The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security‘s Forward Defense program invites you to attend “Integrating defense capabilities with allies: Friend-sourcing, production diplomacy, and supply-chain resilience.” The event will take place at the Atlantic Council Headquarters and will be livestreamed on Tuesday, June 11, 2024 from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.

The 2024 National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) calls for the United States to “engage allies and partners to expand global defense production and increase supply chain resilience.” The NDIS calls for the US Department of Defense (DOD) to prioritize establishing resilient supply chains, workforce readiness, flexible acquisition, and economic deterrence. How can the DOD collaborate with the governments and industries of allied and partner nations to achieve these strategic priorities?

In part, the United States can do so through considering procurement of military capabilities designed and built in friendly nations, as defense acquisition scholar Dr. James Hasik argues in Forward Defense’s latest issue brief. The US military procurement bureaucracy tends to seek domestic sources of aircraft, ships, ground vehicles, and missile systems, and often then export those systems to allies and partners. This tendency predisposes security cooperation to be a one-way street from the United States to its allies. Given challenges to the US defense-industrial base and geopolitical threats from strategic competitors, this approach, never optimal, is no longer tenable.

This event, generously sponsored by Airbus, will feature keynote remarks by Brett B. Lambert, managing director of the Densmore Group and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy from 2009-2013. Dr. James Hasik will give remarks about his report, which will be followed by a moderated discussion.

We hope you can join us for this important and timely discussion. To register to attend in person or virtually,  please complete the form above.