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The U.S. Government Accountability Office is pressing the Pentagon to overhaul how it approaches testing new weapons, urging the Department of Defense to embed testers in the earliest stages of development—long before prototypes ever reach the battlefield. The recommendation, detailed in a report released Thursday, frames early user engagement as the key to delivering faster, smarter, and more adaptable systems to American warfighters.

GAO Warns Against “Reactive” Testing

According to the watchdog, waiting until late-stage field trials to identify flaws is like trying to rebuild a ship after it has already set sail—inefficient, costly, and ultimately dangerous.

“Traditional, reactive test and evaluation helps warfighters understand limitations,” the GAO wrote, “but it does little to speed the delivery of the capabilities they urgently need.”

The report scrutinizes the Pentagon’s weapons testing pipeline and highlights systemic delays that stem from involving evaluators too late in the process.

New Acquisition Framework Still Not Fully Applied

The Department of Defense revamped its acquisitions policies in January 2020, adopting an Adaptive Acquisition Framework intended to replace the rigid, one-size-fits-all model. This approach tailors each system to military needs using iterative field testing and early evaluation.

But the GAO found that while certain areas—particularly software acquisition—embrace “leading practices,” those methods are far from universal across the department.

“These practices were largely absent in policies guiding major capability acquisition and mid-tier pathways,” the report said, noting that these two pathways represent the bulk of DOD weapon system spending.

Mid-tier programs aim to deliver field-ready systems within two to five years, while major acquisitions involve highly complex, modernization-driven platforms.

Branches Not Fully Engaging Testers Early

The investigation revealed a recurring issue across the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army: testers are not consistently brought into acquisition planning early enough to shape design decisions or verify whether user feedback is being incorporated.

“As a result, programs across pathways are not ensuring that the weapon system under test meets essential user needs,” the GAO reported.

One barrier is that testers often lack direct access to critical developmental data, leaving them dependent on acquisition officials to share model insights—an arrangement that has historically led to delays and blind spots.