Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University’s School of Business and a key member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program, recently co-wrote an opinion piece exploring the highly debated issue of having the necessary defense capabilities across the United States and Europe to meet the needs of NATO and other member states.
GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn, a two-time Wash100 Award recipient, co-wrote the new feature for DefenseNews with Daniel Fata, a nonresident senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss the real opportunity for the U.S. and its NATO allies to solidify lasting transatlantic industrial resilience for the future.
In the latest feature, GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn and Daniel Fata highlighted the upcoming meeting of NATO’s armament directors, including fellow 2022 Wash100 winner Bill LaPlante, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment, to discuss the necessary weapons and technology that the Ukraine and US allies need for their own militaries.
“Ensuring that Ukraine, as well as all NATO members, have the equipment and material they need is at the heart of self-defense as well as NATO’s Article V collective defense commitment,” they explained. “Defense industrial base capacity is an issue that is not going to go away.”
The two executives emphasized that this week’s sessions at NATO are a significant opportunity to begin the necessary policy and regulatory adjustments to prioritize defense production in three essential areas, including the obsolescence issues that exist across the transatlantic space as well as the modification of foreign military sales to accelerate the process and build industrial resilience before a crisis occurs in the near future.
By prioritizing actions such as these, U.S. and allied leaders will get the industrial base capacity needed to ensure weapon availability for fights today and tomorrow,” Jerry McGinn and Data explained. “Now is the time to build in resilience to existing and future defense programs…It is critical to our collective future.”
