DOD’s strategy for planning, executing, and funding its weapon system acquisition programs relies on three principal decision-making systems. First, the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) is a requirements system used to assess gaps in warfighting capabilities and recommend solutions to resolve those gaps. Second, the Defense Acquisition System is used to manage the development and procurement of weapon systems and other equipment. Third, the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process is used to allocate resources and is intended to provide a framework from which the department can articulate its strategy; identify force size, structure, and needed equipment; set program priorities; allocate resources to individual programs; and assess program performance. All three of these systems can incur lengthy time frames. For example, the requirements system can take an average of up to 10 months to validate a need. The acquisition system involves large budgets and generally meets materiel warfighter needs in 2 or more years, with some systems taking decades to develop and procure. The budgeting process is calendar driven, taking nearly 2 years from planning to the beginning of budget execution. We have previously reported on challenges the department faces within each of these systems. Each of the military services has established processes to address urgent warfighter needs. Our review focuses primarily on the following: The Army established its Operational Needs Statement process in 1987 to provide a way for unit commanders to identify urgent needs for new materiel or new capabilities. The Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G3/5/7 oversees the process. Prior to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army received about 20 requests per year. From September 2006 to February 2010 the Army’s database shows 6,712 Operational Needs Statements containing 21,864 urgent needs requests that have been or are being processed to support operations in those two theaters. The Army’s process supports deployed units, deploying units, and units conducting their assigned missions, and responds to a variety of urgent needs, from new capabilities to shortfalls of existing equipment in theater, to requests for training equipment for mobilizing units in the United States. Operational field commanders also use the Army’s process to document the urgent need for a materiel solution to correct a deficiency or to improve a capability that impacts upon mission accomplishment. In September 2006, the Equipment Common Operating Picture, an automated processing tool for Army urgent needs, became operational. This data management tool is a classified, Web-based application for processing urgent needs from the unit submitting the request through all phases of the process. According to the user’s guide, the tool was designed to simplify requests, consolidate existing sources of information, and significantly speed the approval process while providing situational awareness to all involved in a request. The Marine Corps created its Urgent Universal Needs Statement process in November 2003 to meet the immediate operational needs of deployed forces or forces preparing to deploy. The Marine Corps Combat Development Command oversees this process. The command establishes guidance and direction, and provides oversight to ensure solutions are effectively and efficiently delivered to the warfighter. The Marine Corps received 574 requests through the process between December 2001 and November 2009. In August 2007, the Marine Corps’ Virtual Universal Urgent Needs Statement data management system for processing urgent needs requests became operational. The Corps developed this system as a result of a Lean Six Sigma continuous improvement initiative to replace the manually updated Combat Development Tracking System. In addition to the military services’ urgent needs processes, The Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 (the Fiscal Year 2003 NDAA) directed the Secretary of Defense to create a process to rapidly meet the urgent needs of combatant commands and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Specifically, Section 806 of the act required the Secretary of Defense to prescribe procedures for the rapid acquisition and deployment of items that are currently under development by DOD or available from the commercial sector, and that are urgently needed to react to an enemy threat or to respond to significant and urgent safety situations. According to the legislation, the procedures should include a process for demonstrating, rapidly acquiring, and deploying items that meet the needs communicated by the combatant commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In September 2004, the Deputy Secretary of Defense directed the Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L) and the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) to create the Joint Rapid Action Cell (JRAC), later renamed the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, to facilitate meeting the urgent material and logistics requirements which combatant commanders certify as operationally critical. Subsequently, in November 2004, the Deputy Secretary of Defense provided guidance on the procedures, roles, and responsibilities of the JRAC and on the identification and validation of urgent operational needs. The Deputy Secretary’s memo defines urgent operational needs as urgent, combatant commander-prioritized