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War Secretary Pete Hegseth tore into the Pentagon’s entrenched acquisition bureaucracy in a fiery address Friday, comparing the department’s planning culture to Soviet-style central planning that he says has crippled innovation, risk-taking and the nation’s ability to prepare for war.

Speaking to a group of defense industry executives, Hegseth opened by invoking the specter of a familiar enemy — but quickly turned his critique inward.

“Today, I’d like to talk to you about an adversary that poses a threat, a very serious threat, to the United States of America,” Hegseth said. “This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating in five-year plans from a single capital, it attempts to impose its demand

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