Goldwater-Nichols extended this concept from programs to warfighting itself. During the past year, ACT has been working with individuals in OSD, the Joint Staff, DISA, and ARPA to improve the technology insertion process. The approach described below is a result of these efforts to exploit the opportunities that technology affords to change the way we organize, equip, and fight. An integral part of the MCP concept is the approach proposed to synchronize the insertion of advanced technology with our ability to change the way we fight so that we are able to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by technology. MCPs, with the freedom to design their own components from scratch, can fully leverage the capabilities of technology, thus creating an opportunity to radically transform current methods and approaches.
Time is the key.
Given the broad mission spectrum we face in the coming years, no one solution, in any dimension, is going to work. While we may find some degree of commonality in the nature of our conceptual, doctrinal, and organizational solutions to these mission challenges, it is only after we develop mission-specific solutions and then compare them across the board for common threads and components that the best solutions emerge. Thus, our approach to meeting our current and future challenges must be mission- oriented. While much has been learned about putting technology to use, the pace of technological advances has quickened to such a degree that current DOD methods of incorporating technology are well behind the power curve. Although acqui-sition reforms are underway to help reduce the time it takes to go from design to development, they alone will not be sufficient to bring about the changes needed to meet today's mission challenges.