The Pentagon published a second and more detailed plan to invigorate the American defense industry this year, including the weapons it sees as most crucial to deter China.
The implementation plan, released Tuesday, builds on a strategy published this January, which described how the U.S. defense sector has withered and how the Pentagon wants to revitalize it.
“The contraction of the traditional DIB [defense-industrial base] … was a generation-long process and it will require another generation to modernize the DIB,” the strategy reads.
Improving America’s defense sector has become a top priority for the Biden administration. The war in Ukraine — and the Pentagon’s rush to defend it — exposed how brittle the industry’s supply chains and workforce had become. As the U.S. tried to surge its production of key weapons, its suppliers couldn’t keep pace.
The delays worried many inside the Defense Department that it would struggle even more in a conflict with China, which has a far larger manufacturing sector than the United States, including in important areas like shipbuilding.
The plan released Tuesday had been promised and delayed for months. Pentagon officials first said it would come out in the late winter or early spring, then said it would publish by the summer. In a briefing with reporters Tuesday, the officials leading the effort said it’s still not complete.
A classified portion with more specific metrics will likely be released before the end of the year, said Laura Taylor-Kale, head of Pentagon industrial base policy.
As it stands, the plan lists six priority areas, from deterring a conflict with China to firming up fragile supply chains. That first goal — the top one listed in the plan — will rely on America’s ability to build more submarines and munitions, two areas the Pentagon has struggled to expand in recent years.
Both of these priorities have the longest time frame listed in the document, requiring more than five years to accomplish those goals, the plan estimates.
Taylor-Kale said the Pentagon intends to update this plan annually to assess its progress and that the first one will come after the president’s fiscal 2026 budget request is released early next year.
The Pentagon consulted with around 60 defense firms when writing the plan and also spoke with staff members on the relevant congressional committees, Taylor-Kale said. Their support, Taylor-Kale argued, will be necessary to accomplish its goals — especially from lawmakers, who have yet to pass a fiscal 2025 defense budget.
Adding to the uncertainty is next week’s U.S. presidential election, ensuring that the administration will change in January. The Trump White House made restoring the defense industrial base one of its top priorities for the Pentagon, publishing its own assessment of the sector in 2018.
Taylor-Kale argued that the strategy will endure no matter the outcome, having met with members of both parties in Congress.
“The feedback that we’re getting is that this will be a priority regardless of who wins next week,” she said.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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