80 percent of the Defense Acquisi- tion Workforce members are civilians versus military, the mechanism would be located in the civilian-led DoD and not the JCS. As with JPME, the educational program can be delivered in a great variety of ways, including in-resident seminars and distance learning either passive, interactive, or other forms. Conclusion Innovation is critical to our na- tional security. The JPME mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Depart- ment of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 can serve as a model in creat- ing incentives for innovation through education. Doing so can empower acquisition professionals to cultivate innovation in the DoD. BRUNEAU is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the National Security Affairs Department of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). He joined the NPS in 1987 as a full professor un- til retirement in 2013. Bruneau has published extensively on security issues in Iberia and Latin America, religion and politics, democra- tization, civil-military relations, reform of intel- ligence agencies in new democracies, and the pitfalls of the United States contracting out security. He holds a Ph.D. from the Uni- versity of California at Berkeley. Additionally, he has received numerous academic distinc- tions and awards throughout his career, in- cluding a Fulbright Fellowship to India (1962– 1963) and a Regents’ Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley (1963–1964). The author can be contacted at tbruneau@ globalacademicprofessionals.com . The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
A Word From the Author I would not have the audacity to suggest applying the model of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 to DoD acquisition processes if I were not convinced that I combine sufficient experience and expertise to understand the benefit of the first and problems of the second. While Goldwater-Nichols posits extensive reorganization in both the civilian and military domains of U.S. defense policy, my article focuses exclusively on the educational dimension, without which the structural reorganization would be impossible to implement. More specifically, Goldwater-Nichols envisioned “jointness,” a joint approach to warfight- ing, which required that all of the armed services operate jointly and no longer separately. My experience, including both Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) and DoD acquisition, is built on 26 years as a full and tenured professor in the Department of National Security Affairs (NSA) at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, Calif. In 1989–1995, I was chairman of the NSA, and during 2000-2004 was director of the NPS Center for Civil-Military Relations (CCMR). Both positions required liai- son with civilian and military bureaucracies and with the U.S. Congress. I was personally responsible for obtaining resources and using them to employ scores of professors and other subject matter experts. They both necessitated extensive work with contractors. After retiring in 2013, I briefly became an independent contractor and occasionally was awarded contracts. During most of the 26 years, I held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance that allowed me to gain insights into how the U.S. Government really works. In fulfilling the educational requirement for JPME mandated by Gold- water-Nichols, I led a team at NPS that achieved JPME certification for the NSA Department in December 1995 and full accreditation in JPME from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in July 1998. In 1995, I began working closely with Arch Barrett, the House of Rep- resentatives professional staff member who wrote the legislation for the Goldwater-Nichols Act. On Barrett’s retirement from Congress, I employed him in the NSA Department and at the CCMR, and later in- terviewed him extensively on his role in formulating legislation for JPME and defense reorganization. Based on my four decades of experience and research, I am aware of the problems of innovation in defense-related acquisition and am familiar with the solution, via incentives, offered by Goldwater-Nichols. And, as an NPS retiree and with no affiliation with any think tank or Federally Funded Research and Development Center, I strive to be as objective as humanly possible. I have no “agenda” but to help improve U.S. national security. — Thomas C. Bruneau
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the law could draw upon the financial incentive from the DoD Acquisition Workforce Development Fund, which was established by the FY 2008 NDAA. Or Congress might decide to establish a new source of funding as an incentive. In short, there can be
a combination of incentives to think with monetary incentives. Congress—or some members of it as with Goldwater-Nichols, Rep. Skel- ton, and JPME—must create a moni- toring mechanism to ensure content and frequency of interaction. Since
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