Sentry Staff
A new United States Department of Defense (DOD) plan provides actions to modernize and strengthen the nation’s defense industrial base, according to defense leaders.
The DOD’s National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan (NDIS-IP), released in October 2024, aims to work with industry, academia and international partners to build more resilient supply chains, develop new technologies and reduce risks.
“Today’s geopolitical undercurrents have impacted every part of the Defense Industrial Base. We have seen how quickly we need to ramp up capacity in response to conflict,” Dr. Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant defense secretary for industrial based policy, said at an October 2024 news conference announcing the plan. “World events have forced us to prepare for the long-term and plan differently, and we have experienced technological advancements that require a fundamental shift in our thinking. As we develop the implementation plan, we focus on the most pressing requirements for the industrial base. We are making historic investments in key sectors to bolster our supply chains.”
The NDIS-IP gives action steps to the DOD’s National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) released in January 2024 to guide efforts to strengthen and modernize the U.S. defense industrial base. That document presented four strategic priorities to support a modernized defense industrial ecosystem: building resilient supply chains, ensuring workforce readiness, developing flexible acquisition strategies, and promoting economic deterrence by working closely with international Allies and Partners. The implementation plan describes six “cross-cutting initiatives” to enable DOD to achieve those priorities:
- An Indo-Pacific deterrence initiative that includes missiles and munitions production and the submarine industrial base.
- Production and supply chains that prioritize onshoring defense-critical capabilities, avoid adversarial sourcing, and address supply chain vulnerabilities.
- Develop Ally and Partner industrial collaboration, focusing on the defense pact among Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., known as AUKUS, and weapons systems coproduction.
Modernize industrial capabilities and infrastructure for the nuclear industrial base and improve maintenance, repair and overhaul capacity. - Leverage flexible pathways to field new capabilities more quickly to get new technology to the warfighter.
- Strengthen intellectual property (IP) and data analysis by integrating IP planning into acquisition and product support strategies.
The plan also calls for greater “production diplomacy” in developing and building defense platforms as a key aspect of bolstering the defense ecosystem. “Utilizing global production capabilities to manufacture U.S.
and foreign products domestically and in Allied and Partner nations is integral to building a modernized, resilient defense industrial ecosystem and to enabling interoperability and interchangeability,” the plan reads.
“This implementation plan offers industry, global Allies and Partners clear direction on the department’s priorities for industrial capacity building,” Taylor-Kale said. “This unified collaboration among our partners is a first for defense industrial policy. To develop implementation initiatives, we ask the right questions. We challenged institutional barriers. We solicited many perspectives and insights and repeatedly, we weighed risks and developed mitigation strategies.”
“Publishing the NDIS was a significant accomplishment as we work to strengthen the size and resilience of our industrial base,” Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said. “But we’ve always said that it was only the first step — implementation is what really matters. While we still have a lot of work ahead of us, this implementation plan is showing that we remain focused on putting words into tangible actions.”