Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy Dr. Laura D. Taylor Kale and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Resilience Carla N. Zeppieri,[...]

MAJ SELENA RODTS: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming out and welcome. We appreciate you taking your time to come out today and for those of you out in Zoom land, for dialing in. My name is Major Selena Rodts and I work here at OSD Defense Press Operations. Today is an important day for the department as we're here to announce the release of the National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan.

Our briefers here, seated to my left, and on the far left, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Based Policy, Dr. Laura Taylor-Kale and then to her right, we have Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Resilience, Carla Zeppieri. The leaders briefing this morning have been deeply engaged in leading the NDIS efforts leading up to today.

And so before we open it up to your questions, I'd like to hand things over to our briefers for some opening comments.

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Great, thank you. Good morning. I am proud to announce the release today of the Implementation Plan for the National Defense Industrial Strategy. It outlines metric driven initiatives that will guide the Department's focus program development and investment in the industrial base for the next fiscal year.

Developing this implementation plan has been a priority since before we released the National Defense Industrial Strategy earlier this year. Today's geopolitical undercurrents have impacted every part of the Defense Industrial Base. We have seen how quickly we need to ramp up capacity in response to conflict.

World events have forced us to prepare for the long-term and plan differently and we have experienced technological advancements that require a fundamental shift in our thinking. As we develop the implementation plan, we focus on the most pressing requirements for the industrial base. We are making historic investments in key sectors to bolster our supply chains.

Professionals and students alike are leveraging workforce readiness initiatives set to tackle labor shortages. We have sharpened our understanding of the opportunities and risks so we can be better partners with commercial and nontraditional defense companies. We are embracing flexible acquisition pathways and innovative contracting tools, and we are working towards multilateral frameworks where allies and partners can collaborate at every stage of defense planning.

Our mission is ongoing and does not begin with today's release of the implementation plan. DOD's deliberate capital investments have spurred mutually supporting actions from industry, academia and other parts of government, many of which we highlight in the implementation plan. The impact of critically important funding channels like the Defense Production Act and the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program have gone beyond just the initial investments.

They have served as a catalyst for add on programs, expansion of scope and new partnerships. We are seeing a ripple effect that demonstrates how tens of millions of dollars in today's industrial base investments become hundreds of millions or even billions in resiliency and sustainment. Integrated deterrence, economic security, national security and our nation's military strength are mutually reinforcing.

The Defense Industrial Base serves a larger purpose than any single action or investment dollar. Progress and acceleration happens in months and years. The Implementation Plan for the National Defense Industrial Strategy is a roadmap for integrating our priorities under leadership driven initiatives. Each implementation initiative assigns primary responsibility, estimated resources, key metrics and risks.

The six implementation initiatives include specific desired outcomes and provide the potential risks associated with inaction. A key focus of implementation is championing initiatives that are cross-cutting and not the sole responsibility of any one military service or component within the Department of Defense.

DOD cannot address every industrial base issue alone and like the strategy, the implementation plan has benefited by input from a wide range of stakeholders who remain committed to building a modern and resilient defense industrial ecosystem. The evolution from strategy to implementation required lengthy discussions with key players and we were very intentional in ensuring we remain deeply connected, seeking inputs from the military services, from industry, from international stakeholders and allies and from the interagency.

This unified collaboration among our partners is a first for defense industrial policy. To develop implementation initiatives, we ask the right questions. We challenged institutional barriers. We solicited many perspectives and insights and repeatedly, we weighed risks and develop mitigation strategies.

I am grateful for all the feedback we received from our partners and for the overall shared commitment to increase the readiness and resilience of the Defense Industrial Base. The next phase of the implementation plan is the fore coming classified annex that will detail metrics and risks. I will now turn over to DASD Zeppieri for any comments before we welcome your questions. Thank you.

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: Thank you, ma'am, and good morning to everyone. This first instantiation of the NDIS implementation plan is the result of close collaboration across the department, the interagency, defense industry, including both traditional and nontraditional companies and our international partners. The implementation plan outlines six cross-cutting initiatives to drive progress, mitigate risks and create a framework for directing investments, resources and cross-functional collaboration.

It's important to note that these six implementation initiatives do not cover every single action the Department will take to build defense industrial base resiliency. Rather, these initiatives represent the most urgent tasks that will deliver tangible results, reducing defense, industrial base vulnerabilities and positioning us to counter future threats.