operational needs that, if left unfilled, could result in loss of life and/or prevent the successful completion of a near-term military mission. The memo defines immediate warfighter needs as urgent operational needs requiring a timely materiel or nonmateriel solution in 120 days or less that, if left unfilled, could result in loss of life and/or prevent the successful completion of a near-term military mission. An executive director leads JRAC and reports to the Director, Rapid Fielding, within DDR&E and under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L). JRAC’s Core Group consists of full-time professional staff and part-time senior executives and military officers from the offices of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), DOD General Counsel, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. An Advisory Group supports the Core Group and includes pertinent Under or Assistant Secretaries based on the specific need. Just weeks before the Deputy Secretary issued the November 2004 guidance, the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (the Fiscal Year 2005 NDAA) was enacted. It amended section 806 of the Fiscal Year 2003 NDAA by providing the Secretary of Defense with a rapid acquisition authority to respond to combat emergencies. Under that authority, when the Secretary of Defense, without delegation, determines in writing that equipment is urgently needed to eliminate a combat capability deficiency that has resulted in combat fatalities, the Secretary is to use procedures developed under this section to accomplish the rapid acquisition and deployment of the needed equipment. The amendment states that whenever the Secretary makes the above determination, the Secretary shall designate a senior official to ensure that the needed equipment is acquired and deployed as quickly as possible, with a goal of awarding a contract within 15 days. Also, under the amendment, the Secretary is to authorize the senior official to waive certain provisions of law, policy, directive, or regulation that would unnecessarily impede the rapid acquisition and deployment of the needed equipment. The amendment also stated the “authority of this section may not be used to acquire equipment in an amount aggregating more than $100,000,000 during any fiscal year.” In addition, the amendment stated that “or acquisitions of equipment under this section during the fiscal year in which the Secretary makes the determination [that equipment is urgently needed to eliminate a combat capability deficiency that has resulted in combat fatalities] with respect to such equipment, the Secretary may use any funds available to the Department of Defense for that fiscal year.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) issued an instruction in July 2005 establishing policy and procedures to facilitate the assessment, validation, sourcing, resourcing, and fielding of operationally driven urgent, combatant command needs during the same fiscal year that a request is made. According to the instruction, combatant commanders involved in ongoing operations identify joint urgent needs as life- or combat mission-threatening needs based on unforeseen military requirements that must be resolved in days, weeks, or months. Under the instruction, a joint urgent need must be considered inherently joint in nature; for example, the need is theaterwide and/or spans multiple military services. Joint urgent needs must also fall outside of DOD’s established guidance for weapon systems acquisition and the military services’ established urgent operational needs processes. JRAC has applied its guidance to process joint urgent needs meeting these criteria. The instruction delegates shared oversight responsibility of the process to the Joint Staff J-8 Director for Force Structure, Resources and Assessment; the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Deputy Comptroller for Program and Budget; and JRAC within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L). Data for joint urgent needs are managed through the CENTCOM Requirements Information Manager database system, which the command added to a preexisting Web site it managed in 2005. The database includes 283 joint urgent needs requests from August 2004 through February 2010. The Army, Marine Corps, and joint urgent needs processes have some distinctions in guidance, terminology, and data systems; however they share similar decision points. Although each of these urgent needs processes is distinct, we identified seven broad phases that we used to track the progression of each request over time and to compare performance across the Army’s Operational Needs Statement process, the Marine Corps’ Urgent Universal Needs Statement process, and the Joint Urgent Operational Needs processes. These phases are: initiation, theater endorsement, command validation, headquarters approval, funding, contract award, and initial fielding. Urgent needs requests that result in fielded solutions typically move through the process as follows: Initiation: Any of the three urgent needs processes can begin when either a warfighter in the theater of operations or an official at the theaterwide or combatant command level identifies a need and an officer with a rank of Colonel or higher submits the request into the relevant Army, Marine Corps, or joint process. The request could be for either a known, specific piece of equipment or for an unknown materiel or nonmateriel solution based on a description of a capability gap.