William LaPlante, under secretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said DOD is working to establish a new partnership initiative in the Indo-Pacific region that will seek opportunities for joint production and sustainment of weapons systems, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.
“We’re starting an initiative[…] which is a collection of the equivalent of myself and national armaments directors from the various countries around the Pacific Rim,” LaPlante told reporters Wednesday during the sidelines of a conference in Washington.
He noted that the proposed Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience will “work through common acquisition and sustainment issues, whether it’s co-development, coproduction [or] co-sustainment.”
According to the report, DOD has been looking for opportunities to advance weapons production partnerships amid China’s rising power, conflict in the Middle East and the surge in demand for weapons due to the war in Ukraine.