I'd like to summarize briefly the six implementation initiatives. First, building a defense industrial base framework to enhance integrated deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region. The NDIS builds on the foundation of the National Defense Strategy, orienting efforts on creating industrial capability and capacity to meet the pacing threat.

This initiative will focus on missiles and munitions production and the submarine industrial base, which are two of the top requirements in the Indo-Pacific theater. Second, managing defense production and supply chains. Under this initiative, we'll concentrate on onshoring defense critical capabilities and moving away from adversarial sources of supply.

We'll also conduct a deeper analysis of supply chain vulnerabilities, enhance industrial cybersecurity and reinvigorate critical materials stockpiling. The third initiative, allied and partner industrial collaboration. This initiative further develops allied cooperation, emphasizing the AUKUS trilateral partnership and expanded interest in weapons systems co-production.

We will leverage our respective strengths into a network of allied DIB capability for mutual effectiveness and resilience. Fourth, capabilities and infrastructure modernization. Fostering a 21st century Defense Industrial Base requires investment in infrastructure and fundamental industrial capability to meet strategic and key operational requirements. Modernizing the nuclear industrial base, the organic industrial base and our maintenance, repair and overhaul capacity will lay the groundwork for generating the systems that we need.

Fifth, utilizing more flexible pathways to field new capability in a timely fashion. The department has already crafted multiple acquisition pathways for tailorable processes and rapid prototyping and fielding. We will continue to push adaptable acquisition to deliver cutting edge technologies to the warfighter. And then finally, strengthening intellectual property and data analysis. This last initiative focuses on ensuring effective use of resources throughout a program life cycle by fully integrating intellectual property planning into acquisition and product support strategies.

Each initiative supports NDIS priorities to meet current demands and address future challenges and much of this work, as the assistant secretary said, is already underway. Industrial Base Policy worked with our DOD colleagues to ensure key projects supporting these six initiatives were incorporated as appropriate in this unclassified document.

As noted, our next steps focus on issuing a classified annex to the plan, outlining the remaining efforts aligned to these organizing initiatives. The DOD acknowledges it cannot execute the implementation plan on our own. Success is going to require commitment, collaboration and cooperation between the entire US government, private industry and our international allies and stakeholders.

Thank you very much for your time today and for your interest in today's announcement. I will now turn it back over to Major Rodts, who will begin taking questions.

MAJ RODTS: Wonderful. Thank you, ladies. All right. So normal rules apply today. Please keep it to one question and one follow up. We're going to go ahead and start out with someone out in Zoom land and then we'll bring it back into the room here. So John, can you hear me out there, Defense Scoop?

Q: Yeah, thank you. I noticed in the section about replicator, it says, to complement the replicator initiative, the department intends to commission various projects, studies and white paper reviews to identify vendors who can accelerate solid rocket motor production. Can you explain or flesh out how that effort will complement replicator or be related to that?

And then on a related note, it says that if DPA title three does not receive the funding required to support the Defense Industrial Base Consortium, that efforts to strengthen the solid rocket motor industrial base could face significant challenges and potentially not be executed. Is that suggesting that if that money doesn't come through, it could slow down the replicator initiative? I was hoping you could just maybe clarify that.

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: You OK with me starting?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Sure, go ahead.

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: Sure. Great question. There is already ongoing work within the department on addressing what had been previously identified five key areas of industrial capability, where we need to put forward significant effort and kinetic capabilities have been one of those focus areas.

So with regard to solid rocket motors, there is going to be a complementary effort, but separate from, if you will, to the replicator effort, which I think people are aware by now, is a specific endeavor that is going to produce affordable and in these initial instances, attritable systems, right, to execute our strategy specifically in the Indo-Pacific.

But there are going to be a need for complementary technologies that are going to enable some of these efforts. So that is the point of talking about SRM and associated kinetic capabilities. With regard to the question about funding, I think that is a highlight or one of the points that we wanted to highlight through the implementation, which is of course that we have laid out through this plan where we expect resources to come from.

In some cases, they're coming from within already funded programs. In some cases looking forward, they will need to be topics of future budget requests. But with regard to DPA, there is an active appropriations bill right now in Congress that we are working with the appropriators for a successful final outcome that is going to fund all of those priority projects that are in the pipeline to be addressed.

