Breaking the Mach Curve: A Policy Shift Toward Speed and Strategic Alignment

The Department of War is moving to correct a long-standing imbalance: innovation has accelerated, but acquisition has not. For years, promising capabilities stalled between prototype and program, unable to reach Warfighters at the pace required. Recent  reforms aim to close that gap.
A jet flying through the clouds

A System Moving to Match National Tempo

The new administration has aligned Washington with the speed and discipline of U.S. capital markets. Key reforms — including the SPEED Act, FoRGED Act, and SHIPS for America Act — create faster pathways for critical capability development. The Department’s Acquisition Transformation Memorandum accelerates this shift, restructuring incentives, reducing friction, and demanding outcomes over process.

Together, these actions represent a fundamental transition: from sequential bureaucracy to Warfighter-first delivery.

What Success Requires in This Environment

Teams operating under these reforms need more than technical talent. They require strategic clarity grounded in:

• Capital-market awareness,
• Executive and operator experience,
• Risk-informed decision frameworks,
• Policy and authorities understanding, and
• Business-aligned execution planning.

This is requires the translation of policy momentum into business-ready strategy and outcome driven pathways.

How SentinelWorks Contributes

SentinelWorks brings a blend of business leadership, private-equity and venture experience, legal perspective, operational expertise, and acquisition awareness. When asked to support teams, we help them interpret the shift, sequence decisions, and build go-to-market plans that reflect both policy reality and commercial discipline that is by design differentiated from the market.

The Imperative of Velocity

Breaking the Mach curve is no longer aspirational; it is required. The gap between relevance and obsolescence is measured in speed.

Our role is to help teams think, plan, and execute with the clarity and velocity the Department of War now expects — turning policy reform into actionable pathways that reduce capital risk and increase outcomes velocity to strengthen readiness for our Nation.