STAFF: Thank you to all of you in the room and those of you who have dialed in via Zoom. My name is Robert Ditchey with Defense Press Operations, your moderator today.
Thank you for joining us for the media roundtable on regional sustainment framework. Seated on stage to my left is the Honorable Christopher Lowman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, and Ms. Lisa P. Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Product Support.
We have plenty of time for questions. Please limit your questions to the regional sustainment framework. For those of you on Zoom who have questions, I'll call on you by name. And for those of you in the room, as we call on you, please introduce your name and affiliation before asking a question.
And with that, I'll turn it over to ASD Lowman and DASD Smith for your opening remarks.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SUSTAINMENT CHRISTOPHER LOWMAN: Great. So, thanks for your time today. I'm really excited to be here today to talk about one of the initiatives we have, in order to get after the gaps and challenges of sustaining a joint force within a contested logistics environment, so think a contested theater of operations.
So, for the past two and a half years, we've been focused on the realities of sustaining the US joint force in a contested theater and what it would take to ensure success and mitigate some of the risks of relying on long, over-ocean lines of communication to retrograde equipment back to the United States for repair and then return. So, readiness regeneration is the way we talk about that.
And so really, all of the work we've done is guided, of course, by the National Defense Strategy, which really lays out a couple of key points for us in terms of guiding principles. One is the concept of integrated deterrence, so how do we bring together all elements of not only the US joint force but also capabilities that are resident within allies and partners within the theaters of operation. And also, the second guiding principle is really all about building resilience within the sustainment structure in the theaters but also the US defense industrial base.
So, as part of that, we're pursuing three or four lines of effort to get after that problem set, and how do we satisfy demand closer to the point of need so we can increase the velocity of readiness regeneration, right? So, returning damaged equipment, returning non-mission capable equipment back to service and back into operational use.
So, these lines of effort are really focused on, one, enhancing our own capabilities in the US joint force, but also enhancing the capabilities of regional partners, strengthening those regional partnerships through the regional sustainment framework, and then finally, as I talked about, to mitigate risk. So, all of this is designed to enhance readiness regeneration by satisfying that demand in the theater. So, where the demand is occurring, satisfying that demand closer to the point of need.
So, two things I want to talk about today. The first one is advanced manufacturing, and I'll briefly describe that. And it's really an effort to take advantage of the existing commercial technology of applying advanced manufacturing techniques, whether that's additive manufacturing, printing parts, or subtractive manufacturing to manufacture parts.
And so, we've been after this in coordination with the US services, like I mentioned, for the last three years. But it's really our intent in OSD to enable the use of advanced manufacturing capability at echelon within the theater of operations to produce parts that are required so that we don't have to transport parts from the continental United States into the theater to repair equipment. I mentioned this is existing commercial technology.
What we're doing is enabling that digital framework, that network, in order to transmit intellectual property to the point of manufacture and then, of course, secure that intellectual property at the point of manufacture, and finally to ensure that the parts produced meet our standards of manufacture so that they are safe and suitable to operate.
So, that work is ongoing. We have funded the development of that digital architecture under the Capability Advantage Projects, CAP projects. You might have heard Dr. LaPlante talk about those in the past. We've funded and completed phase one of that to identify the cybersecurity requirements required at the point of manufacture and to ensure that we had an accurate process to enumerate activity so, as we're printing parts, the intellectual property owner then is appropriately compensated for the intellectual property for that production capability.
So, that is one way that we're — one LOE that we're implementing to ensure that we can satisfy that demand within the theater of operations without relying on those long over-ocean lines of communication to retrograde unserviceables or transport serviceable components into the theater.
The second one is really the focus of today's discussion, and that's regional sustainment framework. And we launched this in May of '24. Dr. LaPlante and I signed out the strategy laying out that framework. And it's really all about developing a global network of regionally aligned maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities.
