Calvert: Growing the Defense Innovation Ecosystem
Washington, D.C. – Today, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act will be debated on the House floor. The legislation directly invests in America’s military superiority, shapes a more efficient and effective Department of Defense, protects from threats at America’s border, and takes care of our troops and their families.
In a just recently released op-ed, House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert (R-CA)advocates for transformative defense spending focused on accelerating innovation and reshaping Pentagon culture. As the House prepares to vote on the FY26 Defense Appropriations bill, the Chairman highlights several key efforts to disrupt outdated military acquisition practices and bolster U.S. defense capabilities.
Read the op-ed here and below.
Calvert: Growing the Defense Innovation Ecosystem
Breaking Defense
by Ken Calvert
July 16, 2025
Early during my time on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, I quickly realized continuing along the same path for buying capability was not sustainable and would threaten our national security. As the Defense Subcommittee Chairman, I put dollars where they could immediately impact the most change, disrupt the DoD from within, and grow the defense innovation ecosystem.
This week the House will consider and vote on the FY26 Defense Appropriations bill, and it is vital that we keep our foot on the pedal when it comes to the disruptive entities within the Department. There are three major efforts that I want to highlight when it comes to innovation inside the Pentagon — examples of where investing in smart ways can provide the department a boost without a major increase in bureaucracy — and one new effort I believe must be passed to support America’s defense future.
Start with DIU. Ten years ago, Defense Secretary Ash Carter stood up the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental (DIUx), an entity charged with accelerating the adoption of commercial technologies for military use. Early on, it received anemic funding as the Department of Defense continued to prioritize the status quo. In time, however, senior DoD leaders in both Republican and Democratic administrations came to recognize our military acquisition system had become calcified, with systems rarely delivered on time and on budget.
In FY24, I increased the president’s budget request for DIU by 900 percent to almost $1 billion, with a substantial amount included for fielding of capabilities utilizing colorless money to increase program execution flexibility and reduce time to transition. Finally armed with substantial resources, DIU was positioned to create real change.
While it’s still early, we are beginning to see the fruit of that investment. Two examples stand out from calendar 2024.
In March 2024, DIU awarded four contracts to reduce drag on legacy Air Force aircraft, like the C-130J Super Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, and KC-135 Stratotanker. Reducing drag reduces fuel cost by 5-10 percent, and increases operational capability via longer time on station, increased range, increased payload, and reduced engine wear.
That same year, DIU made three awards under the Novel Responsive Space Delivery (NRSD) project, which is prototyping commercial solutions that enable responsive and precise point-to-point delivery to orbit, between vehicles in orbit, and precisely to Earth via novel reentry vehicles and methods. The necessity for superior logistics and resilient sustainment lines of communication makes NRSD very intriguing. Should NRSD prove capable and scale, our troops would benefit from next-level logistics superiority.
While FY25 did not pan out as many of us had hoped, and we ended with a full year Continuing Resolution, I was pleased that we were able to maintain robust funding for the DIU fielding line (again, colorless) at $595 million. In the FY26 Defense Appropriations bill, which will be on the House floor this week, we increased that funding to $619 million — and the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill will supercharge DIU, with an injection of more than $2 billion to be spent over the next four years.
As we enter the third appropriations cycle wherein DIU is forecasted to receive substantial funding, it is imperative that senior Defense officials across the services partner with DIU to grow the innovation ecosystem that will broaden the defense industrial base, bring new entrants into national security, provide competition to incumbents, promote contracting excellence, and, most importantly, deliver capability to the warfighter in a time frame of relevance. Meanwhile, I’ll be closely watching to ensure DIU remains focused on its core mission — and not on becoming a bureaucracy.
In addition to DIU, in FY22 I spearheaded the effort to create and fund APFIT (Accelerating the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies) at $100 million. APFIT complements DIU’s efforts and is focused on technologies or products that have completed development but lack funding to transition into production. The program is a specific response to the proverbial “valley of death” problem created by the nearly three-year planning programming, budgeting, and execution cycle that prevents smaller companies from working with the DoD.
Since its inception, APFIT has invested over $925 million across 46 projects in 20 states, attracting over $2 billion in follow-on procurement contracts, amplifying DOD and commercial investment. Similar to DIU, APFIT received a huge shot in the arm with $1 billion in funding from the reconciliation bill and $400M in the FY26 Defense Appropriations bill.
Rounding out our innovation triad within the DoD is the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), which was established to attract and scale private investment in critical technologies vital to US national and economic security. OSC is stepping in where private capital is not, investing in long lead items and critical industrial base gaps that will be vital to our future military superiority. It is also an incredible value to the taxpayer, because with just a few million dollars in outlays, for FY26 the US government can leverage over $4 billion in loan guarantees to invest in critical areas.
As the foundation of the above innovation entities continue to take root in the department, it was necessary to acknowledge that there is still much to be done, especially to address the deep gaps in the defense industrial base and our ability to surge manufacturing capacity. Hence, the FY26 Defense Appropriations bill includes the call to establish a Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network (CRMN).
The bill provides over $131 million to establish a model for a broader network of dual-use manufacturing firms capable of rapidly shifting from commercial to defense production when needed. Modeled after existing programs like the Air Force’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet and the Navy’s National Defense Reserve Fleet, the CRMN aims to establish “ready-to-scale defense production” to address the crisis of offshored defense manufacturing. As China continues to outpace the US in manufacturing capacity, it is past time to address this glaring capability gap.
In the many years I have served in Congress, I have never been as enthusiastic as I am now about changing the culture inside the Pentagon. The Trump Administration, under the leadership of Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg, is prioritizing delivering capability. Our HASC and SASC counterparts are contributing with their acquisition reform proposals, like the SPEED Act and FORGED Act. Our alignment is essential for lasting change as we have seen too many times before that bureaucracy will outlast the political and transformational will.
This bill makes the investments needed to grow the defense industrial base, bring new entrants into the fold, and supercharge our manufacturing capacity, and I urge both the Congress and the Pentagon to move quickly on these items in the coming weeks.
As Gen. Douglas MacArthur famously said, “The history of failure in war can almost always be summed up in two words: ‘Too late.’” Let us seize this opportunity and ensure that our children and grandchildren are not living in world in which our decisions came “too late.”
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