EVOLUTION AND CHANGE IN DEFENSE ACQUISITION POLICY

The article begins with a brief discussion of the origins of the 5000 documents. Then the author analyzes the nine different versions issued between 1971 and 1993, highlighting the major principles and themes of each issuance, the principal catalyst behind each revision, and the significant changes evident from one version to the next. The article concludes by reviewing likely changes to be pursued in the near future as various acquisition reform study efforts near completion and DoD revises 5000 once again.1 B y any measure the defense acqui-sition system is undeniably com-plex. Hundreds of thousands of employees work in DoD acquisition or-ganizations, which execute millions of contract actions every year. Until very re-cently, the total DoD acquisition budget ex-ceeded $100 billion annually. Major defense acquisition programs, which account for a large share of this total budget authority, ar