The Biden-era Pentagon argues for continued basic industrial funding in a new plan

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon must continue to make important investments to strengthen the nation's defense industrial base, including in areas such as the submarine industry, munitions production and prototyping projects, according to a new implementation plan for the National Defense Industrial Strategy.

The implementation plan released today follows the release of the Pentagon's first National Defense Industrial Strategy in January. The strategy called for improvements in resilient supply chains, workforce readiness, flexible procurement and economic deterrence as four strategic priorities to enable the defense industry to ramp up weapons production quickly and at scale.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exposed vulnerabilities in the global defense industry supply chain and highlighted the need for the U.S. industrial base to become more agile and resilient so that it can quickly produce weapons when needed to respond to a crisis, the Ministry of Defense.

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Barely three months before a new president enters the White House, the implementation plan can be read as a call from the current Pentagon to the next administration to stay on top of key industrial initiatives – a list that includes the Defense Production Act, the Office of Strategic Capital , the Replicator Initiative and the multi-year procurement of missiles and ammunition. It also warns about what could be at risk if new leaders let them down.

“Our goal is not just to maintain America’s edge, but to sharpen it and lay the foundation for continued U.S. leadership in critical technologies and capabilities that will define the battlefield of the future,” wrote Bill LaPlante, Pentagon acquisition director , in a foreword to the report. “Most importantly, this implementation plan will serve as a guide for resource decisions and investments in the coming years. It will influence our budget priorities, shape our research and development priorities and advance our engagement with industry.”

During a roundtable this morning, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy Laura Taylor-Kale emphasized that defense industrial policy has been an area of ​​bipartisan support, with the department working with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to shape the strategy and implementation plan .

“Based on the feedback we are receiving, we are confident that this will be a priority regardless of who wins the election next week,” she said.

The implementation plan identifies six key initiatives that the Pentagon views as critical to promoting the stability of the defense industrial base, as well as current funding lines and the risks associated with vulnerabilities in these areas:

• Indo-Pacific deterrence, This includes investments in the submarine industrial base and the expansion of important ammunition and missiles
• production and supply chains, a series of investments aimed at strengthening a more resilient supply chain, increasing U.S. inventories and relocating production of key components and materials
• Industrial collaboration between allies and partners, These are international industrial collaboration and co-production initiatives, including AUKUS
• modernization of skills and infrastructure, These include nuclear power modernization and improvements to the U.S. military's biological maintenance depots
• New possibilities through flexible paths, This includes rapid prototyping and field deployment efforts such as the Replicator initiative to field thousands of unmanned systems by summer 2025 and the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) program
• Intellectual property and data analysis, A group of investments related to protecting the intellectual property of US companies and protecting against adversarial investments in American startups

Overall, the Pentagon's FY25 funding request of $849.8 billion includes $37.73 billion related to implementation initiatives, a slight decrease from the $39.42 billion in FY24, according to the report Plan. In both years, more than three-quarters of those funds are earmarked for missiles and munitions, with the submarine industrial base coming in second with a requested $4 billion in FY25.

The plan notes that it does not include initiatives that will be considered in the FY26 budget deliberations, noting that these efforts are “pre-decisional.” Both Taylor-Kale and Carla Zeppieri, deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial base resiliency, declined to comment on whether current plans require an increase in defense industrial base funding efforts in FY26. However, Taylor-Kale noted that the FY26 budget was the first prepared with the National Defense Industrial Strategy in mind.

“I think there was a clear understanding across the board of the importance of building capacity in the defense industry and also engaging non-traditional companies in working with the Department of Defense,” she said. “There is real concern about supply chain vulnerabilities and … controversial sources in our supply chains, as well as sole and individual sources.” [components].”

Zeppieri added that “some of the issues continue to be highlighted.” [in the FY26 budget] Build on some of the things we saw in FY24 and FY25 in terms of munitions and the organic industrial base.”

Much of the implementation plan serves as a comprehensive list of tools and projects the Pentagon has begun to help strengthen the industrial base. For example, it outlines how $393.4 million in Defense Production Act funds will be spent to address shortfalls in critical chemicals, castings and forgings, the hypersonic industrial base and microelectronics.

The plan underscores the U.S. Army's multibillion-dollar plan to boost domestic production of 155mm artillery ammunition, as well as the service's ongoing efforts to modernize its ammunition factories and depots. It also outlines current efforts to improve defense contractors' cybersecurity.

While there was no big news about high-profile Pentagon projects like Replicator or RDER, the plan contained some interesting details about how the department hopes to make these programs a success. For example, the plans state that the department will “commission various projects, studies and white paper reviews to identify vendors that can accelerate the production of solid rocket motors,” an effort that Zeppieri describes as separate but complementary to Replicator designated.

The Pentagon is working on a classified appendix to the implementation plan that will provide more detailed information on vulnerabilities and lay out its remediation strategy in more detail. The department hopes to complete that document by the end of the year, Taylor-Kale said.