The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps assist the Secretary of the military department concerned in the performance of the following acquisition-related functions of such department:

(1) The development of requirements for equipping the armed force concerned (subject, where appropriate, to validation by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council pursuant to section 181 of this title).

(2) Decisions regarding the balancing of resources and priorities, and associated trade-offs among cost, schedule, technical feasibility, and performance on major defense acquisition programs.

(3) The coordination of measures to control requirements creep in the defense acquisition system.

(4) The recommendation of trade-offs among life-cycle cost, schedule, and performance objectives, and procurement quantity objectives, to ensure acquisition programs deliver best value in meeting the approved military requirements.

(5) Termination of development or procurement programs for which life-cycle cost, schedule, and performance expectations are no longer consistent with approved military requirements and levels of priority, or which no longer have approved military requirements.

(6) The development and management of career paths in acquisition for military personnel (as required by section 1722a of this title).

(7) The assignment and training of contracting officer representatives when such representatives are required to be members of the armed forces because of the nature of the contract concerned.

Consistent with the performance of duties under subsection (a), the Chief of the armed force concerned, or in the case of a joint program the chiefs of the armed forces concerned, with respect to major defense acquisition programs, shall—

(1) The Secretary of the military department concerned shall ensure that the program capability document supporting a Milestone B or subsequent decision for a major defense acquisition program may not be approved until the chief of the armed force concerned determines in writing that the requirements in the document are necessary and realistic in relation to the program cost and fielding targets established under section 2448a(a) of this title.

Consistent with the performance of duties under subsection (a), the Chief of the armed force concerned, or in the case of a joint program the chiefs of the armed forces concerned, with respect to major defense acquisition programs, shall—

(A) concur with the need for a material solution as identified in the Material Development Decision Review prior to entry into the Material Solution Analysis Phase under Department of Defense Instruction 5000.02;

(B) concur with the cost, schedule, technical feasibility, and performance trade-offs that have been made with regard to the program before Milestone A approval is granted under section 2366a of this title;

(C) concur that appropriate trade-offs among cost, schedule, technical feasibility, and performance objectives have been made to ensure that the program is affordable when considering the per unit cost and the total life-cycle cost before Milestone B approval is granted under section 2366b of this title; and

(D) concur that the requirements in the program capability document are necessary and realistic in relation to program cost and fielding targets as required by paragraph (1) before Milestone C approval is granted.

Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the assignment of functions under section 7014(c)(1)(A), section 8014(c)(1)(A), or section 9014(c)(1)(A) of this title, except as explicitly provided in this section.

In this section:

(1) The term “requirements creep” means the addition of new technical or operational specifications after a requirements document is approved by the appropriate validation authority for the requirements document.

The term “requirements document” means a document produced in the requirements process that is provided for an acquisition program to guide the subsequent development, production, and testing of the program and that—

(A) justifies the need for a materiel approach, or an approach that is a combination of materiel and non-materiel, to satisfy one or more specific capability gaps;

(B) details the information necessary to develop an increment of militarily useful, logistically supportable, and technically mature capability, including key performance parameters; or

(C) identifies production attributes required for a single increment of a program.

(3) The term “program capability document” has the meaning provided in section 2446a(b)(5) of this title.

(Added Pub. L. 111–383, div. A, title VIII, § 861(a), Jan. 7, 2011, 124 Stat. 4289; amended Pub. L. 112–239, div. A, title IX, § 951(c), Jan. 2, 2013, 126 Stat. 1891; Pub. L. 114–92, div. A, title VIII, § 802(b), Nov. 25, 2015, 129 Stat. 879; Pub. L. 114–328, div. A, title VIII, § 807(c), Dec. 23, 2016, 130 Stat. 2261; Pub. L. 115–91, div. A, title VIII, § 833, Dec. 12, 2017, 131 Stat. 1468; Pub. L. 115–232, div. A, title VIII, § 809(a), Aug. 13, 2018, 132 Stat. 1840.)