The United States relies on its unmatched network of allies and partners in operations, intelligence sharing, and defense production and logistics. Robust defense industrial cooperation strengthens partnerships, increases interoperability, fills gaps in U.S. industrial capacity and capability, and may yield increased arms sales. Working with allies offers an opportunity to surge production and helps create a posture of forward deterrence to reduce the challenge of potential adversaries engaging in military activity. Defense leaders have affirmed that production is deterrence and “without industry, there is no defence, no deterrence and no security.” Yet despite the benefits, a wide range of regulatory and other barriers inhibit cooperation. These create challenges for allies and partners who want to purchase military capabilities from the United States or work with U.S. industry on codevelopment and coproduction.
To better understand this, CSIS surveyed with a 50 percent response rate some of the United States’ closest industrial partners—those with a Reciprocal Defense Procurement Memorandum of Understanding (RDP MOU). These agreements allow foreign vendors to be considered domestic sources, granting the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) greater and easier access to allied and partner technologies and supply chains. A new CSIS report that the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group recently published, Improving Arms Sales, Technology Transfer, and Defense Industrial Cooperation with Allies and Partners, captures the challenges that create persistent barriers to cooperation and makes recommendations to overcome them.
Survey respondents confirmed that building domestic capacity, deterring threats, ensuring interoperability, and building regional capacity were all important goals, with building domestic capacity being their main interest. The allied focus on building their own domestic capacity directly aligns with DOD goals for a more globalized approach to forward deterrence, as reflected in a variety of initiatives, including the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience, the Regional Sustainment Framework, and the Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment initiative with Japan.
