GAO report urges Congress to give DoD leadership more control over service-specific tech budgets; Army, Navy, and Air Force all disagreed with the proposal. A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends that Congress grant the Secretary of Defense and other Pentagon civilian leaders greater direct control over the technology and innovation budgets of the individual military services. The findings, delivered to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, argue that centralizing oversight of funding for areas like artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, and joint networking capabilities would accelerate the adoption of critical technologies and reduce wasteful duplication. Currently, the Army, Navy, and Air Force manage the majority of their own research, development, and procurement budgets, with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) exercising limited coordination authority. The GAO contends this decentralized model has led to incompatible systems, slower fielding of cross-service capabilities, and an inability to rapidly pivot funding toward high-priority, department-wide initiatives. Unsurprisingly, the recommendation was met with...