Driving Defense Forward: The FY2025 National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan

The FY2025 National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan (NDIS-IP) takes critical strides toward enhancing the United States' defense industrial base, aiming to maintain and amplify its technological and operational edge. With the defense sector confronting a global landscape marked by rapid shifts, increased competition, and evolving threats, the NDIS-IP responds by translating the goals of the overarching National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) into actionable initiatives that address vulnerabilities and future needs. This plan sets forth the Department of Defense’s approach to sustaining a resilient, innovative, and agile defense industry, encompassing actions across six major initiatives designed to address key areas like Indo-Pacific deterrence, production and supply chain resilience, workforce readiness, international collaboration, and modernization of capabilities.

At the core of the NDIS-IP are six priority initiatives that seek to address pressing challenges and advance U.S. defense objectives. The first initiative, Indo-Pacific Deterrence, emphasizes strengthening U.S. presence and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region by focusing on essential capabilities such as munitions, missiles, and submarine production. By bolstering the defense industrial base in these areas, the plan underscores the importance of not only strengthening military capacity but also signaling firm commitment to regional allies and partners. The recent formation of the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) serves as a collaborative platform where U.S. allies and partners work together to overcome challenges in production, supply chains, and capability sustainment, strengthening the region’s collective defense capabilities.

A resilient production and supply chain is foundational to the entire defense industry, and this theme surfaces prominently in the NDIS-IP. The second initiative on Production and Supply Chains aims to reduce dependence on foreign sources and enhance supply chain transparency through onshoring critical production and materials, cybersecurity improvements, and robust inventory management. The risk management framework within the plan outlines immediate, medium-term, and long-term actions across each initiative, ensuring that response strategies adapt to emerging and enduring threats. Industrial cybersecurity also plays a pivotal role, recognizing that adversarial cyber intrusions pose significant risks to the integrity of defense technology and supply chains. The NDIS-IP’s framework focuses on protecting critical defense information and assets while promoting a secure ecosystem for technology development and production.

Workforce readiness, the third initiative, addresses the need to cultivate a skilled and capable workforce able to meet the demands of a modernized defense industrial base. The plan outlines steps to attract talent across diverse fields, including manufacturing, engineering, and emerging technologies. This approach is coupled with investments in workforce development programs to reskill and upskill personnel, enabling them to contribute to the increasingly sophisticated defense manufacturing processes. To achieve a more inclusive and sustainable workforce, the NDIS-IP also encourages partnerships with educational institutions, particularly those focused on historically underrepresented communities.

Collaboration with allies and partners, the fourth initiative, aims to bolster shared security objectives while mitigating global supply chain vulnerabilities. The NDIS-IP highlights the necessity of working alongside allies to achieve co-production and co-sustainment capabilities, ensuring that critical defense technologies are available to partners and integrated within their forces. Efforts like the AUKUS security pact further reinforce the United States’ commitment to global security by strengthening trilateral defense industrial cooperation with Australia and the United Kingdom. By fostering allied and partner capabilities, the NDIS-IP builds an international defense network capable of confronting shared security threats more effectively.

Capabilities and Infrastructure Modernization, the fifth initiative, underscores the need to sustain the U.S. technological edge through innovation. This entails substantial investments in research and development and modernization of infrastructure, such as the Navy’s submarine industrial base, which has become a central focus as the U.S. works to ramp up production of both Columbia and Virginia class submarines. Additional modernization efforts, like the implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies and digital engineering practices, further enhance production capacity, reduce maintenance costs, and improve efficiency across the defense sector. These advancements also aim to align the industrial base with future needs, fostering a dynamic defense ecosystem capable of responding to new challenges and operational demands.

The sixth initiative focuses on Intellectual Property (IP) and Data Analysis, recognizing that safeguarding IP and advancing data analytics are crucial to maintaining a competitive technological edge. The NDIS-IP outlines steps to protect IP from theft, especially by adversarial actors, and develop capabilities in data management and artificial intelligence (AI) that support decision-making across the Department of Defense. By advancing data analysis capabilities, the NDIS-IP aims to enable the DoD and its partners to make informed, data-driven decisions, thereby enhancing operational readiness and resilience.

Together, these initiatives reflect the DoD’s multifaceted approach to ensuring a secure, resilient, and forward-looking defense industrial base. Through targeted investments, robust partnerships, and a commitment to technological and human capital development, the NDIS-IP offers a comprehensive roadmap for realizing the goals of the National Defense Industrial Strategy. As an evolving document, the NDIS-IP will be updated annually, reflecting the latest assessments of the defense landscape and adapting to shifts in global and regional security dynamics. In doing so, the DoD continues to underscore the importance of a coordinated, collaborative approach, involving government agencies, private industry, Congress, and international allies in building a future-ready defense industrial base.

This blog post is a summary and is not guaranteed to be accurate. It is not intended as legal or policy advice.