Today’s military exists in an environment in which our nation’s and military’s leaders use readiness, adaptable systems, and flexibility as constant talking points. And while senior leaders often assert that the warfighter is vital to our security, it is unquestionable that the equipment that carries, assists, and aids those service members in their operations is equally as vital to the collective defense effort.
But equipment breaks — maintenance is a constant consideration in military planning. How, when, where, and who conducts it must be factored into every operation. And yet, maintenance on equipment already owned and operated by the Department of Defense (DOD) is hardly straightforward. The DOD spends taxpayer dollars to enlist and train uniformed maintainers, mechanics, and other experts, yet a significant portion of military equipment is contractually required to be maintained by external entities at a significant cost.
Get the latest
Join our fight for a more effective and accountable government. Sign up for our Weekly Spotlight newsletter and occasional updates on POGO’s work.
As previously reported by POGO, private-sector defense companies will frequently limit the DOD’s right to repair its own equipment, placing restrictions within acquisitions and procurement contracts that categorize equipment, associated parts, and information required to fix them as proprietary. This frequently forces the military to wait for maintenance or repair because parts have to be sourced from the contracted company rather than buying them in a commercial, off-the-shelf capacity, civilian contractors have to fly out to fix the equipment, or some combination of the two. A notable example is the Navy flying out contractors to conduct maintenance while deployed at sea — a costly, complicated, and time-consuming process, particularly when sailors who are already a part of a ship’s crew could do the work.
The right to repair is, fundamentally, a readiness issue. Broken equipment and the contractual restriction against conducting maintenance and repair does not help service members achieve mission success. In a report published in November 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that contracted restrictions on the intellectual property associated with the F-35 aircraft “negatively affected mission readiness for the F-35 program.” This is concerning, especially given that a significant portion of the DOD’s F-35s — both the Navy’s F-35C and the Marine Corps’ F-35B — are intended to be forward deployed on ships. Restrictive intellectual property issues that limit the Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to work on their own aircraft, paired with costly and significant maintenance requirements, create significant barriers that would be difficult to overcome when the equipment is in the United States near established supply chains and contractor networks, let alone when deployed in the middle of the ocean.
The negative impact on military readiness is just one part of the right-to-repair issue. Another is the inherent cost associated with these restrictions. The DOD spends tens of billions of dollars annually on contractors to maintain vehicles and equipment. Defense contractors orchestrate long term profits for themselves when they insist on restricting the intellectual property, maintenance, and repair of the systems they sell to the DOD. Since operation and maintenance costs comprise roughly 70% of a program’s overall cost, this inefficiency has a big impact. This is a bad deal for the DOD and, more importantly, for the American taxpayer. If the DOD were to obtain the right to maintain and repair its own vehicles and equipment, it could reduce the tens of billions of dollars the American taxpayer pays contractors each year to do this work.
This estimate is based on conservative reviews of the limited budget information available. What is missing is the data that would be made available if the services adhered to the standing sustainment review requirements established in 2016. This provision requires the secretary of each military department to conduct a “sustainment review” every five years following the declaration of initial operational capability of a major defense acquisition program. The purpose of these reviews is to assess the product support strategy, performance, and — most relevant to the right-to-repair cause — operation and support costs of each program.
When completed and promulgated appropriately, these sustainment reviews would capture, in detail, the true cost of defense contractors’ intellectual property and maintenance restrictions. However, since the introduction of these sustainment review requirements in 2016, we’ve found none of them online. In fact, in 2022, GAO released a report confirming that neither the Air Force nor the Navy had completed a required sustainment review on either service’s aircraft. This failure to adhere to the sustainment review requirements severely limits oversight abilities when it comes to policing costly defense contracts.
Changes must be made to improve military readiness and decrease costs across DOD programs by once again allowing trained service members to maintain and repair their own equipment.
“The right to repair is, fundamentally, a readiness issue.”
First, Congress should reintroduce and pass the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act. This would have an immediate and unquestionable impact on military readiness, as it requires contractors to provide reasonable access to repair materials and broadens the definitions of intellectual property that the government should acquire, increasing the government’s access to the information service members need to maintain equipment and make repairs. Additionally, it also creates a database that would track instances in which the military’s right to repair is obstructed.
Second, in concert with the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act, Congress needs to withhold authorization of any new obligations for programs with overdue sustainment reviews. This would force services to actually complete the required reviews of existing programs. The resulting details about the true costs associated with restrictive maintenance requirements would provide Congress with the knowledge necessary to conduct appropriate oversight and to intercede when costs become inappropriately overblown. Additionally, Congress should require that these sustainment reports be made publicly available, enabling further oversight from organizations such as POGO.
While there are actions Congress can and should take, some advancement has occurred within the right-to-repair cause. On April 30, 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent a memo about acquisition reform within the Army to senior Pentagon leadership. In it, he says that the secretary of the Army will “identify and propose contract modifications for right to repair provisions where intellectual property constraints limit the Army’s ability to conduct maintenance and access the appropriate maintenance tools, software, and technical data.” This is an incredible step in the right direction, and the secretary should expand it to include every service and joint program.
As congressional and DOD leadership continue to use rhetoric about supporting the warfighters, enabling the right to repair within the military and shoring up means of congressional oversight for expensive, contracted programs would be an easy win. The warfighters want to repair their own equipment, and the government wants to cut costs. Congress can and should take the available steps to meet both of these ends.
