A new Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) report, released Sept. 18, makes the case that gaining that data is a necessary prerequisite for any strategy, and that DoD is only beginning to gather that kind of intelligence.
“Drilling down into defense supply chains to identify unique, fragile or niche capabilities requires detailed data,” the report, called “Sustaining the US Defense Industrial Base as a Strategic Asset,” read. “Only in recent years has the Defense Department begun to map the sectors and tiers of the US [defense industrial base] to this degree of detail.”
The chief tool that the agency is using to find out more is the Sector by Sector, Tier by Tier review, known as the S2T2. The review consists of surveying companies in an effort to map out the broader supply chain and assess potential stress points.
But the S2T2 has had difficulties, Marrone said.
“The S2T2, I think everyone agreed with it, but it demonstrated a lack of understanding of the industrial base,” he said. “Even the way that it was done showed a lack of understanding of the industrial base. There were companies that received multiple copies of the surveys sent to the same companies because DoD didn’t realize that they’d merged.”
For its part, the CSBA report attempts to lay out several general areas where the US must focus its attention: precision strike, nuclear capabilities, power projection, access to the global commons, integrated combined-arms campaigns, the cryptologic enterprise and realistic training.
“The time for the Defense Department to take a long-term, strategic approach to managing the US defense industrial base is now, while the Pentagon still has the opportunity to preserve its core elements,” CSBA’s Barry Watts wrote. “The alternative is to risk losing them to recurring bouts of short-term, across-the-board budget cutting.”
Speaking at an event marking the release of the paper, DoD’s acting industrial base chief, Elana Broitman, said the agency is working on the problem.
“I’m happy to report that DoD’s leadership and this report really aren’t that far apart,” she said. “The department’s leadership clearly recognizes that there are tough choices, and is working to make those choices.”
There still remains concern, however, because of the lack of coordination with industry, Marrone said.
“There’s a one degree of separation between some of our acquisition policy and our industrial base,” he said. “You can’t have a policy-making regime that is completely uninformed by what’s happening with your acquisition system and in the industrial base. They’re linked so closely together that you can’t divorce those.”
Even if a policy is articulated, making sure that the agency can protect the areas it wants to preserve will remain a challenge. Having the immediate knowledge of what is happening to every one of thousands of companies in the supply chain is a gargantuan task. And the agency likely won’t have the resources to step in in every situation it might want to.
“When you’re developing a strategy, it’s really not that complex in terms of the architecture,” Forbes said. “Implementation is the tough part.”