Outpacing Science: Biodefense Procurement Reform Examined Through the Feasibility Drift Framework

Abstract

The Department of Defense is implementing one of its most significant procurement reforms in decades. It emphasizes commercial-first acquisition, compressed acquisition timelines, and authority relocation to accelerate capability delivery. This paper examines the implications of these reforms for biodefense through the Feasibility Drift Framework (FDF), which argues that chronic biodefense acquisition underperformance arises primarily from a structural misalignment between institutional ambition and scientific feasibility rather than acquisition inefficiency. The FDF predicts that procurement reform will accelerate institutional commitment without accelerating the underlying science governing biodefense capability. Commercial-first acquisition changes the evidence used to create institutional commitments, compressed acquisition timelines reduce opportunities for scientific uncertainty to become visible before commitment, and technology authority relocation reshapes who makes commitments. Together, these reforms increase the likelihood that bounded technical successes will be interpreted as evidence of broader operational capability before the underlying scientific assumptions have been sufficiently validated.