On January 11, 2024, the Department of Defense released its first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS). This 60-page document is evidence that the Pentagon has finally begun to understand that the terms “war” and “warfare” encompass far more than what happens on the battlefield. Combat and tactics matter very little if a state lacks the hard resources for war, or if a nation lacks the resolve and the courage of its convictions, as well as the willingness to stand and fight, and sacrifice, for those convictions.
The NDIS is lacking in concrete details, which is not atypical for a DOD publication; rather, the report reflects a series of broad and aspirational commitments, which have the potential to seriously revitalize and reinvigorate the United States’ moribund defense-industrial base.
The authors outline their purpose as follows “The overarching goal is to make the industrial ecosystem dynamic, responsive, state-of-the-art, resilient, and a deterrent to our adversaries…” and to “ensure that we [the United States] produce and sustain the full range of capabilities needed to give U.S., allied, and partner forces a competitive advantage.”
The ambitions of the NDIS are divided into four general categories, described as the DOD’s priorities: “Resilient Supply Chains,” “Workforce Readiness,” “Flexible Acquisition,” and “Economic Deterrence.”
In order to achieve its goal of forming resilient supply chains, the NDIS commits the DOD to increasing investment in spare production capacity, establishing risk-sharing mechanisms to minimize the loss of profit to defense corporations due to the inherent instability of demand in the defense industry, and to proactively engaging small business contractors to expand the defense-industrial base outside of a few, well-known conglomerates.
In order to increase the readiness of the labor force, the DOD has committed itself to working toward expanding apprenticeship and internship opportunities within the STEM fields, to publicizing the opportunities available within industrial trades, as well as to partnering with high schools and universities across the nation to reduce the stigma that accompanies pursuing a career in a trade.
The DOD intends to reform the acquisition process by prioritizing interoperability and export potential of defense materiel to the United States’ allies, and by working with defense-industrial producers to ensure that projects have a clearly defined scope.
