Hegseth signs memo pushing forward Software Acquisition Pathway expansion

President Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, US secretary of defense, and Howard Lutnick, US commerce secretary, during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials are launching forward with plans to expand the use of the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) and throw additional work towards the Defense Innovation Unit, now that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has officially issued new guidance. 

“Right now, the way the Pentagon buys software is slow, outdated and filled with bureaucracy. Meanwhile, our adversaries are moving fast” one defense official told reporters today on a phone call. “This memo is the beginning to fix that [by] cutting red tape, working more with private industry, getting cutting edge software into the hands of our warfighters quickly before the enemy can adapt.”

Breaking Defense first reported on the draft memo late last month and the version with Hegseth’s signature, dated March 6, is nearly identical.

In it, the newly minted secretary calls on the department to adopt the Software Acquisition Pathway, a practice created in 2020 to accelerate software development by implementing best practices from the private sector. At its core, SWP is a streamlined method for procuring software programs bespoke to DoD requirements. Through the SWP, organizations can deploy capabilities into platforms within six months or less. DoD has previously stated that the goal is to speed this process up into hours or days.

Hegseth also directs the use of Commercial Solutions Openings (CSOs) and Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs) as the “default solicitation” and award avenue for acquiring capabilities. The undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, alongside the DIU director, he adds, now has 30 days to develop and submit an implementation plan on how to best utilize those practices.

“One of the biggest changes is using flexible contracting tools, CSOs and OTAs, to speed up innovation and acquisition and the reason this works better — instead of spending years writing detailed requirements and going through a rigid … one-size-fits-all process — we can tap into the best tech available right now, prototype it fast and get it to the field quickly, if it works,” the defense official added. “So bottom line, [we are] cutting out middlemen. Software companies make software, we’re going to buy software from software companies.”

A second defense official noted that the middleman in that situation isn’t the big defense primes but the “bureaucratic red tape” that gets in the way of capability development to be accessible to a program of record. 

That second defense official also noted that there are currently 82 programs in the SWP that range from command and control and decision support to cyber and embedded weapon systems. As the Pentagon crafts the implementation plan, that figure is expected to soar, but the official noted that any change will likely be applied to new programs or ones where there is a “natural transition point.”

“The implementation plan is going to navigate and clarify these use cases of how to move into the software acquisition pathway,” the second official added. 

As for how it will impact the service officials tasked with buying weapons, a third defense official said the vision is for them to lean more heavily on DIU going forward. For example, the Army could ask DIU to partner up and let DIU move out on a CSO or OTA.

“We expect an uptick in sort of a demand for DIU projects,” the third official explained.

“The more important way in which this will impact DIU is that we think the real path to scale is to train and educate other acquisition professionals so that they can also use … the model, rather than just relying on DIU to do it for them,” the third official added.

One Army leader that viewed a draft version of the memo said his service is always looking for better ways to acquire software. However, he said it is not yet clear how the change will trickle down.

“What I don’t want to do is over the constraining on anything,” the Army official told Breaking Defense last month.