The U.S. Department of Defense is looking to start working with five Indo-Pacific allies on building military maintenance, repair and overhaul capabilities under a regional framework that it plans to develop and launch across its overseas commands.
Christopher Lowman, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, said in a Pentagon briefing Thursday that the regional sustainment centers’ guiding principle is to develop capabilities that enhance the joint force’s military resources and boost regional partnerships.
“Ultimately, this will deter aggression,” he said. “We do believe, by implementing multiple options for a theater commander to use in terms of redirecting unserviceable flows to repair capabilities creates higher level of uncertainty within adversaries’ planning cycles and thereby enhancing deterrence and the deterrence value.”
This focus on Indopacom in 2024 will be followed by U.S. European Command in 2025 and U.S. Southern Command in 2026, and U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command soon after.
According to Lisa Smith, deputy assistant secretary of defense for product support, the regional framework is needed to augment the traditional sustainment model in the face of “changing global threats.”
The DOD announcement did not specify the Indo-Pacific countries that will host the sustainment centers but mentioned the Philippines as an example of the advantage of having a regional repair or refurbishment capability.
William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment and a three-time Wash100 awardee, said in May that the framework will establish a distributed logistics ecosystem on MRO capabilities aligned with regional partnerships and in collaboration with the regional industrial base and allies.