I don't know, ma'am, if you have anything else.

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: No, I was just going to add that I think part of part of the question was whether or not if DPA or the DIB COT didn't receive funding, if that would jeopardize the replicator initiative and I don't believe that would happen.

Q: Right.

MAJ RODTS: Ma'am?

Q: Thank you. Good morning. Sandra Erwin, Space News. Ms. Zeppieri, you mentioned that supply chain is one of the priorities in this strategy. There are instances across the industrial base, and I'm more familiar in the space industry more so, where you have prime contractors that rely on maybe a single subcontractor for very critical components.

And these are not components that you can just go and buy at GSA. These are very specialized items that have to be qualified, have to be tested and whatnot. So can you maybe talk about that challenge and perhaps how this implementation plan might address some of these concerns that are happening right now in the supply chain?

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: Sure. Obviously addressing the supply chains for key enabling current and future technologies is going to be incredibly important. And you hit on an important point in that we have been looking at supply chain vulnerabilities where we have single sources or fragile sources where we need to shore up the industrial base.

But likewise, the implementation will involve looking at those key critical nodes to enable those future capabilities. And I think that some of that is outlined in the unclassified plan. And I believe that there will be additional details in the classified annex, because of course, there were some efforts that could not be addressed here in the unclassified form.

Q: I mean, did you get data from across the industry? I mean, did you hear that problem a lot from prime contractors?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: We hear that problem across the Defense Industrial Base in general. We also have developed a number of programs within our office that address single sources of vulnerabilities in the supply chain. DPA title three IBUs have all worked to address some of these challenges. Just in this past fiscal year FY '24, we obligated $1.7 billion almost $1.8 billion towards a lot of supply chain vulnerability and kinetic capabilities issues.

So yes, we hear it not just in space, it's across the board and we're very much aware and are doing analysis on that as well as using our investment tools to be able to address them.

Q: Thank you.

MAJ RODTS: Thanks. Noah?

Q: Hi. Noah, Defense News, here. Thank you both for doing this. I wondered if you could give me a better sense, and this is a question for the both of you, on what sort of legislative support that you need? What should be forthcoming from Congress that would enable this to be successful? And then secondly, when the timeline for the classified annex to be provided to those stakeholders actually is?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Sure. I'll tackle both and then turn it over to DASD Zeppieri to talk a bit more about the legislative support. But in general, we view Congress as a very important key stakeholder. As we noted in the implementation plan of Congress provides for the overall direction and policies that support all the work that we're doing in defense industrial resilience. Going forward, obviously, we've talked quite a bit about having on time budgets as well as multiyear procurement.

I will also note that this year in FY 2025, the Defense Production Act is up for reauthorization. It will be important for the Department to have that reauthorization done in a timely fashion and we are in active conversations with Congress on that. I'll let Carla talk a little bit more about some of the other areas of legislative support, but I'll just note for the classified annex, again, we are working very closely with the services and with other OSD components, to make sure that we have all the right details in there. We're also putting out a more fleshed out risk mitigation framework in the classified annex. So we're hoping to have this done over the next couple of months and preferably before the end of the year.

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: I think with regard to potential future legislative action that might need to be taken to make the implementation--to fortify the implementation plan. We have had some informal conversations with other parts of the department, as I think you're aware specifically in the field of acquisition.

And then when you start talking about intellectual property, that's probably going to entail some further internal work and some work with external stakeholders, including Congress, because there might need to be made some legislative tweaks in that area. But I think Dr. Taylor-Kale hit on one of the most important, urgent ones for us, which is of course reauthorization of the Defense Production Act.

Q: If I may also, there's an election next week, as everyone's aware of, and this plan along with the classified annex are being released at a time of turnover regardless of who wins. Can you give me a sense of how this plan and the strategy itself will survive regardless of what happens on November 5th and ways to make that more durable given the uncertainty involved?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Oh, thank you. I'll note that one of the, I think, important things to note about defense industrial policy is that it's been a very much an area of bipartisan support. In working on both the strategy, developing the strategy and the implementation plan, we met with and worked with stakeholders across political perspectives, working with both chambers of Congress, with both sides of the aisle. And we are confident in the feedback that we're getting that this will be a priority regardless of who wins next week in the elections, but that this is an important priority for the nation, for defense and for national security.

