Weapons Makers ‘Conned’ the U.S. Army: Dan Driscoll Targets $47,000 Black Hawk Button and Unveils Historic Acquisition Shake‑Up

U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has ignited one of the fiercest debates over Pentagon spending in years, accusing major defense contractors of effectively “conning” the military and American taxpayers — and pairing those accusations with the most sweeping overhaul of the Army’s acquisition system in decades. ^[1]

At the center of the storm: a tiny Black Hawk helicopter control knob that can be manufactured for roughly $15 — but is currently tied to a $47,000 replacement bill.

How a $47,000 Black Hawk button became the symbol of a broken system

Driscoll’s campaign against inflated costs has been building for months, but it crystallized around a single Black Hawk part: a small screen-control knob used by pilots to scroll through data.

According to public remarks highlighted in trade and defense media, the original equipment manufacturer refuses to sell or repair the knob on its own. When it fails, the Army must order an entire new screen assembly — at about $47,000 per unit. ^[2]

Driscoll told audiences that the Army can produce the same knob itself for around $15, and that the part breaks frequently enough to ground aircraft until a full assembly arrives. At an October appearance tied to the AUSA 2025 conference, he described how often crews deal with the issue:

“We break around four of these every single month,” he said, adding that the markup on the assembly was “a 313,000 percent markup.” ^[3]

By his math, the Army is spending roughly $188,000 each month on replacement screen assemblies for what could be solved with about $60 worth of parts if the service could simply produce or buy the knob itself. ^[4]

The example has become Exhibit A in a broader fight over the Pentagon’s longstanding habit of paying for bespoke, tightly controlled hardware — and the restrictions that often prevent military maintainers from repairing their own equipment.

Driscoll’s blunt charge: primes have “conned” the Pentagon

On November 14, Driscoll’s frustration boiled into unusually direct public language. In a media roundtable first reported by Reuters and defense outlets, he said the “defense industrial base broadly, and the primes in particular” had “conned the American people and the Pentagon and the Army” into believing they needed highly specialized, military‑only systems, even when commercial products would have worked as well or better. ^[5]

Key points from his remarks:

• Overreliance on primes: He criticized the dominance of large contractors such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, which supply everything from fighter jets and missile defenses to helicopters and sensors. ^[6]
• Flawed incentives: Driscoll stressed that government bears part of the blame for creating acquisition rules and incentives that reward slow timelines, custom solutions and hard‑to‑repair systems. ^[7]
• No more business as usual: He warned that “the system has changed” and that the Army will no longer tolerate arrangements that lock it into wildly expensive, one‑off components. ^[8]

His remarks were quickly amplified by specialized media and international outlets. Ukraine‑focused defense site Militarnyi splashed the story under the headline “Button for $47,000: US Secretary of the Army Criticizes the Defense Industry”, while The Jerusalem Post and others republished the Reuters account for global audiences. ^[9]

From 90/10 bespoke to 90/10 commercial: a radical procurement pivot

Driscoll’s critique of prime contractors is tied directly to a planned transformation of what the Army buys and from whom. Speaking to reporters, he contrasted the past with the future he wants to build:

• Historically, he said, about 90% of what the Army bought was purpose‑built for the military and only 10% came from off‑the‑shelf commercial sources.
• Going forward, his goal is to reverse that ratio, “flip it to 90 percent [of purchases] being commercially available and 10 percent being specific in the worst of cases.” ^[10]

The logic is simple but far‑reaching:

1. Scale and speed. Commercial products can be manufactured in high volumes and updated quickly, which is crucial in a world where drones, electronic warfare and software evolve in months, not decades. ^[11]
2. Cost. Commodity components and widely used technologies are usually far cheaper than custom, military‑unique designs — especially when right‑to‑repair and 3D printing allow the services to maintain them in‑house. ^[12]
3. Wartime resilience. As conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere demonstrate, militaries burn through drones, vehicles and munitions at staggering rates; highly specialized systems can’t be produced or replaced fast enough to keep up. ^[13]

