As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth drives initiatives to expedite the development and deployment of advanced weaponry and systems, it is imperative to consider a formidable yet underutilized approach: the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA).
Legal mandates dictate that MOSA be employed extensively in key warfighting programs, as per established law. The Secretary’s Systems Engineering and Architecture office has actively promoted this methodology since early this year. If consistently implemented, MOSA could significantly enhance acquisition efficiency and reduce expenditures more effectively than any current reform strategy under discussion.
Challenges to Implementation
Despite its potential, the practical application of MOSA in warfighting acquisition remains hindered by several factors:
- **Preference for Proprietary Systems**: Acquisition processes often favor closed, proprietary architectures, stifling innovation.
- **Skill Gaps**: Program offices frequently lack the necessary expertise to enforce open standards.
- **Industry Reluctance**: Defense contractors are often unwilling to disclose interface specifications that could foster competition.
- **Leadership Commitment**: The absence of senior leadership mandates for MOSA compliance perpetuates vendor-locked systems that require exorbitant investments over prolonged periods.
This inability to provide timely and budget-conscious solutions has fueled the rise of venture-backed defense startups. While these newcomers have the potential to innovate, they risk perpetuating the cycle of proprietary systems if they adopt similar models. The Pentagon’s priority should be adherence to MOSA, enabling both traditional primes and emerging companies to engage in healthy competition and collaboration.
Benefits of MOSA
Implementing open architectures offers considerable advantages:
- **Defined Interfaces**: Clear interface standards permit modular hardware or software components to be independently serviced or upgraded, eliminating the need for comprehensive system redesigns.
- **Accelerated Upgrades**: Programs designed with open architecture facilitate rapid integration of new capabilities, allowing adjustments to occur within weeks or months rather than decades.
- **Sustained Modernization**: Continuous modernization across a system’s lifecycle becomes feasible, allowing for prompt responses to evolving threats without initiating new programs.
Moreover, MOSA fosters cost efficiency:
- Proprietary components are often costly and difficult to upgrade without complete redesign efforts.
- The adoption of MOSA standards encourages competition among multiple vendors for upgrades, driving down costs and fostering innovation.
- Long-term savings emerge as systems maintain relevance far longer than traditional closed architectures.
Enhancing Interoperability
MOSA addresses a critical operational challenge: interoperability. Achieving the objectives of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) is unfeasible when proprietary interfaces confine data within silos. Open architectures simplify communication across platforms, sensors, and command systems, enhancing collaboration within and among allied forces.
Operational Resilience
In high-stakes environments, adaptable battlefield systems can be rapidly reconfigured. The quick exchange of degraded sensors or the integration of new electronic warfare components must occur within hours rather than months. Closed systems are often incapable of meeting these demands, while modular configurations demonstrate resilience and the ability to sustain combat capability.
Furthermore, modularity contributes to enhanced cybersecurity measures. The rapid remediation of newly identified vulnerabilities minimizes the time adversaries have to exploit weaknesses in the code. Open standards facilitate the seamless incorporation of advanced cyber monitoring, detection, and response tools, maintaining a proactive stance against emerging threats.
Strengthening the Defense Industrial Base
Open architectures also fortify the defense industrial base by broadening the landscape of vendors involved. Closed systems tend to concentrate capabilities within a few providers, often relying on opaque supply chains that could include foreign components or intellectual property. By utilizing MOSA, the Department of Defense can invite innovation from established companies and agile startups alike while retaining vital data rights and sustainment expertise. This approach promotes strategic resilience and cultivates a robust domestic warfighting ecosystem.
Moving from Policy to Practice
There are tangible examples of MOSA’s efficacy in action, such as the C5ISR Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS). The legal framework for implementation exists; what is lacking is disciplined execution and a cultural transformation within the military-industrial complex.
To ensure that speed becomes a fundamental principle in acquisition processes, it is vital that every new acquisition includes a MOSA roadmap outlining specific milestones and mechanisms for ensuring compliance. This should mandate that non-proprietary interfaces flow down to subsystem and line replaceable unit providers as a matter of course. Such requirements will equip acquisition leaders with the tools to navigate tradeoffs necessary for advancing recent reforms.
Maximizing the benefits of this initiative necessitates active participation from industry in MOSA consortia, such as the Open Mission Systems effort, aimed at developing non-proprietary architectural standards aligned with acquisition milestones. These collaborative groups are pivotal in establishing industry-wide standards that promote competition and innovation.
The Secretary’s emphasis on accelerating the timeline for capability delivery represents a unique opportunity to address the underlying factors contributing to sluggish and costly warfighting acquisitions. Transitioning from closed proprietary systems to an open architecture framework is not merely a policy suggestion; it is a statutory obligation that expedites innovation, minimizes costs, enhances interoperability, and fortifies industrial resilience. The time to act decisively is now.
