In 2011, the Army decided to get its soldiers new pistols. The Pentagon won't complete delivery until 2027 at the earliest. The story of the Pentagon's new pistols would be funny if it didn't point to a serious problem at the heart of America's military. The Department of Defense has built a gilded fortress of people and processes that is slow, wasteful and married to the past. Of all the obstacles to fielding the military that America needs, the Pentagon's bureaucracy may be the hardest to overcome. The byzantine system for buying and testing weapons isolates the military from the innovative parts of the American economy. Congress underwrites the dysfunction with appropriations that are designed to deliver wins for its members rather than for America's national security. As the House and Senate work toward the country's first trillion-dollar defense budget, over $52 billion is for things members of Congress added, unbidden, to the Pentagon's wish list, according to the independent budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense. No one can keep track of where all the money goes. The Defense Department is the only major federal agency never to get a clean bill of health from outside accountants, and has failed its last seven audits in as many years. When the bean counters can follow the money, they often find it has been wasted. The system feeds on itself. Pentagon officials and congressional staff members have long migrated to the arms industry.