The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 expanded the legal definition of the National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB) to include the United Kingdom and Australia. This study informs NTIB partners on barriers and opportunities for effective integration.

In light of Section 881 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which expanded the legal definition of the National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB) to include the United Kingdom and Australia, this report informs NTIB partners on barriers and opportunities for effective integration. The expansion of the NTIB is based on the principle that defense trade between the United States and its closest allies enables a host of benefits, including increased access to innovation, economies of scale, and interoperability. In order to reap the greatest benefits of a new era of NTIB, this report uses the lessons learned from study of the present state of integration to identify areas of opportunity for policy reforms and greater cooperation.

The United States’ National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB) is a congressionally-mandated policy framework that is intended to foster a defence free-trade area among the defence-related research and development sectors of the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. To date, however, the NTIB has only managed to facilitate limited bilateral cooperation between some members, falling well short of its goal. The US defence export control regime is one of the biggest barriers to NTIB integration. Specifically, bureaucratic fragmentation, its failure to treat trusted allies differently from other partners and its leaders’ reluctance to attempt politically costly reform are significant barriers to progress. Canberra’s ability to maintain its own competitive military advantage and to serve as an effective ally of the United States in the Indo-Pacific is threatened by real and growing opportunity costs in an age of rapid strategic and technological change that Australia and Australian industry face as a result of slow NTIB implementation. Australian leaders should elevate NTIB progress to the political level and accelerate efforts to make a strategic case in Washington as to why extensive and ambitious implementation of NTIB’s original vision is urgently needed.

This report analyzes the current state of affairs in defense acquisition by combining detailed policy and data analysis to provide a comprehensive overview of the current and future outlook for defense acquisition. This analysis will provide critical insights into what DoD is buying, how DoD is buying it, from whom is DoD buying, and what are the defense components buying using data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This analysis provides critical insights into understanding the current trends in the defense industrial base and the implications of those trends on acquisition policy.

In Innovate to Dominate, Tai Ming Cheung offers insight into why, how, and whether China will overtake the United States to become the world's preeminent technological and security power. This examination of the means and ends of China's quest for techno-security supremacy is required reading for anyone looking for clues as to the long-term direction of the global order. The techno-security domain, Cheung argues, is where national security, innovation, and economic development converge, and it has become the center of power and prosperity in the twenty-first century. China's paramount leader Xi Jinping recognizes that effectively harnessing the complex interactions among security, innovation, and development is essential in enabling China to compete for global dominance. Cheung offers a richly detailed account of how China is building a potent techno-security state. In Innovate to Dominate he takes readers from the strategic vision guiding this transformation to the nuts-and-bolts of policy implementation. The state-led top-down mobilizational model that China is pursuing has been a winning formula so far, but the sternest test is ahead as China begins to compete head-to-head with the United States and aims to surpass its archrival by mid-century if not sooner. Innovate to Dominate is a timely and analytically rigorous examination of the key strategies guiding China's transformation of its capabilities in the national, technological, military, and security spheres and how this is taking place. Cheung authoritatively addresses the burning questions being asked in capitals around the world: Can China become the dominant global techno-security power? And if so, when?