{"id":65844,"date":"2023-12-07T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2023\/12\/07\/pentagons-acquisition-deputy-plumb-talks-stockpiles-industrial-base\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:03:17","slug":"pentagons-acquisition-deputy-plumb-talks-stockpiles-industrial-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/outlook\/2023\/12\/07\/pentagons-acquisition-deputy-plumb-talks-stockpiles-industrial-base\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon\u2019s acquisition deputy Plumb talks stockpiles, industrial base"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The conference table at the center of Radha Plumb\u2019s Pentagon office<\/a> has two large maps sitting underneath a glass plate. One is of Taiwan, and the second Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s hardly a better image of the demands faced by her staff. As deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment<\/a>, Plumb is responsible for helping solve some of the Defense Department\u2019s most vexing problems, from increasing industrial capacity to reforming the arcane Foreign Military Sales process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those tasks also involve supporting U.S. allies and partners \u2014 notably Ukraine<\/a>, Taiwan<\/a> and Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The job has stretched the U.S. military\u2019s stockpiles and challenged its ability to refill them; the White House has requested a $106 billion supplemental to address these problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plumb spoke with Defense News on Nov. 7 about that funding request, U.S. security assistance and the Pentagon\u2019s relationship with Capitol Hill. This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your focus as we enter a new year?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re focused on three big areas. The first is our industrial base. The conflict in Ukraine revealed fragility in that industrial base. Where we\u2019re focused is really demonstrating that it has responded shockingly well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take 155mm artillery rounds as an example: We doubled production in the last 12 months. We\u2019re looking to get to the point where we produce 80,000-100,000 by the end of 2025. And we\u2019re doing that on lots of systems \u2014 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Patriots, Javelins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
U.S. Lance Cpl. Alexander Bennett launches a Javelin anti-tank missile during Balikatan on April 13, 2023. (Aaron Favila\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second big area is production diplomacy. We\u2019ve made use of our allies and partners through a range of activities over the last several years, and it\u2019s clear there\u2019s a lot we can do with them. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante has focused on his role as the national armament director with both the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and NATO, but also more broadly on co-development, co-production and co-sustainment. We have a partnership with Japan on the glide phase interceptor [for hypersonic defense], looking at co-development and the pre-deployment phase. In co-production, we\u2019re working with Australia on the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System. And on co-sustainment, we\u2019re also working with Australia on a range of capacities and building on some of the work for AUKUS [the trilateral security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States]. That lets us have a different version of industrial base expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third big area is a consistent demand signal to industry. A lot of folks would think: \u201cYou have a large base budget, you buy lots of stuff in the department \u2014 that should be a signal to industry.\u201d But what industry actually pays attention to is contracts. The faster we get things on contracts and the more predictable the funding can be, the better off we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also working with Congress on a bunch of things that let us provide a longer-term, more consistent signal \u2014 multiyear procurements, economic order quantities, advanced procurements and a bunch of industrial base capacity expansion. At the end of the day, that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking to measure \u2014 surge capacity, but also resilience to unexpected events in the outside world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConsistent\u201d and \u201cpredictable\u201d do not come to mind when thinking about the appropriations process this year. To what extent does that process affect your ability to send a consistent demand signal?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not good. Many of us who have been doing this for a while are used to having these continuing resolutions. We\u2019re seeing increased delays and higher levels of churn. The problem with continuing resolutions is we can\u2019t do new contracts, at the very least. That means subcontracts to suppliers can\u2019t happen. Ultimately it means you can\u2019t hire a workforce. That means if you have supply chains where there are cross-dependencies, you\u2019re growing exponentially in delays rather than linearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, for 2024 we have some counter-unmanned aerial system investments planned, with a planned delivery in the 2024-2025 time frame. Let\u2019s say we delay the continuing resolution; we get a 90-day delay. That 90 days means once the appropriation is received, we need to notify Congress. That\u2019ll add another month. You\u2019re now 120 days in. Then you\u2019ve got to finish negotiating the contract, award the contract and then start making the advanced procurements. That\u2019s four to eight more weeks. Then you add onto that the subcontract, so that\u2019s another two to four weeks. That assumes that the delays, which maybe the prime contractors can absorb, don\u2019t hit subcontractors particularly hard because they need the cash flow. We\u2019re looking at 90- to 200-day delays in key systems that we know we need for the safety and security of warfighters \u2014 [all of which happened] because we just can\u2019t get to a deal on appropriation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president\u2019s supplemental request includes $50 billion for the defense-industrial base. What would that mean for the U.S. economy and the rate of production?