This shift dovetails with Driscoll’s push for a massive drone buildup. In an earlier interview, he said the Army aims to buy at least one million drones in the next two to three years, leaning heavily on firms that already build commercial‑grade systems rather than defaulting to traditional primes. ^[14]

Inside the Army’s biggest acquisition overhaul in years

Behind the rhetoric sits a concrete re‑wiring of the Army’s bureaucracy. In an exclusive briefing to Breaking Defense and subsequent coverage from homeland‑security media, officials outlined how the service is restructuring its acquisition enterprise to move faster and cut red tape. ^[15]

12 PEOs become 6 Portfolio Acquisition Executives

Today, the Army’s purchasing power is spread across 12 Program Executive Offices (PEOs). Under the new model, those PEOs and related organizations will be grouped under six “Portfolio Acquisition Executives” (PAEs), each aligned to a major capability area: ^[16]

1. Fires – missiles, long‑range fires and related capabilities
2. Command and Control (C2) & Counter‑C2 – networks, electronic warfare, sensors
3. Maneuver Ground – soldier systems, combat vehicles, ground maneuver platforms
4. Maneuver Air – Army aviation, survivability and autonomy
5. Agile Sustainment & Ammunition – logistics, armaments and combat support
6. Layered Protection + CBRN – air and missile defense, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense

Each portfolio will be led by a two‑star general or equivalent civilian, and — crucially — requirements, acquisition, contracting, testing, sustainment and even some science & technology teams will all report through that PAE, rather than through separate chains of command. ^[17]

Driscoll has described the previous system as “wildly risk averse”, arguing that layers of committees, separate reporting chains and paperwork slowed modernization to the point that soldiers often saw new gear years late. He believes the new construct could cut acquisition timelines by 30% to as much as 50% on many projects by allowing parallel work instead of step‑by‑step serial processes. ^[18]

Importantly, officials emphasize that the change is largely about reporting chains and decision‑making, not forcing thousands of civilians and officers to relocate; most people will stay physically where they already work. ^[19]

A new “Pathway for Innovation and Technology”

Alongside the PAEs, the Army is creating a Pathway for Innovation and Technology (PIT) — a sort of fast‑lane for emerging capabilities. That office will pull together parts of the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), the Army Applications Laboratory and other innovation hubs under a single umbrella. ^[20]

The PIT is designed to:

• Help non‑traditional vendors — including small startups and “Silicon Valley‑style” firms — navigate the Pentagon’s complex rules. ^[21]
• Rapidly test and scale promising technologies that might not fit traditional programs of record.
• Serve as the “forward edge” of the acquisition system, where experimentation and fielding can happen far more quickly. ^[22]

The right‑to‑repair fight moves center stage

Driscoll’s $47,000 knob is now a marquee example in a broader right‑to‑repair push on Capitol Hill.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed industry groups to drop their opposition to reforms that would give the Pentagon more access to technical data and repair information for the systems it buys. She cited GAO reports and examples from Driscoll’s public remarks in arguing that contractor restrictions are driving up costs and leaving critical equipment idle. ^[23]

Draft provisions in the 2026 defense policy bills would:

• Require contractors to provide detailed maintenance and repair instructions for key weapon systems. ^[24]
• Push the Pentagon to negotiate access to software, digital models and manufacturing data before signing contracts.
• Make it easier for military depots and units to fabricate their own parts — including via 3D printing — instead of waiting on original equipment manufacturers. ^[25]

For Driscoll, right‑to‑repair isn’t just a consumer‑style issue. It’s directly tied to wartime readiness and the value the Army gets from its roughly $185 billion annual budget, which he has argued buys far less combat power than it should because of excessive markups and slow, tightly controlled supply chains. ^[26]

Why international outlets and watchdogs are paying attention

Although Driscoll’s remarks were aimed at U.S. contractors, they have landed loudly overseas.

