FROM THE AAE
Regardless of the war’s duration, we must maintain supply for Ukraine.
The second part is modernizing and improving what is in those facilities. My predecessor, Dr. Bruce Jette, in partner- ship with then-Gen. Edward Daly at Army Materiel Command, had the fore- sight to begin making those improvements before the conflict started. Coupled with Congress supporting us with more than $1.5 billion in additional funds already under contract to execute those modern- izations, we are moving much faster than we thought possible. Tis represents a long- term investment that puts us in a position of strength today and post-conflict.
Te third part is the private sector, which is a bit different. We are dependent on the private sector for producing our precision munitions. Terefore, we are working with prime contractors to ramp up their production capacity. What is different today is that we have secured congressional funding to subsidize our contracting part- ners to boost their production. Often, we can count on them to finance that them- selves, but in the interest of speed, we are taking steps to shift the production curve left and up to get ramp-ups to happen more quickly.
ALLIES AND PARTNERS Te conflict has caused many of us to recognize the need for additional produc- tion capacity from our allies. This is something, particularly the U.S., would benefit from. Additional capacity adds redundancy by mitigating our risk of production delays due to single points of failure within the supply chain.
We are already seeing positive moves toward that end. For instance, Australia has expressed great interest in developing
precision munitions production capacity, and we are working with them to make that happen. In Europe, Poland is a leader in wanting to expand its domestic produc- tion capacity, specifically with systems such as Javelin.
Tere is plenty of work to go around and our allies and partners stand to benefit as much as we do. Democracies working together to develop a giant arsenal is a total win-win.
EARLY LESSONS LEARNED So far, we have learned two major lessons from supporting the Ukraine mission. First, we must work hard to ensure that our requirements for pre-war reserves are at the right levels. Simply stated, we can manage longer production ramp-up times by having a larger stockpile at the start of a conflict. Tat effort is underway far above me at the Pentagon.
Even so, stockpiles are expensive to build and maintain. Some must be stored in controlled environmental conditions and others require an inspection regime. All of this requires money. Tese are policy questions that are being worked on at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
Second, we need to think about how we plan for mobilizations. For example, perhaps our pre-positioned stocks of raw materials, such as steel for artillery shells, ought to be procured far in advance. And, possibly stockpiling in quantities greater than what we have historically main- tained. It is a careful balance because excess capacity is economically inefficient. Tat is, having equipment sitting idle on a factory floor, but paying to maintain it, is
risky because it could be obsolete within a few years.
Yet, we have seen within our own ammu- nition plants instances where we did maintain machinery and production capacity that is being used today. Clearly there is a careful balance to strike when making these sorts of policy decisions.
CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT Congress has been very supportive of our efforts with respect to Ukraine. It has granted us some targeted and vitally important contracting stream- lining authorities in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. Tis has led to dramatically reduced contracting time- lines specifically for Ukraine. Of course, the Department of Defense always desires more flexible funding, but so far in the case of Ukraine, Congress has found a good balance between flexibility and carrying out its fiscal oversight responsi- bilities. Maintaining this support requires us to be highly efficient and 100 percent transparent with Congress.
ACQUISITION WORKFORCE Nothing we have accomplished with Ukraine would be possible without the more than 32,000 Soldiers, civilians and contractors that make up the acquisition workforce. Te machinery of my depart- ment runs through the program executive offices (PEOs) and my deputy assistant secretaries. Te actual tactical work on acquisition all happens at the PEOs and the contracting centers that support them. I am very humbled to be leading this dedi- cated and talented team of professionals. Tey do all the hard work and I could not be prouder of them. Te team has worked wonders this past year, but we aren’t done yet and much more work lies ahead of us.
https://
asc.ar my.mil
7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132