MAJ RODTS: All right. We're going to go out to zoom and take a couple questions there and then we'll bring it back into the room. Tony, Inside Defense.

Q: Yes, thank you very much. The report mentions that one of the ways industry could help the department, is it could invest its own resources including CapEx. I'm wondering if you could give us a scope, sort of scope that challenge for us as the department sees it now. Has industry begun leaning in or not yet?

Could you just sort of give us a sense of what you're seeing there in terms of industry investing its own money because it sees these signals the department's sending or maybe not sending?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: No, thank you. I love this question. One of the, I think, real delights since issuing the strategy in January has been feedback that we've gotten from industry. So first, our office has conducted a number of sessions with industry, with companies individually in a classified setting to get feedback from them.

But also industry has reached out and companies reach out all the time and say, here's an investment that we're making that aligns with the National Defense Industrial Strategy. So what we did in the report was we include a couple of highlights throughout the report where industry has made investments that align with the NDIS and with implementing the NDIS. I think your question hits a very important point which is as we note that the Department of Defense can't implement the strategy alone, that it will require resources and support from across a broad range of stakeholders within the government, with Congress, with our international allies and partners and most and very importantly, with industry as well.

That also includes investors. Our office has worked to build better relationships with investor communities, particularly private equity and venture capital. We've conducted investor roundtables. We worked to build create a mechanism to share information as well. We launched the Defense Industrial Base Consortium OTA in January, as you know, which is also a mechanism for opening up and bringing more industry stakeholders and investors into working with the Department of Defense.

But we do see industry leaning in and being responsive to the fact that the Department is actually prioritizing and also really communicating what our priorities are with respect to defense industrial capacity and resilience.

MAJ RODTS: All right. Valerie, Breaking Defense.

Q: Yeah, thank you so much for taking my question. I know that the implementation plan as laid out here, it only includes basically, the funding levels that were laid out in the FY '25 POM. But I'm wondering if you could speak about how you guys see the funding profile over the next couple of years?

Just, I mean, obviously, there's going to be a new administration coming in, but you guys are building the budget right now. Should this funding profile for DIB investments, should it be ramping up? Do you guys expect that it'll stay like roughly the same as it has been the past couple of years?

And are there any particular items that you want to call out as being particularly important going into FY '26?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: We could spend the rest of the day, both of us talking about this topic, but we won't. So first is to your point about the implementation plan and how we built it out. We use FY 2025 president's budget request numbers and in part because we're not going to issue numbers that are still in development or pre-decisional.

But we wanted to make sure to provide a real picture of what the defense industrial base capacity building and resilience really looked like from the FY 2025 budget. The strategy, as we noted before, was in development during the FY '24 and FY '25 budget processes, but it didn't fully materialize until after.

So FY '26 is the first one where we've actually as a whole department, really had an opportunity to think about and match our program and budget planning processes with the National Defense Industrial Strategy. I suspect that this year was sort of first time really taking that on. I think there was a definite understanding across the board of the importance of building capacity in the Defense Industrial Base and also bringing in nontraditional companies into working with the Department of Defense.

There's a real concern around supply chain vulnerabilities and DASD Zeppieri can talk about, again, adversarial sources in our supply chains as well as sole source and single source. But I think that going forward, the department will continue to use this document as sort of a baseline and also build on it. Our plan is to update the implementation plan every year and preferably, to publish the revised unclassified after the new president's budget has been delivered to Congress and explain what's in the president's budget request and how it relates to defense industrial capacity, and what the priorities of the department are.

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: Sorry, let me add. Thank you, ma'am. Yeah, I guess I would just add really quickly. As the ASD said, excuse me, we're seeing great support and enthusiasm from across the department. As part of the process that the entire Department is in right now in building and finalizing the FY '26 budget, the services were asked to come brief through the Industrial Base Council on some of their priority DIB investments that they either already had in programing or of course were looking for some additional funding in FY '26. So I think that the whole Industrial Base Council found that very positive.

We received good feedback from everyone who participated in that, and I think it just underscored how the entire Department, the service's, other components are thinking about this now. Also just to add a little, I think you were asking what should we expect to see and as the ASD said, of course we can't talk about pre-decisional information, but I don't think that it will come as a surprise that some of the topics that continue to get emphasized build on some of the things that we've seen in FY '24 and '25 with respect to munitions and the organic industrial base to support some of those efforts.