• In Ukraine‑focused media, Militarnyi framed the controversy as part of a wider narrative about Western efficiency and support for Kyiv, highlighting how every wasted dollar on overpriced parts could otherwise go toward urgently needed systems. ^[27]
• In Israel and Europe, republication of the Reuters report by outlets like The Jerusalem Post has drawn attention to how U.S. procurement practices ripple across global supply chains and foreign military sales. ^[28]
• Opinion and analysis sites from Sri Lanka to niche U.S. newsletters have seized on the story as proof that even the world’s largest military struggles with cost overruns and vendor lock‑in. ^[29]

For allies who buy U.S. platforms and depend on shared supply chains, the Army’s move toward commercial components, faster procurement and right‑to‑repair could eventually reduce costs and downtime for their own forces — or at least put pressure on contractors to change how they do business globally.

What this means for the defense industry

Driscoll has been careful to say that prime contractors are “almost all honorable, patriotic people” and that many of their current behaviors were shaped by the incentives Washington gave them over decades. ^[30]

Still, his message is unmistakably tough:

• Less guaranteed work for primes. If the Army truly shifts to a 90/10 commercial‑to‑custom mix, large integrators may lose some of the smaller, bespoke programs that once provided steady revenue — unless they pivot to offering more commercial‑style, modular solutions. ^[31]
• More competition from smaller players. Startups and mid‑sized tech companies that build drones, software, AI tools and sensors for commercial markets could find it easier to sell into Army programs via the PIT and the new PAE structure. ^[32]
• New expectations on data and maintainability. Right‑to‑repair provisions and contract language may force primes to share technical data they once closely guarded, changing profit models built on long‑term maintenance contracts. ^[33]

So far, there has been no widely reported, detailed public pushback from major contractors, but industry associations have previously argued that overly aggressive right‑to‑repair rules could undermine intellectual property and cybersecurity. Driscoll’s comments, combined with bipartisan interest in Congress, suggest those arguments will face tougher scrutiny going forward. ^[34]

For soldiers, the stakes are speed, availability and trust

While the headlines focus on billion‑dollar budgets and corporate giants, the practical impact of these reforms will be felt by soldiers waiting on parts, units training on outdated gear and commanders trying to field new technologies fast enough to matter.

If Driscoll’s plan works as advertised, soldiers could see:

• Fewer grounded aircraft and vehicles because of single‑point failures like the Black Hawk knob.
• Faster fielding of new tech — from drones to sensors — thanks to streamlined requirements and acquisition pipelines. ^[35]
• More reliable supply chains, since commercial‑grade components can often be sourced from multiple vendors rather than a single tightly controlled supplier.

But the transition will be complex. Consolidating organizations, redefining roles and standing up new offices like the PIT is already underway, and Army officials admit it will take time — and likely some trial and error — to get right. ^[36]

What to watch next

As of November 16, 2025, Driscoll’s broadside against “gold‑plated” weapons and his plan to restructure Army acquisition are still unfolding. In the coming weeks and months, several questions will determine how far this transformation actually goes:

1. Will Congress lock in right‑to‑repair reforms in the FY2026 defense policy bill — and how far will lawmakers go in forcing data‑sharing and repair rights? ^[37]
2. How quickly can the Army fully stand up the six PAEs and the PIT, and will they deliver the promised 30–50% reduction in acquisition timelines? ^[38]
3. Can primes adapt? Large contractors may respond with more open architectures, flexible licensing and partnerships with commercial tech firms to retain their central place in the ecosystem. ^[39]
4. Will the million‑drone push succeed, and will it truly favor commercial solutions over bespoke, slow‑moving programs of record? ^[40]

For now, one thing is clear: a humble aircraft knob — the so‑called “button for $47,000” — has become the unlikely emblem of a larger effort to remake how the U.S. Army buys, maintains and fields the tools of modern war. ^[41]

References

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