Department of Defense

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) mission is to defend the United States from attack upon its territory and to secure its interests abroad. With an annual appropriation of about $512 billion in fiscal year 2009, and supplemental funding of about $807 billion in the past several years to support overseas military operations, DOD has been entrusted with more of the taxpayers’ dollars than any other federal agency.

• Given its size and mission, it is also the largest and most complex organization to manage in the world. As such, DOD faces a number of management challenges and underlying fiscal pressures to meet the demands of the current security environment and future threats and to achieve greater efficiency within its organization.
• Overall, DOD continues to experience a mismatch between its programs and budgets due to the use of overly optimistic planning assumptions and the lack of a strategic approach to investment decision making. As a result, it has too many programs for the available dollars, which often leads to program instability, costly program stretch-outs, and program termination.
• Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), U.S. forces have operated at a high pace and gained considerable combat experience. Yet, extended operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a toll on readiness, especially in the Army and Marine Corps. Rebuilding readiness is a costly and complex effort but will be even more challenging because, at the same time, DOD is pursuing broad-based initiatives to reshape and grow the size of the force, as well as modernize and transform capabilities. It is also experiencing rising personnel costs for pay and benefits, and health care, as well as significant growth in the costs of its weapon systems programs.
• DOD spends billions of dollars to sustain key business operations intended to support the warfighter, including systems and processes related to the management of contracts, finances, the supply chain, support infrastructure, and weapon systems acquisition. While DOD's top management has demonstrated a commitment to transforming business operations and has initiated a number of reforms to address long-standing weaknesses, significant inefficiencies remain. For example, 8 individual items on GAO's list of high risk government operations and several of the government-wide high risk areas apply to the Department's business operations.

^ Back to topKey Reports

Defense Acquisitions: A Knowledge-Based Funding Approach Could Improve Major Weapon System Program Outcomes

GAO-08-619, July 2, 2008

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 47 pages)   Accessible Text   Recommendations (HTML)

Military Readiness: Impact of Current Operations and Actions Needed to Rebuild Readiness of U.S. Ground Forces

GAO-08-497T, February 14, 2008

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 17 pages)   Accessible Text

Defense Business Transformation: A Full-time Chief Management Officer with a Term Appointment Is Needed at DOD to Maintain Continuity of Effort and Achieve Sustainable Success

GAO-08-132T, October 16, 2007

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 45 pages)   Accessible Text

Defense Management: Additional Actions Needed to Enhance DOD's Risk-Based Approach for Making Resource Decisions

GAO-06-13, November 15, 2005

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 39 pages)   Accessible Text   Recommendations (HTML)