MAJ RODTS: Great. Sir, in the room?

Q: Thank you. Diego Laje, Signal Media. Thank you very much for taking my question. Earlier this year, there was a cybersecurity in the DIB document issued. I'd like to get an idea of how you see cybersecurity evolving since then and especially among the most vulnerable parts of the DIB going forward?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Thank you. I'll refer you to the CIO for specifics on sort of how cybersecurity as a has evolved. But what I can say with respect to our work with the Defense Industrial Base, it remains a concern. And also, we are working with the CIO's office, our team, the Office of Small Business Programs, to work on programs that will help small businesses in particular, which are particularly vulnerable, as they develop cybersecurity sort of capabilities within their firms. Want to add anything?

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: No, I don't think so, ma'am, except that obviously as you indicated, sir, I mean the CIO you know has put out their strategy in building this implementation plan. We worked very closely to incorporate their ideas there, but I think that that will be an ongoing project. I mean, certainly information sharing between government and DIB is not a new endeavor, but you know ramping up and ensuring that some of those protections are spread throughout the DIB, right, and go beyond just kind of the prime contractors is an ongoing priority or a significant priority for the department.

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: And just to give you a reference point, we included, there's a line of effort for industrial cybersecurity under production and supply chains, in the second implementation initiative.

Q: And how do you expect the future of cybersecurity to look like during after implementation?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: After implementation? Implementation, I think, will be ongoing. The way we see this is this is an effort over multiple years. This instantiation of the implementation plan really just outlines what we are planning to do and what our priorities are for this first fiscal year for FY 2025. But yes, industrial, cyber security remains very much a focus of importance for production and for supply chains. Particularly as you noted, there are certain segments of the Defense Industrial Base, particularly smaller businesses that are particularly affected.

So I think it will certainly be a focus. It's a line of effort in 2025 and I can imagine that given the cyber security and strategy that it will remain so even past that.

MAJ RODTS: OK. We're going to go back to Zoom real quick just because we have a fair amount of people who are on there. Lauren, Defense One, did you manage to dial on? No. Chris, Air and Space?

Q: Hi. Thank you, Chris Gordon, Air and Space Forces Magazine. This has been touched on a bit around the edges, but I wanted to ask this question directly. How much of this entire strategy can be implemented under a continuing resolution, if at all?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Continuing resolutions present a number of challenges for the Department. It's best for us to have a full budget done on time for us to be able to implement. It creates a lot of challenges in procurement in general and also in planning for us when we have these continuing resolutions.

So we're hopeful that Congress will work together and pass a bill, a defense policy bill as well as a funding bill soon.

MAJ RODTS: OK. Jared, Federal News? Noah?

Q: Just a couple more here. The first is if you could give a more specific estimate or range of engagements with industry and also touch points with Congress, that would be helpful to pull out and then I have a follow up.

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Sure. We've had over 60 engagements with industry since the beginning of the year. Many of them I've done myself. We bring companies in directly into our office. We talk with them about the strategy itself as well as work iteratively on the implementation plan to try to get feedback.

We incorporate a lot of the feedback that we received as we developed the implementation plan and also went back and had further conversations. We also have numerous engagements with Congress. For Industrial Based Policy, our key committees are of course the Senate Armed Services and House Armed Services Committees.

But also note that Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees are also very important. They're the authorizers for the Defense Production Act, as well as have purview over a lot of the economic security, economic deterrents authorities that we have, including CFIUS. We also engage closely with the Senate Appropriations Committee, SACD, as well as the House Appropriations Committee.

We also engage closely with the small business committees in both Houses as well. So there are a number of touch points that we have with Congress.

Q: The criticism, and I want to give you both a chance to respond to this, as I'm sure it will come up afterward, that I most often hear from people who have been engaged in the process, who have been able to have some of these discussions that are behind closed doors, is that the implementation plan now and the NDIS back earlier in the year are largely restatements of priorities that the Pentagon already had and has restated in past reports in previous years.

If possible, could you give an outline of where you see this actually pushing things forward in a new way, and what in the document you actually would argue is new and sort of groundbreaking itself?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Sure. I think the fact that the Department of Defense has worked together across the department to talk about not just the challenges, but also the priorities across the department, developed at a senior leadership level, what are the cross-cutting areas that need to be driven by the secretary and the deputy secretary and the service secretaries, I think that's actually very much new and innovative for the department.

