Drone-ing on About Love

Welcome to the Valentine’s edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition.

• A new Maritime Action Plan is released.

• Transformation success or failure will come down to culture

• Rapid Assessments of New Tech is the New Acquisition Way

• CNO has some new fightin’ words for the Navy

• Air Force Absorbs JFN and Expands Open Architecture Ecosystem

• Space Force Planning to Grow its Launch Capability 5X

• Startups May Define GD4A Architecture w/o the Government

• Ukraine Showed How Air Defense at Scale Really Works

America’s Maritime Action Plan

American shipbuilding capacity has withered, while strategic competitors have expanded and solidified their market share. Less than 1% of new commercial ships are built in the U.S.

• With only 66 total shipyards—consisting of eight active shipbuilding yards, 11 shipyards with build positions, 22 repairs yards with drydocking, and 25 topside repairs yards—the U.S. does not have the capacity necessary to scale up the domestic shipbuilding industry to the rate required to meet national priorities.

• Strategic competitors, meanwhile, dominate the market and build ships at a fraction of the cost of U.S. production. This status quo poses significant security and supply chain dependency issues.

• A self-sustaining domestic shipbuilding sector is critical for national and economic security.

• The Maritime Action Plan, informed not only by domestic imperatives but also by international realities, outlines targeted steps to rejuvenate the MIB.

• It charts a course to reclaim America’s maritime strength, ensuring the Nation can defend its interests and ferry its trade.

Four Pillars

• Rebuilding U.S. Shipbuilding Capacity and Capabilities

• Reform Workforce Education and Training

• Protect the Maritime Industrial Base

• National Security, Economic Security, and Industrial Resilience

Key Recommendations

• Recapitalize the Nation’s Public Shipyards. Continue funding recapitalization projects.

• Utilize Commercial Solutions. Employ available commercial technologies and solutions. Adapting to commercially available designs will expand the pool of potential bidders, reduce design costs, and leverage economies of scale from commercial production runs.

• Utilize AI and Other Emerging Technologies. Leverage AI systems to process requirements, analyze the supply chain, optimize contract language, rapidly identify potential compliance issues, and reduce administrative burdens. Use AI-driven design tools and emerging technologies such as additive manufacturing and augmented reality to improve efficiencies during the design process and construction. Invest in autonomous vessel capabilities to incentivize and expand the U.S. shipbuilding enterprise.

• Provide Shipyard Incentives. Explore opportunities for PPP and technology consortiums to share costs and risks in shipbuilding programs. Create tax incentives