So, we'll begin with INDOPACOM as our priority theater. We're working that problem set right now, working with five different nations within INDOPACOM to—and the appropriate US service, the US industrial partner, and the regional industrial partner, to pull together maintenance, repair, and overhaul capability to not only repair US joint force equipment, but also similarly equipped allied and partner armed forces.
And again, this is just another mechanism for us to satisfy that demand, whether it's unserviceable demand driven by normal use and wear and tear on the equipment. Or as we scale from competition through crisis and conflict where we have battle damaged equipment, the intent here is to create those maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities, utilize them in competition so that they're available to us to repair battle damaged equipment in conflict.
So, really three objectives I want to talk about; one, strengthen regional relationships. This is through strategic co-sustainment opportunities with those regional partners. The second one is prevail in a contested logistics environment. This is through enabling MRO capabilities within the theater to regenerate readiness, as I mentioned, closer to the point of need. And the third one is to enhance military readiness through collaboration with our industrial base, allied industrial base to build the regionally focused sustainment strategies that increase readiness and ultimately deter aggression.
We do believe by implementing multiple options for a theater commander to use in terms of redirecting unserviceable flows to repair capabilities creates a higher level of uncertainty within adversaries' planning cycle and thereby enhancing deterrence and the deterrence value.
So really, at its core, RSF is designed to contribute to deterrence by offering the theater commanders multiple options to regenerate readiness and reduce their reliance on long over-ocean LOCs to retrograde equipment for repair.
So, while I mentioned we are going to do INDOPACOM this year, and we've initiated that work, that's ongoing, I'm really excited for how quickly this has advanced in terms of identifying a service partner, identifying a regional partner within — a regional industrial partner, and finally a US industrial partner. We'll do that work this year. Like I mentioned, EUCOM is planned for fiscal year '25 and SOUTHCOM is planned for fiscal year '26.
So, let me just pause there, introduce the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. Lisa Smith works my organization. Within her organization, product support, she's really charged with implementation of RSF. And so, let me turn to her for a couple of quick comments.
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PRODUCT SUPPORT LISA SMITH: OK. Thank you very much, Honorable Lowman. And as you mentioned, the DOD released the RSF on May 15th of 2024 as a response to changing global threats to augment the traditional model of sustainment.
The regional sustainment framework, it does support the National Defense Strategy priorities and objectives by strategically engaging with our allies and partners to bring critical weapons system maintenance, repair, and overhaul capability and capacity closer to the forward deployed point of need.
RSF is a DOD initiative to ensure that joint and allied forces are supported by sustainment strategies that are resilient, responsive, and ready to deliver in a contested logistics environment. It aligns the US, international partners and industry in a more closely linked collaborative context and builds a network of globally dispersed capabilities to provide MRO to generate readiness closer to the point of need.
Now, the process for the RSF implementation, it leverages the strengths of our allies, partners, and industry to enhance that force readiness. The process includes a strategic approach, looking at the priorities and aligned MRO partnerships in line based upon strategic importance and operational needs. It is very important that RSF demands that we incorporate strategic and operational objectives in our acquisition and sustainment decisions.
It also focused in on from a partnered oriented that is foundationally reliant on ally and partner nation's relationships. It’s systems focused, tailored sustainment efforts to critical platforms and systems to identify gaps in regional support solutions and to bring those shortfalls to support OPLAN execution.
It is enabled to build a ecosystem where co-sustainment is viable in peacetime as well as during crisis. And lastly, it's collaborative and corporative, promotes partnerships with the global defense industries, and better alignment of commercial capabilities with defense sustainment needs.
RSF emphasizes a distributed MRO network, as I previously stated, with our allies and partners, the US defense industrial base, and international industrial base. The forward positioned network aligns our military MRO capabilities with operations and the geographical realities of a contested logistics environment.
And so, as Mr. Lowman indicated, we have been on this journey for approximately two and a half years. And as a result of that, Congress did mandate in the FY '24 NDAA, and RSF directly supports that congressional mandate, to identify ways to capitalize on the inherent interoperability, commonality, and interchangeability of platforms, including enabling effective maintenance and repair activities in a contested logistics environment. Thank you.
