Hicks to meet with top weapons makers amid LaPlante's push for boosted production

By Tony Bertuca  / November 7, 2022

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks is scheduled to meet with the Pentagon's top eight defense contractors tomorrow to discuss industrial base issues including the surging demand for U.S. weapons in Ukraine, supply chain bottlenecks and labor challenges.

Eric Pahon, a DOD spokesman, said a readout of the meeting is expected to be available after it concludes. The meeting was first reported by Reuters.

Hicks’ meeting with DOD’s top defense contractors comes as the department seeks to sharpen its focus on increasing weapons production, especially munitions for the long-range artillery and anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems being transferred to Ukraine from U.S. stocks to fight off a Russian military invasion.

Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante said Friday that increasing the number of DOD’s production contracts has become his top priority.

“Production is what matters,” he said at a conference hosted by Defense Acquisition University and George Mason University.

For all the department’s focus on rapid innovation, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, LaPlante said, “the techbros aren’t helping us too much in Ukraine.”

“Ukraine is not holding their own against Russia with quantum, they’re not holding their own with AI, whatever your favorite gadget is,” he said. “It is hardcore production of really serious weaponry and that’s what matters.”

LaPlante asserted that he did not mean the United States should pull back its investments in emerging technology.

“What I am saying is it just reminds you that we’re not fighting in Ukraine with Silicon Valley right now, even though they are going to try to take credit for it and I won’t name names,” he said.

LaPlante said DOD will be pushing Congress for more authority to enter into multiyear contracts, thus giving the defense industrial base the demand signal required to invest in hot production lines.

“Once they see that we are going to put money against it and it is credible, they’ll get it,” he said. “We’re going to have multiyear authority, I believe, from the Congress. They’re going to give us funding to put into the industrial base and I’m talking billions of dollars into the industrial base and to fund these production lines.”

Production contracts, LaPlante said, need to be more of a goal for DOD, including those who work in rapid experimentation and innovation.

“If we're going to have surge production, we're going to have to contract for it,” he said.

The Pentagon’s “broken acquisition system,” LaPlante said, “does everything it can to avoid production.”

He listed several systems, some of which have made headlines for their use in Ukraine, that have seen their production lines closed or paused in recent years: the Stinger anti-aircraft system, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, the Mark-48 torpedo and the Tomahawk missile.

“This is what we’ve got to stop,” he said. “We’ve got to pay more attention to production.”

LaPlante challenged the audience to ask key questions about contracting and production if they hear a “liquored-up story” about the Defense Innovation Unit or streamlined prototyping efforts.

“Ask them when it’s going to production, ask them how many numbers, ask them what the [average procurement unit cost is], ask them will it work against China,” he said. “Because that is what matters. Don’t tell me it has got AI and quantum in it. I don’t care. And don’t drop DevSecOps on me. Get out of the buzzwords. Tell me whether it is really going to get to somebody at scale, and it is going to work and it is going to be useable and it is going to be in production.”

The conflict in Ukraine, LaPlante said, also drives home for him the fact that U.S. allies still want to buy U.S. weapons.

“American equipment is the best in the world,” he said. “With this broken acquisition system, it sure is kicking everybody's butt.”