious “valley of death” that often stalls promising industry solutions after they’ve been validated through structured experimentation campaigns led by the new Mission Engineering & Integration Activity (MEIA).

Together, these changes represent a coherent effort to swiftly turn strategic analysis into operational realities, reshaping how the department delivers joint capabilities.

This is a significant moment for how this nation prepares for war. Goldwater‑Nichols clarified who commands in battle; this memo clarifies who commands for joint modernization. Both reforms elevate joint outcomes over parochial interests. Both shift real power — GNA moved it to combatant commanders, this memo moves it to the strategy‑to‑budget nexus. Both bet on culture change enforced by law and money. If the GNA ended inter‑service operational turf wars, the secretary and deputy secretary aim to control the budget turf wars that keep America fielding yesterday’s kit.

Why does this matter now? It is because China will not wait for our forms to finish routing and to obtain the right signature block. Hypersonic glide vehicles, autonomous swarms, and space denial systems move from concept to squadron on Chinese timelines measured in quarters, not FYDPs. Our answer cannot be another study or yet another enfeebled years-long process. The secretary’s memo is decisive precisely because it converts analysis into funded action. By linking KOPs to the JAR, it creates a standing promise: Solve this joint problem and the money is yours. That incentive is a far sharper spur than any policy exhortation.

These reforms directly address each problem identified in our report: Instead of an 800-day paperwork marathon, testing and experimentation start right away. Operational challenges are defined collaboratively across the services, guided by commanders rather than staff bureaucracy. Decisions about resources are made transparently, tying every dollar directly to accountable leaders tasked with solving clearly identified problems. Promising prototypes are supported with dedicated funding, ensuring that successful experiments rapidly become real capabilities rather than stalling. Finally, the process now welcomes innovation openly, allowing companies of all sizes — including those without extensive lobbying resources — to participate through clear, practical experimentation pathways.

There is still a hard road ahead and internal bureaucratic sabotage cannot be ruled out. Issuing a memo is only the first step in what promises to be a long and challenging journey. True implementation will inevitably bruise both institutions and egos. Staffs conditioned by decades of generating hundred-page requirements documents must now learn to engage directly with operators and embrace problem-solving over paperwork. The department as a whole will need to transform its relationship with industry, moving from a posture of rigid oversight to one of dynamic collaboration.

Likewise, the Joint Staff will need exceptional discipline to remain outcome-focused, resisting the temptation to revert to familiar bureaucratic patterns. Placing the MEIA in the OSD acquisition chain risks excess bureaucracy that could sideline the vital link to the combatant commanders. That role should be made more explicit and strengthened in practice. Congress must also be willing to embrace this new approach, providing steady support and funding for experimental initiatives, rather than falling back into habitual debates and budgetary inertia. Industry, too, will face its own test — pivoting from lobbying to safeguard old budget line items to actively competing in experiments based on actual performance.

With this memo, DoD has removed the first critical obstacle towards the future. Now, service secretaries must fundamentally rewrite how their departments define requirements and allocate resources, while industry should view the upcoming list of operational challenges as the Pentagon’s new call for innovation — showing up with functioning technologies and solutions, not just glossy presentations. For the first time in decades, industry has a genuine opportunity to shape the department’s thinking about its most critical warfighting problems.

America cannot afford another decade of incremental reforms and bureaucratic tinkering. Our competitors are innovating at warp speed, and this memo proposes a concept bold enough to compete. But ideas alone won’t be enough; execution will determine success.

The clock has started, and the department faces the ultimate test: whether it can finally deliver real, meaningful change at the pace demanded by the warfighters it serves.

Bill Greenwalt is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank, a former senior staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former deputy undersecretary of defense