The DOTMLPF-P Boom: Why Fast Money and Faster Tech Don't Automatically Equal Readiness
By Mike "Woody" Woodhouse
If this moment in defense acquisition feels familiar, it should.
We are living through a DOTMLPF-P Boom—the military equivalent of the dot-com era. It is defined by massive investment, breakneck timelines, and revolutionary technology. There is enormous pressure from the top to move faster, field sooner, and show progress now.
Today, that momentum has a name: Golden Dome.
It is a powerful concept and a compelling vision. It serves as a clear signal of Presidential and Secretarial priority regarding homeland defense, missile defense, and deterrence at scale. However, it also represents exactly why the DOTMLPF-P Boom matters: building a "dome" is easy to imagine; making it work is something else entirely.
Money is Moving Fast for a Reason
The surge is real. Presidential direction, congressional support, and the priorities of the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Army have aligned around one central idea: the United States must modernize faster than the threat evolves.
Funding is flowing. Authorities are expanding. Timelines that once spanned decades are being compressed into years or even months. Golden Dome sits at the epicenter of that urgency. It captures the vital need to defend the homeland against complex, layered threats using advanced sensors, shooters, networks, and decision tools.
But a dome is not a single system; it is a system of systems. And systems of systems live or die on integration.
When Materiel Becomes the Whole Story
In boom periods, Materiel (the "M" in DOTMLPF-P) becomes the most visible measure of success. New interceptors, advanced sensors, directed energy, and battle management software are tangible. They photograph well, they brief cleanly, and they provide the appearance of progress.
But the DOTMLPF-P framework exists precisely because hardware alone does not create capability—especially at the scale implied by Golden Dome.
• Doctrine defines how layered defense actually works across domains.
• Organization determines who owns which fight.
• Training prepares operators for systems that behave nothing like their predecessors.
• Sustainment (Leadership, Personnel, Facilities) keeps high-end technology alive in the real world.
• Policy enables the authorities and rules of engagement required to act.
Without these elements, the "dome" is just a concept with a high price tag.
A Warning from the Recent Past
We have already seen what happens when speed outruns integration. The Army rapidly fielded a directed-energy Stryker through the RCCTO—an impressive technical achievement driven by an urgent operational need. It arrived quickly, just as intended.
However, it arrived into a force that lacked the doctrine to define its place in air defense formations. There were no maintenance structures prepared for its complexity, no trained operators at scale, and no organizational clarity on ownership. The technology wasn't the problem; the absence of a complete DOTMLPF-P ecosystem was. Golden Dome magnifies that challenge by orders of magnitude.
Integration: The "Hard Problem"
Golden Dome is not a single acquisition program. It is an integration problem spanning services, domains, agencies, allies, and legacy architectures. This is where "booms" often struggle:
• Sensors must talk to shooters.
• Commanders must trust automated recommendations.
• Units must operate within entirely new command relationships.
• Leaders must make decisions at machine speed with human consequences.
You cannot buy that level of synchronized understanding off the shelf.
The Human Element is the Pacing Function
There is a critical factor that doesn't show up on funding charts or capability roadmaps: People.
People write the doctrine. People learn the new systems. People maintain complex equipment under combat pressure. People make the judgment calls when a system behaves unexpectedly.
Golden Dome will only work if leaders, operators, and maintainers trust it. Trust is built through repetition, training, and clarity. You can surge money and you can surge technology, but you cannot surge human adaptation.
The Real Lesson of the Boom
The dot-com boom didn't fail because the internet was a bad idea; it failed because enthusiasm outpaced integration. The eventual winners were the companies that built ecosystems, not just products.
Golden Dome will be no different. Its success will not be determined by how quickly hardware is fielded, but by how deliberately doctrine, training, organization, and policy are built alongside it.
Speed matters. Technology matters. Deterrence matters. But readiness still lives in the seams—and those seams are human. If we get DOTMLPF-P right, Golden Dome becomes a defining strategic success. If we don’t, it becomes an expensive reminder that true capability is much more than just materiel.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of War or the U.S. Government.
