Atlantic Council SCOWCROFT CENTER FOR STRATEGY AND SECURITY
ISSUE BRIEF
Friend-sourcing military procurement: Technology acquisition as security cooperation JUNE 2024
JAMES HASIK, PhD
Introduction
The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and its allies and partners. The Center honors General Brent Scowcroft’s legacy of service and embodies his ethos of nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders. Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.
In the United States, the military procurement bureaucracy tends to sponsor development of new technologies to fill requirements. The bureaucracy also largely seeks domestic sources for all new charismatic military megafauna: aircraft, ships, ground vehicles, and missile systems. Security “cooperation” in US policy and practice is largely a one-way process, neglecting the benefit of learning and sourcing from other countries. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s concomitant threats from India to Korea, point to the need for coordinating the industrial capabilities of allies. As the United States faces simultaneous competition with two revisionist, nuclear-armed, major-power rivals, not to mention a challenging budgetary and fiscal environment, the additional research and development (R&D) costs assumed by the Department of Defense through its disregard of foreign suppliers, while never ideal, are no longer tenable. Law, regulation, and policy can conspire against good economic thinking, though with clear exemptions. The Department of Defense Authorization Act for 1983 prohibited the construction of naval vessels in foreign shipyards, unless the president first informs Congress of a national security need otherwise (10 U.S.C. §§ 7309–7310). The Buy American Act of 1933 demands preference for domestic manufactures in federal procurement, though this is waived for imports from dozens of allied countries through reciprocal agreements (41 U.S.C. §§ 8301–8305). Note, though, that these laws say nothing of where products are designed, merely where they are manufactured. Further, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 mandates a “preference for commercial products . . . to the maximum extent practical,” with “market research . . . before developing new specifications for a procurement” (10 U.S.C. § 3453). Official policy periodically reemphasizes this mandate for off-the-shelf procurement.1
1
See, for example, Frank Kendall et al., Business Systems Requirements and Acquisition, Department of Defense Instruction 5000.75, Change 2, January 24, 2020, 5, https://www.esd.whs. mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/500075p.PDF?ver=2020-01-24-132012-177.