STAFF: Thank you. So, we'll go to the room with questions. Jim?
MR. LOWMAN: Hi, Jim.
Q: Hey, thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Are you even trying this in like a — is this DOD instruction? How is this going to be promulgated to the field?
MR. LOWMAN: Jim, that's a great question. So, it will go in DOD 5000.91, which is under Ms. Smith's purview within her organization. So, that's under revision right now, and so we're incorporating RSF and the tenets of RSF in that DOD instruction.
Q: And what countries are you working with? You said five countries in the Indo-Pacific. What five countries are you looking at?
MR. LOWMAN: Yeah, that's a great question. So, while negotiations are underway between the five countries that have been identified and have expressed a desire to participate as well as our industry partners, I don't want to get ahead of that.
And so, what I am is really excited that five of our key allies in the Pacific region are pursuing RSF opportunities quite vigorously. And so, we've identified those five. We're working with the services on the appropriate projects, and then, of course, bringing in the two industrial partners, one from the US and one from the allied and partner region.
That is moving at pace. Since announcement to our industry in December of '23, we rolled out the concept of RSF and what it would look like to official release of the strategy in '24. To now have those five allies identified and the pathfinders identified is really just exhilarating work.
Q: And if you don't mind me, this sort of builds on some of the things that we've done in the past. I remember US ships pulling into the Philippines to be repaired during the Vietnam War using, again, other nation's shipbuilding sort of infrastructure to repair and such. Did that inform some of your decisions?
MR. LOWMAN: It did, absolutely. So, this, in some regard, it's a recognition that, while in the past sustainment has historically been viewed as a national responsibility — so the national governments would sustain. And particularly true in the US's case, we would sustain our forces in whatever theater we were operating in. This is really a recognition that sustainment can be performed through a coalition and a network of regional providers, because each of those regional allies has capability, industrial capability, maintenance, repair and overhaul capability, and a desire to support the work.
And so, what this does is just capitalize on those capabilities in the theater so that we're not building US owned, US operated maintenance/repair capabilities in the theaters of operation. We're taking advantage of what's existing, making the appropriate changes to accommodate specific US needs, and then utilizing that through a joint venture arrangement as opposed to a US funded, built, owned, and operated capability.
Q: Thank you.
MR. LOWMAN: Yeah. Sure.
STAFF: Thanks, Jim.
Q: Matthew Adam, Stars and Stripes. Thanks for doing this. I wanted to ask what was the — why focus on INDOPACOM? What allowed y'all to make that the first place to focus the sustainment?
MR. LOWMAN: Yeah. So, of course, INDOPACOM is our primary theater and just where our pacing threat resides. And so, that really provided the impetus to focus on INDOPACOM, but it's also the greatest contested logistics challenge because of the long over-ocean LOCs that exist in that theater. And so, it really provides the most rationale to push sustainment capability into the theater in a distributed fashion and to regenerate readiness of the US joint forces.
The second reason was, to some degree, there is capabilities that are emerging in the EUCOM theater of operations because of support to Ukraine and the amount of Western produced material that's flowing in in support of Ukraine against Russia's invasion.
And so, with a limited amount of staff opportunity, we're capitalizing on the priority theater and then letting the combatant commander in EUCOM, along with the service component commanders and the emerging demand within the context of the NATO partnership, to shape those regional capabilities and shape their focus and their investment. So, in some sense, I'm getting two for the price of one. Did that help?
Q: Yes. Thank you.
STAFF: Thank you. I'll go to the phones. Haley, CNN?
Q: Yeah. Hi. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm wondering, Mr. Lowman, if you can maybe talk a little bit about—I know you said you could not name the regional partners, but are you able to say anything about the service partners or the industrial partners that you're working with?
