Dr. William LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, and Ms. Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, co-chaired the Australia – United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) Defense Advanced Capability Committee (ADACC) meeting, June 13-14, in Washington, DC. The Deputy Secretary of the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, Mr. Christopher Deeble AO, CSC; and the Chief Defence Scientist, Professor Tanya Monro AC, served as their Australian counterparts.
The U.S. and Australian delegations welcomed robust and insightful discussions regarding ongoing efforts and new opportunities for co-development, co-production, and co-sustainment in pursuit of delivering operationally relevant and strategically significant capabilities. Plenary sessions covered a range of science, technology, acquisition, and sustainment topics, as well as industrial base cooperation and the publication of both the U.S. National Defense Industrial Strategy and Australia's Defence Industry Development Strategy.
Specific capability cooperative areas discussed included guided weapons and explosive ordnance; maintenance, repair, and overhaul opportunities, including the identification of a co-sustainment pilot project under the U.S. Regional Sustainment Framework; integrated air and missile defense; and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense. The talks reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to strengthening cooperation in co-development, co-production, and co-sustainment to more efficiently and effectively transition capabilities to the warfighter in support of a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The annual ADACC meeting is one of the primary events that informs the Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) between the U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State and the Australian Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs. The forum was formerly known as the AUSMIN Defense Acquisition Committee (ADAC), but was changed to ADACC with the signing of a new Terms of Reference (TOR) to more accurately reflect commitment to pursue efforts that seamlessly transition across the co-development, co-production, and co-sustainment spectrum.
