House lawmakers want the Pentagon’s commercial technology hub to expand its partnerships with Israel and Taiwan to bolster the countries’ defense-industrial bases.
The proposals came in two separate amendments to the House’s version of fiscal 2025 defense policy legislation, which the panel adopted June 14. Both were put forward by Iowa Republican Rep. Zach Nunn.
The Taiwan provision calls for the Defense Innovation Unit to study the feasibility of establishing a “strategic partnership” with the country’s ministry of defense. That could include coordinating on things like defense industrial priorities and dual-use technology development as well as helping Taiwan establish pathways for startups research and development efforts.
The Israel amendment emphasizes similar opportunities, but also calls for DIU to work with the Israeli military to counter Iran’s development of dual-use defense technologies and “harmonize global posture through emerging technology.”
The U.S. has vowed support for both nations, sending Israel more than $12.5 billion since the start of its war with Hamas last October. In April, Congress approved $4 billion in aid to Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners as part of a $95 billion package that included funding for Ukraine and Israel.
The call to deepen that support through more collaboration on commercial technology comes as DIU looks to be more embedded with partners around the globe — a key component of its vision for growth in the coming years, a strategy called DIU 3.0. The goal is to create a pathway for DIU innovation to be shared with allies who may also need it.
“We must connect the solutions created by U.S. tech companies to allied and partner acquisition organizations when appropriate — and connect capabilities developed by our partner nations’ companies to our own needs and to one another — especially in a conflict, when speed is critical,” according to the DIU 3.0 strategy, which was released in February.
As part of that effort, DIU is bolstering its relationships with existing innovation initiatives in partners countries — including India, the United Kingdom and Australia — and helping those without such organizations to establish them.
DIU is also embedding itself within the Defense Department’s combatant commands. To date, it has units in five of the seven COCOMs.
Matthew Way, who leads DIU’s counter uncrewed aerial systems portfolio, said these partnerships with combatant commands not only bring the organization closer to the operators but they also give commanders another tool to leverage technology from commercial and non-traditional companies.
For example, DIU is heavily involved in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Joint Mission Accelerator Directorate, which is designed to ensure the command’s top priority technology projects have a network of support within DOD and industry.
“That’s really helped flatten communications,” Way said during Applied Intuition’s June 13 Nexus Conference in Washington, D.C. “The way we approach our problem sets is really working with combatant commands and end users.”