And when you say that the five partners in INDOPACOM are pursuing RSF opportunities, what exactly does that mean? Are they building out infrastructure to accommodate this? Or what does that mean, that they're pursuing those opportunities?
MR. LOWMAN: Haley, that's a couple of great questions. Thanks. So, I'll start with the second one first.
By pursuing the RS opportunities, what I mean is these regional partners have come to the table with existing capability, either because they are similarly equipped with the US or they're equipped with US produced weapons systems that they operate through FMS and own through FMS, and so they have repair capabilities that we'll capitalize on. And on the industry side, what's driving us to identify the US industry partner are the pathfinder projects that are being identified within each of these regions.
And so, it's really three possible solution sets that you can think of. One, like I mentioned, we're going to take advantage of existing capacity and capability because that country already has it. They are similarly equipped to US joint forces. We have a demand and a requirement, and we'll take advantage of those maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities that exist.
The second instance is where they might have a capability such as a shipyard, it's just not configured exactly right to accommodate the specific requirements that the US has. And so, what we're working through is what capital investments will be needed to make the necessary adjustments, either the purchase of plant equipment or the expansion of capacity or the training of the workforce so that they can accommodate the US joint force.
And then the last one, really the least desirable one, is where we would identify a need to put maintenance, repair, and overhaul capability where it does not currently exist. So, as you can imagine, that would entail the greatest amount of capital investment. And so, we're really focused on the pathfinders on the first two instances, and the third would then be a third priority.
So, the countries have come forward, listed their capabilities. Our combatant commanders with — well, the combatant commander for INDOPACOM has prioritized that list. We have then provided that to the US services. They've worked through, identified the appropriate workload to marry up with INDOPACOM priority and the allied partner capability, and that's really how we arrived at the five pathfinders.
STAFF: Jim?
Q: Yeah. I'm sorry. This is really fascinating to me, because the one thing that you always hear in discussions of US strategy is that the biggest asymmetric advantage the United States has is to be able to deploy people anywhere in the world and then sustain them. All right. And it strikes me that, like, the air logistics centers, the Army depots, the Navy shipyards are already doing those additive and subtractive type things. Are they involved in this whole process of establishing the RSFs?
MR. LOWMAN: So, they are, because right now this really enhances our total sustainment capabilities on a global basis as opposed to a CONUS centric basis. So, they are involved in the identification, the development, and finally they would be involved in the ultimate certification of the standards that the RSF facility would have to meet.
So, this is really just taking and extending what we have in most cases within the continental United States and executing that demand satisfaction within the theaters. Because our asymmetric advantage is, of course, our abilities to deploy and sustain forces, but in a contested logistics environment, that increases the risk of that deployment and sustainment.
And what we're trying to do is take as much off of those LOCs as possible so that, one, we could regenerate faster, closer to the point of need, get that material back in operation as quickly as possible, and of course avoid the risk of the retrograde on the LOCs.
Q: Do you have any idea how many people would be employed in these overseas locations?
MR. LOWMAN: Yeah, we don't have it down to that level of specificity yet.
STAFF: Take another from the phone. Emily Ashcom, Defense Acquisition Magazine?
Q: Yes. Mr. Lowman, you previously mentioned some concerns from industry regarding exportability, tech data transfer, and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations process. How do you plan to address those issues?
MR. LOWMAN: Yeah, Emily, another great question. Thank you. So, this is a bit of a normal conversation that we generally have even within the FMS process. And so, what we've done is we've brought members from the Department of State that operate within the space, the Department of Commerce that operate within the space, and then ultimately from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and of course within our own A&S into a tiger team type arrangement.
So, we are identifying where the tech data transfer exportability concerns might reside or the ITAR concerns might reside, and then how best to mitigate that not in a serial fashion, as is often done, but really in a more collaborative tiger team fashion so we're identifying the challenges and knocking those challenges down as quickly as we can, so in a more expedited fashion. We recognize the urgency of standing up these regional sustainment facilities as quickly as possible.
MR. DITCHEY: Great. Erin, did you have a question?
