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DOD Releases National Defense Strategy; Nuclear Posture Documents
Following the release of an updated National Security Strategy two weeks ago, the Department of Defense has released updated versions of the National Defense Strategy which includes the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review. The documents are intended to provide a roadmap to the Department of Defense and reflect the previously released National Security Strategy as the Department makes key acquisition and operations decisions going forward over the next four years.
According to the document, China remains the greatest security challenge for the United States despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the threat from Beijing will determine how the U.S. military is equipped and shaped for the future. It also says that conflict with China “is neither inevitable nor desirable,” but describes an effort to prevent Beijing’s “dominance of key regions” — a clear reference to its aggressive military buildup in the South China Sea and increased pressure on the self-governing island of Taiwan. It warns that China is working to undermine American alliances in the Indo-Pacific and use its growing military to coerce and threaten neighbors.
At the same time, the 80-page, unclassified report notes Russia’s war in Ukraine and says Moscow is a serious threat to the U.S. and its allies, with nuclear weapons, cyber operations and long-range missiles. And it warns that as China and Russia continue to grow as partners, they “now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist.”
China “is the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do so,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon. “Unlike China, Russia can’t systemically challenge the United States over the long term. But Russian aggression does pose an immediate and sharp threat to our interest and values.”
The report reflects that the U.S. for the first time is facing two major nuclear-armed competitors in Russia and China.
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DOD Does Not Intend to Enact Policy to Contracts Impacted by Inflation
The Defense Department "does not intend to enact a policy to increase contract prices due to inflation,” according to a new letter sent by Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
The letter, dated Oct. 19, is a response to concerns Warren raised following defense industry efforts to receive inflation relief on fixed-price contracts, sometimes called “economic price adjustments.” Warren, in an Oct. 5 letter, likened the proposed inflation relief to “corporate welfare.”
“DOD does not intend to enact a policy to increase contract prices due to inflation,” LaPlante states in his letter.
However, LaPlante notes DOD has issued a Sept. 9 guidance memo that has “called contracting officers’ attention” to existing policies. The memo states that contract officers should be open to considering inflation relief for companies working under firm, fixed-price contracts in "extraordinary circumstances.” LaPlante said in September that current levels of historic inflation could qualify as “extraordinary.”
LaPlante, in his letter to Warren, acknowledges that defense officials met with industry associations and “heard their concerns regarding harmful effects of inflation on defense contracts.”
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