The U.S. Department of War (DOW) is operating in a complex security environment that demands a coherent, agile, and integrated approach to the DOW requirements process. In this report, the authors describe Flagpole to Front Lines, a warfighter-centric, strategies-to-tasks approach they developed to link national security objectives with operational requirements and ensure that DOW delivers systems to the field when and where they are needed.

Flagpole to Front Lines

A Warfighter-Driven Requirements Process

Christopher A. Mouton, Hunter Stoll, Megan McKernan, Stephen M. Worman

ResearchPublished Jun 10, 2026

The U.S. Department of War (DOW) is operating in one of the most complex and dangerous security environments the United States has ever faced. This environment demands a coherent, agile, and integrated approach to the DOW requirements process that links strategy with execution and provides warfighters with the capabilities they need to defend the homeland, protect U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere, and deter China from threatening U.S. access to Indo-Pacific markets.

In response to this need, RAND researchers developed the Flagpole to Front Lines (F2FL) concept, a warfighter-centric, strategies-to-tasks (STT) approach to linking national security objectives with operational requirements and acquisition decisions. F2FL provides a vehicle for DOW to realign strategic intent with operational and acquisition realities to ensure that DOW delivers systems to the field when and where they are needed. In this report, the authors describe the conceptual and methodological foundations of the F2FL framework and explain how F2FL provides concise and auditable requirements that can expedite the fielding of warfighting capabilities that are more closely aligned with national strategy.

Key Takeaways

  • DOW’s vision of military transformation involves connecting strategic intent with battlefield realities, similar to how RAND’s post–Cold War STT framework established an audit trail from national objectives to operational objectives, operational tasks, and the forces needed to accomplish them.
  • The history of military innovation suggests that successful armed forces focus on problem-solving rather than technologies. This problem-centric approach to innovation distinguishes meaningful military innovation from technological advances.
  • Innovation is a dynamic and iterative process characterized by bargaining and compromise between strategic objectives and technological possibilities, operational requirements, and organizational realities.
  • A transformed requirements system should eliminate extraneous complexity and cumbersome legacy bureaucratic processes, focusing instead on streamlining information flows, review, and approval. Equally important is making explicit the linkage of requirements to strategic objectives.
  • A transformed requirements system needs to provide multiple opportunities for industry to inject ideas and innovations, ranging from early conceptualization of a requirement to finalization of the operational need and capability requirements, and recognize that solutions need not be single, monolithic systems.
  • The STT framework can provide a foundational basis for F2FL through a structured yet flexible mechanism that strengthens coherence and adaptability in requirements development.

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Mouton, Christopher A., Hunter Stoll, Megan McKernan, and Stephen M. Worman, Flagpole to Front Lines: A Warfighter-Driven Requirements Process. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3510-2.html.
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This research was sponsored by the Joint Staff and conducted within the Acquisition and Technology Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division.

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