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing it looks like is a strong signal to the industrial base that we are going to continue to invest in these capabilities to buy back both U.S. readiness as well as support allies and partners. That continued drumbeat of investment allows industry to put its own skin in the game in terms of capital investments. The signal value is incredibly powerful, especially right now, to feel like this is not caught up in D.C. turmoil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Congress is still working on the fiscal 2024 defense budget. (Stefani Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second piece of it is the dollar flow. That means that industry literally starts building factory lines, moving in machines and hiring for its workforce; that has community benefits. We\u2019re starting to look at where those dollars are flowing geographically because there is an economic infusion happening in many states across the country, particularly across the Midwest and the South. That has a meaningful economic impact right now in those local communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The place America is in manufacturing didn\u2019t happen overnight, and we\u2019re not going to get out of it overnight. Part of getting us into a resilient and robust manufacturing state of play involves making sure we can build those communities and those local investments so that you have the workforce, you have the people and you have the capital infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Defense Department has said supporting Taiwan and Ukraine is not a zero-sum game. But with Israel now at war, how has the situation changed?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we do all of these conflicts simultaneously? Absolutely. There\u2019s some overlap in systems or some underlap in systems, and the two things that revealed are, one, that we really do need this manufacturing investment. I don\u2019t want to sugarcoat the fact that there is fragility there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other piece is that in all of these conflicts, there is this high-tech\/low-tech combination. Take Ukraine as an example: You\u2019ve got trenches being dug out with mortars. You\u2019ve also got a complex electronic warfare environment. In Israel, there is a range of tactics that look very familiar to folks who lived through all of the counterterrorism operations in the past, with a lot more targeting and specialized techniques. That\u2019s a reminder for us in the department that our strategy is to increase production, but it also has to be about encouraging advanced techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talk about the upcoming National Defense Industrial Strategy and what it might contain.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the strategy is intended to do is connect high-level policies to specific actions that the department is going to take, and then [help determine] how we want to measure progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tasked a tiger team to make recommendations for improving the Foreign Military Sales process. What has come of that?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the acquisition and sustainment side, we have two big areas we\u2019ve been working on. One looks at procurement award lead time, where we\u2019re looking to set baseline metrics and then track contracting cycle timelines more closely to try to improve responsiveness. We\u2019ve collected the data and we\u2019re setting the baselines. The goal in the next 12 months is to [determine whether the procurement lead time impacts FMS or is not a real cause of delay].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
From right, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a wreath laying ceremony at the 9\/11 Pentagon Memorial on Sept. 21, 2023 as first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, looks on. (Andrew Harnik\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second big area is aggregate demand work. What has been happening to date prior to the FMS tiger team is we sent our demand signal to industry. Other countries have their demand signal that pre-negotiates with industry, and the industry aggregates it all up. But everyone has a piece of information, and no one has the total information. We\u2019re working with our partners in the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and our prime industry partners to basically create an aggregate demand picture in a set of priority munition areas that are relatively high-demand areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[That group] is identifying the high-demand areas, some of which are related to air defense and key munitions, and then figuring out the process to get that aggregate demand \u2014 the key being you don\u2019t want to wait all the way until you have a formal letter exchange, but you don\u2019t want to do it too early and skew the demand process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re entering a year when U.S. military stockpiles will probably experience extreme demands. What is the state of those stockpiles?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking about the stockpile is thinking about it from the supply side, but the way I\u2019d rather think about it is on the demand side. We know that our partners have demands for certain kinds of capabilities. A lot of the work our acquisition and sustainment team does with our partners in policy and with the combatant commands is [about fulfilling a materiel need] by looking across the range of systems we have in our stockpiles, and what is hot on production lines, and where can we rapidly increase production and reprioritize deliveries to meet the aggregate demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stockpiles are a thing we manage strategically to maintain readiness. You\u2019ve heard everyone from the president on down to Dr. LaPlante say we\u2019re going to prioritize the readiness of our forces. But we have a lot of tools at our disposal to meet different demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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