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Yesterday DoD released the official National Defense Industrial Strategy. The implementation plan is scheduled for March, with an unclassified version to be released in February. As was previewed last month, the strategy has four lines of effort: resilient supply chains, workforce readiness, flexible acquisition, and economic deterrence.
Actions that support flexible acquisition:
- Broaden platform standards and interoperability
- Strengthen requirements process to curb scope creep
- Prioritize off-the-shelf acquisition
- Increase access to IP and data rights
- Consider greater use and policy reform of contracting strategies
- Continue to support acquisition reform
- Update industrial mobilization authorities and planning to ensure preparedness
Many of these actions should support the larger goal of expanding production capacity and the supplier base, aligning contracting authorities, strategies, and policies to this need. The brief discussion of acquisition reform references the work of the Section 809 Panel as worth continuing.
Newly confirmed Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti released her vision for the Navy at this week's Surface Navy Association Annual Symposium.
- The CNO's three priorities: warfighting, warfighters, and the foundation that supports them.
- The document prioritizes speed and agility, arguing "we must think, act, and operate differently."
Also at the SNA Symposium, members of the NPS team have been onsite engaging with attendees, including SECNAV Del Toro, pictured below.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to a topline budget for FY2024, giving defense a 3% increase from FY2023.
- Details of the individual appropriations bills still need to be worked out in the next week, and conservative House members are pushing for deeper spending cuts that make another CR likely.
- First deadline for some agencies is January 19. DoD has until February 2.
Members of Congress are expressing serious disappointment in SECDEF's handling of his medical issues over the past month, with multiple investigations pending by DOD IG and others.
- Some members have called for his resignation.
- SASC leaders delivered a letter asking for review of notification procedures but not calling for removal.
Our top story brings the latest update on Replicator: DoD plans to create "accelerated pathways" to produce the systems and capabilities being identified by Deputy Secretary of Defense.
In research, new analysis from Govini on the presence of Chinese suppliers in U.S. military supply chains has grown astronomically over the past two decades.
- Their data looks across critical weapon systems and at a few case studies.
In ARP news, we bring an article co-authored by NPS faculty member Cory Yoder on vendor threat mitigation, a process increasingly important and applicable to overseas contracting that may unintentionally benefit adversaries.
As you enjoy Monday off in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, remember that the federal holiday is also a national day of service.
- We've included a link in our "One More Thing" section to the AmeriCorps website that offers a list of ideas and a searchable database of opportunities in your area.
- How can you connect with your local community in a way that honors Dr. King's relentless insistence on building a nation of justice, love, and respect for all Americans?
This Week's Top Story
Now that DoD picked first set of Replicator capabilities, next step is ‘acceleration pathways’
Jaspreet Gill, Breaking Defense
The Pentagon plans to throw the weight of senior leadership behind the next step in its Replicator initiative: developing “acceleration pathways” for specific systems that meet operational criteria recently identified by the DoD’s number two official, a department spokesperson told Breaking Defense.
“Now that we have selected capabilities, we will develop acceleration pathways for specific systems that meet those capabilities, using focused leadership attention to identify and address any barriers to scaling their production and burn down associated risk for ultimate fielding for the warfighter,” said Eric Pahon, Pentagon spokesman.
As reported by DefenseScoop, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks made the “key capability selections” last month. Capabilities are not the actual systems that will be fielded under the initiative, but instead “are effects the warfighter needs to be able to achieve through a particular course of action,” Pahon said.
Last November, Hicks seemed to suggest to reporters that the first set of actual systems to be mass produced under Replicator would be picked by mid-December. “We will select the candidates within the next … three weeks,” she said at a Nov. 21 Defense Writers Group breakfast. But a few weeks later, officials from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) said they were identifying which capabilities would fit under the effort, and Pahon told Breaking Defense Hicks’ recent selection of capabilities, not systems, was consistent with the months-old timeline.
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