Q: No. Haley covered my question.
MR. DITCHEY: Okay, very good. Charlie?
Q: Yes. Charlie D'Agata, CBS News. I know that you mentioned that we're paying attention to INDOPACOM now, EUCOM next year. It might be described as a more dynamic region because of what's happening there. Have relationships already been established with that in mind with regional partners?
MR. LOWMAN: So, they have. Again, what is emerging in EUCOM through the routine discussions we're having as part of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which Secretary Austin leads, underneath that, UDCG is a chartered group that the Under Secretary of Defense, Dr. LaPlante, leads, which is a collection of the national armaments directors. So, all the national armaments directors from the various countries, the 49 or so countries that are supporting Ukraine.
Those relationships are forming during the discussions we're having on how best to meet Ukraine's near-term readiness requirements, but also laying the foundation for the long-term sustainment of Ukraine armed forces that are equipped with Western produced weapons systems in the future, right?
And so, as we're working through the Ukraine question, it's falling right in line with all of the activity that we're doing for INDOPACOM in regional sustainment. And so, you can imagine regional sustainment capabilities for ground combat equipment, for rotary wing equipment, for fixed wing equipment not necessarily all residing within Ukraine, but on that Eastern — former Eastern bloc arc on the western borders of Ukraine in terms of what needs to be utilized in terms of existing capacity, changed if it's not appropriately equipped, or created from scratch.
So, we're taking advantage of that work, which is ongoing separately from RSF, but it meets the RSF requirements and priorities. And so, that's really why I said we're getting really two theaters.
Q: You didn't mention — you mentioned, I'm sorry, Indo-Pacific this year, EUCOM next year, SOUTHCOM in '26. You didn't mention CENTCOM or Africa.
MR. LOWMAN: Right. So, that's great. In '25, it is CENTCOM and EUCOM together, and then SOUTHCOM in '26 and then AFRICOM following that as the last theater.
Q: Is there a reason why you picked that exact order, SOUTHCOM, then AFRICOM is last?
MR. LOWMAN: Yeah. Thank you very much. So, the top two are driven by realities. One is priority. Two is the dynamics of the theater, EUCOM. And then for CENTCOM, we have quite a robust heavy equipment repair capability in that theater already. And for—of course, EUCOM is in '25.
And then SOUTHCOM, while it is a critical theater, the level of equipping that's common to the US is relatively small in number and not as advanced in terms of repair requirements as some of the equipment that is, one, in EUCOM — as the equipment that's in EUCOM, and as well as INDOPACOM. That's kind of how we arrived at it.
STAFF: Thank you very much. That's about all the time that we have for question today. Sir, did you have any—?
Q: —No, just really do appreciate it. Come back and talk to us again.
STAFF: Ms. Smith, did you have anything else that you wanted to add?
MS. SMITH: I just appreciate the time and the questions that were asked. And that as we move forward with RSF, sir, I do appreciate your question relative to policy, but we are also working to ensure that we train the workforce by working closely with the Defense Acquisition University as well as the Defense Security Cooperation University to ensure that the workforce is fully prepared and trained.
So, I thank you for your time. And Honorable Lowman, thank you for allowing me to be on stage with you today.
MR. LOWMAN: Of course. I'm never more comfortable than when you're next to me.
So, one more thing. I think if I would just leave you with a bit of a tagline, and that is RSF is really the critical path we are on to, one, increase our relationship with allies and partners, so increase that interoperability in terms of co-sustainment, but it's also critical to mitigating the risks we have any contested logistics environment.
So, just think this is a broader coalition arrayed geographically within the region and then globally to afford the commander multiple options to get his equipment repaired, as well as the allied and partner equipment repaired. And so, it really does create quite a bit of uncertainty in the minds of adversaries on where the US can go to regenerate readiness because there is so many multiple options.
STAFF: Thank you very much. Later this evening, we'll have the full transcript of this briefing up on defense.gov.