The Department of Defense (DoD) plans to issue its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy by December 2023, which will create a road map for how the Pentagon will prioritize and modernize the U.S. industrial base, the department announced on Oct. 20.
Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of Defense for industrial base policy, is spearheading the development of the strategy. She explained that in addition to releasing the strategy document later this year, DoD plans to release a supplementary implementation plan shortly after that.
The overall strategy will feature several key focus areas, such as creating resilient supply chains, ensuring workforce readiness and development, and building an industrial base that can produce new technologies and capabilities at scale and cost. The strategy also aims to deliver flexible acquisitions and develop metrics for measurable outcomes.
“We’ve seen in the response to COVID and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that our industrial ecosystem needs to be ready to provide the capabilities … that the department needs,” Taylor-Kale said.
“This strategy is meant to catalyze a generational change that will guide the department’s focus and policy development and programs and investment in the industrial base for the next three to five years,” she said.
According to Taylor-Kale, the goal is to work with industry, inter-agency efforts, Congress, allies, and partners to make defense industrial policy work much more smoothly and strategically.
She emphasized that this “critical mission” cannot be accomplished by the department alone and called for industry to come to the table with their ideas on developing a modern defense industrial ecosystem.
“Creating a modern defense industrial ecosystem will take all of us working together. Please come to us with your ideas. We want to partner with you. I want to partner with you to make this work. We in government cannot do this alone. And frankly, we’re not trying to do this alone,” Taylor-Kale said.
She added that the strategy will also better inform and help industry provide the tools and capabilities the department needs. DoD also hopes to attract new, innovative, non-traditional companies into the industrial base, particularly those that connect dual-use technologies with the emerging needs of the warfighter.
