The Air Force is yanking most of its biggest programs out from its existing program-management structure and putting them under a new four-star who reports to the deputy defense secretary.
On Tuesday, the White House nominated Air Force Lt. Gen. Dale White and to become the first Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Critical Major Weapons Systems, including the Sentinel and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, the B-21 bomber, the F-47 fighter jet, and the VC-25B presidential aircraft, an Air Force spokesperson confirmed. If confirmed, White will be promoted to full general and report directly to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg.
“By directing the execution of critical Air Force programs, this DRPM role will help streamline the acquisition process, enabling faster decision-making and expediting the delivery of major systems,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
White’s nomination follows President Donald Trump’s April executive order calling for an overhaul of the defense industrial base. It also follows Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to speed up defense acquisition.
It’s unclear how the position is related to the defense secretary’s call to condense existing program executive offices under service-branch portfolio acquisition executives who oversee broader groups of programs.
But one defense budget expert said the creation of the DRPM appears to be at odds with that directive.
“I think the purpose is they want to centralize control of key programs or problem programs,” said Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute. “But it is fundamentally at tension with some of the acquisition reforms that they’re pushing, which talk about delegating down, pushing down the decision-making authority to lower levels. This is going in the exact opposite direction.”
The service spokesperson defended the move, writing that the position “aligns with the Department of the Air Force’s ongoing acquisition reform efforts to enhance efficiency, reduce redundancy, and accelerate capabilities for our warfighters in direct support of Secretary Hegseth’s move to a Warfighting Acquisition posture.”
All of the programs to be overseen by the new DRPM—except the months-old F-47 effort—have faced cost overruns, sudden delays and Congressional infighting.
Harrison said putting the position under the defense secretary “reflects a lack of trust in the services to be good stewards of these programs.”
The Sentinel ICBM program was forcibly restructured last year after costs skyrocketed to $141 billion—more than 81% above initial estimates. Discussions for accelerating the B-21 production stalled due to the government shutdown. This summer, the Pentagon asked for permission to reprogram $150 million to speed-up delivery of two VC-25B aircraft to 2027.
Amid VC-25B delays, lawmakers have raised alarm over Trump’s use of a gifted luxury Qatari jet in the interim. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said this summer that some funds from the Sentinel ICBM program were needed to upgrade the jet for use as Air Force One.
White currently serves as the military deputy for the Air Force’s Assistant Secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics, according to his service biography. Before that, he was the program executive officer overseeing fighters and advanced aircraft at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
If confirmed, White would be “assisted by a small, highly specialized staff resident in the Pentagon, with the current acquisition workforce supporting the DRPM critical major weapons systems programs to remain in place,” the Air Force spokesperson wrote, adding the service plans to stand up the new office “over the next few months.”
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