I think that the focus on trying to find something new, sort of new programs is something that everyone likes to see a nice shiny object. But the truth is the work of building capacity and resilience in the Defense Industrial Base is actually going to take a lot of time and resources across the board.

So the fact that is as we were developing this strategy, these were initiatives and priorities that we knew we had to work towards over the last several years and that we had begun to. But I think getting everyone on board and sort of focused in a manner that really has leadership sort of invested across the Department as well, is important, and I think is a very important initiative for the Department to provide, not just for itself, but also for industry stakeholders and for our allies and partners and for Congress.

MS. CARLA ZEPPIERI: Do you mind if I?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Please.

CARLA ZEPPIERI: I mean, I would just add briefly that as the assistant secretary said, and you're right, I hear you, that some of the issues that have been surfaced in various reports likewise showed up in our strategy, I think for good reason. But this is also the first time the Department has had an industrial base strategy and now an implementation plan to actually make this real.

Not that prior efforts weren't sincere but as Dr. Taylor-Kale just said, we now have the entire Department and I think a lot of momentum and buy-in to this process. The one other thing I would just also mention is that we also have in here a risk framework and there will be additional metrics.

Now, of course, they will be detailed in the classified annex because there's only so much that we can say in an unclass, but it's not just a strategy. It's going to be tracking, measuring ourselves where we are right now with regard to risk to the Defense Industrial Base. And then as the Department contributes on a regular basis, updates to the implementation, we will be measuring ourselves, measuring our progress and seeing where we have addressed risk and where we have more work to do. So I think that that's different than previous efforts.

MAJ RODTS: OK. We're going to go back to Jared. I think I was moving a little too quickly there. Jared.

Q: I appreciate it. I was trying to ask about the flexible acquisition pathways line of effort. You specifically call out MTA, OTA. The Department's obviously been headed in that direction for a good six, seven years now. And I'm just wondering what changes under this plan, if anything really meaningfully changes?

Is it a matter of more emphasis on those things and if so, how do you prioritize what sorts of capabilities fit into the strategy and need to move down those pathways?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Yeah. I think the Department has been moving in this direction for a while, but the truth is we don't oftentimes use these flexible authorities. So I think the important thing to note here and that we emphasize within the implementation plan is using these flexible acquisition pathways when appropriate.

And so really, what we're measuring and tracking here is what we're using and whether or not it matches and is appropriate for a particular project or contract vehicle. So I think that's going to be important moving forward. It's like, it's important to have OTAs. They can be very useful.

We started the Defense Industrial Base Consortium OTA that does research prototype as well as production. But at the end of the day, we're all trying to make sure that the warfighter has the tools and capabilities it needs at speed and scale. We need things to move into production. So what's the best way to do that for the particular capability that we're looking at for the particular problem that we're trying to solve for, I think will be important.

And I think just having the flexible authorities out there, it's useful, but what we're trying to do is drive using those authorities to actually solve the problems that we're facing.

MAJ RODTS: All right. With that, I don't think we have any further questions. So, ma'am, if you would like to provide any closing comments?

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Sure. Thank you. Well, first, I want to thank you all for being here today and for those who are dialed in on Zoom. We think this is a significant milestone for the Department of Defense. The publication of the strategy provided our vision and now with the release of the implementation plan for FY 2025, we are sharing our priorities and the structure which will drive cohesive efforts across all lanes related to the industrial base.

We are also fostering transparency by providing industry and other partners insights into our plans and investments. Our approach has generated strong interest from industry and common goals have built closer ties between allied partners. We have greater support from internal and interagency stakeholders and Congress.

We have surged our coordination efforts with the military services to calibrate and respond. The National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan will be a living document providing the rigor to ensure sustained and resilient impact in the defense industrial base and the flexibility to change and adapt as needed.

In January, I sat here and stated we can no longer afford to wait, the time for action has come. I believe we have confronted that task and are moving ahead. Thank you again for your time today and for participating in this briefing.

MAJ RODTS: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, everyone, for coming out today. If you have any follow up questions or you didn't have your question answered, please reach out to me and I'll be able to work that for you. Thank you, everyone.

DR. LAURA TAYLOR-KALE: Thanks.

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