DEFENSE MANAGEMENT: Munitions Requirements and Combatant Commanders' Needs Require Linkage

Abstract

The Department of Defense planned to spend about $7.9 billion on acquiring munitions1 in fiscal year 2002. Ongoing military operations associated with the global war on terrorism have heightened concerns about the unified combatant commands2 having sufficient quantities ofmunitions. In September and October of 2001, Congress provided emergency funding of $1.3 billion for munitions, with a supplementalincrease in the fiscal year 2002 munitions budget of $397 million. Significant funding increases are also planned, which would bring the fiscal year 2003 munitions budget to over $10 billion. Since 1994, the Department of Defense Inspector General and GAO have issued numerous reports identifying weaknesses and expressing concerns about the accuracy of the process used by the department to determine munitions requirements. Our April 2001 report discussed steps being taken by the department to improve the process and additional actions still needed.3 In response to that report, the department outlined actions underway that address all aspects of the reports recommendations. The department expected that its efforts to improve the munitions requirements process should correct over- or understated requirements and provide the combatant commands with needed munitions. Notwithstanding the improvements the department said it would make to the munitions requirements determination process, combatant commands have continued to report munitions shortages. Accordingly, this review was undertaken, pursuant to GAOs legislative authority, to determine the extent to which (1) improvements have been made to the Department of Defenses munitions requirements determination process and (2) the process is being used to guide current munitions acquisitions.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2002
Accession Number
AD1157836

Entities

People

  • Barry W. Holman
  • Nelsie Alcoser
  • Roger Tomlinson
  • Ron Berteotti
  • Tommy Baril

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Combatant Commanders
  • Defense Planning
  • Department Of Defense
  • Electronic Mail
  • Guided Weapons
  • Military Operations
  • Munitions
  • National Security
  • Reliability
  • Surface To Air Missiles
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States Special Operations Command
  • Warfare
  • Websites

Readers

  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.