effectively plan and remain flexible to support these shifts. Without deliberate prior plan- ning, the sustainment strategies for these systems often remain rigidly set—predetermined early by a lack of long-term critical analysis, which is then locked-in by a failure to plan for flexibility necessary to enable an agile response to long-term risks and changes to sustainment needs. This
discrepancy between evolving opera- tional needs and static sustainment plans underscores the critical need for early identification and acquisi - tion of critical enablers for flexible sustainment strategies over the as- sets’ entire life cycle. One of the critical enablers of successful sustainment is acquir- ing IP, including the technical data, computer software, and other data
necessary for sustainment activities along with the IP rights necessary to accomplish those activities. Updat- ing and maintaining these platforms over their life cycle becomes cost- prohibitive and nearly impossible to negotiate when the department’s le- verage is constrained by a failure to acquire the needed data at program inception or subsequently acquiring
[W]e start from the foundational principle that advance planning during the acquisition process is essential to ensuring operational flexibility, maintaining a decisive advantage in contested environments, and managing a sustainable global enterprise.
MARCH – APRIL 2026 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE 23
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