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The US government has endorsed a series of principles for Indo-Pacific Defence Industrial Base Collaboration on the sidelines of the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this week.
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Convened by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Shangri-La Dialogue, which took place from 31 May to 2 June, offers attending nations an opportunity to collaborate on key security issues.
“Together with our friends in the region, we’re breaking down national barriers and better integrating our defence industries,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said at the 2024 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
“We’re also working together to fortify the shared capacity of the defence industrial bases of our allies and partners. That’s why so many countries – including the United States—are endorsing a Statement of Principles today to strengthen the resilience of the region’s defence industrial bases.”
The following principles will guide collaborative actions among like-minded participants to enhance shared defence industrial resilience:
- Ensuring shared defence industrial resilience is vital to the continued regional security, economic security, and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific.
- Strengthening defence industrial resilience requires collaborative action to expand industrial base capability, capacity, and workforce; increase supply chain resilience; promote defence innovation; improve information sharing; encourage standardisation; reduce barriers to cooperation; and otherwise mitigate potential vulnerabilities and facilitate collaboration.
- Optimising collaboration requires accounting for the needs, capabilities, and comparative advantages of participants’ industrial bases consistent with free and fair market competition and protection of intellectual property.
- Conducting collaborative action will not be limited to governments but will also include industry, capital providers, academia, and other forms of partnership.
- Fostering further dialogue is needed to promote collaboration and increase shared defence industrial resilience.
The principles for Indo-Pacific Defence Industrial Base Collaboration are considered critical in addressing recent global challenges and the current security environment.
The announcement follows the January 2024 release of the US Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Base Strategy, which identified engagement with allies and partners to expand global defence production as a key line of effort towards advancing resilient supply chains.
US Secretary of Defense Austin III said like-minded countries share the common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
“As to whether or not we’re trying to create a NATO in the Indo-Pacific, I would tell you that what we’re doing is what I said earlier in the speech. Countries – of like-minded countries with similar values and a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific are working together to achieve that vision,” he said, when asked about whether NATO is expanding to the Indo-Pacific.
“We’ve strengthened relationships with our allies and partners. And we see other countries strengthening their relationships with each other in the region. This is goodness, but it’s because they have a common vision and common values. And we will continue to do those kinds of things going forward.”
