Maintaining Technology Advantage

Mission — Maintaining Technology Advantage source

This program supports the President’s priority to achieve peace through strength, and the Department's priorities to advance deterrence, work with Allies and partners to reorient to key threats and build a resilient defense industrial base and acquisition process. This program develops and implements effective technology and program protection to support rapidly and securely fielding military technologies. We must protect sensitive technologies and military programs from theft, diversion, and exploitation by our strategic competitors. Maturing and implementing the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering's (OUSD(R&E)) technology priorities requires a healthy and capable U.S. National Security Innovation Base (NSIB). The targeting of U.S. capabilities by our strategic competitors creates the potential to degrade core U.S. military technological advantages through unwanted technology transfer to and from the NSIB. Unwanted technology transfer includes exfiltration of unclassified technology, sensitive data, and of intellectual property, and malicious introduction of supply chain risk, jeopardizing DoD's ability to maintain the technology advantage required to support the lethality and survivability of the Joint Force. DoD's technology and program protection plan includes: (1) Research Security to ensure the intellectual capital generated by the NSIB are not stolen or exploited. (2) Development of tools and techniques to ensure the Department's strategic technology investments are protected to enable the U.S. to engage in technology transfer at the time, place, and parties of our choosing. (3) Securing defense acquisition programs, systems, and components through robust program protection planning that holistically and efficiently manages technology and program risk without impeding capability delivery to the warfighter. The Department will support these three efforts by developing the appropriate suite of analytic tools and protection activities across the science and technology (S&T) and acquisition enterprise and programs to address the threat over the long term. S&T protection focuses on ensuring the integrity of the research enterprise through execution of due diligence on technology development efforts. Acquisition program protection comprises traditional Defense Acquisition System activities, such as Program Protection Planning and Independent Technical Risk Assessment, and developing new concepts, training, and best practices, such as Secure Cyber Resilient Engineering, to address ever evolving threats to our acquisition programs and our ability to deliver military capability to the warfighter.

Mission — Technology Industrial Innovation Base source

The Technology Industrial Innovation Base (TIIB) effort develops near- and long-term strategies and employs mechanisms to retain the U.S. advantage in current and emerging modernization technology priorities by addressing the capabilities of the industrial innovation base to develop, test, manufacture, and sustain them. This project provides support to technology priority leaders in identifying industrial innovation base needs; characterizing and assessing priority technology investments, identifying and mitigating issues and risks impacting the industrial innovation base, and exploiting opportunities to advance technology development, testing, and manufacturing. One of TIIB’s main objectives is to create balance between promotion of the industrial innovation base while protecting the technology from interference or exploitation by competitors. This balance will aid the Department’s advancing critical and emergent technologies ahead of competitor nations and actors while sustaining a healthy, resilient, and globally competitive industrial innovation base. This portfolio of activity extends efforts initiated in response to FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 1793.

Mission — S&T Protection source

As the Department develops advanced technologies, it must use a rigorous, repeatable methodology to protect technology advantage. For example, the Department will establish and implement procedures to protect critical technology in science and technology (S&T), encompassing the lifecycle of basic and applied research, advanced technology development, prototyping, and technology transition to programs. This includes driving consistency across risk-based security reviews for fundamental research and Small Businesses Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs. This also include working with the acquisition community to identify Programs of Record and S&T Projects that require enhanced protection to maintain U.S. technological advantage. The production, updating, and use of Technology Area Protection Plans (TAPPs) generate consistent protection of critical technology, provide foundational guidance for communicating about the technology to particular audiences, and inform protection and controls integrated with technology promotion activities. The implementation of the guidance and TAPPs have broad impacts across DoD and interagency-wide activities associated with critical technologies, including development of protection practices with DoD research performers (e.g., the DoD and national laboratories, academia, small businesses, and the broader industrial innovation base); international agreements; counterintelligence and law enforcement priorities and activities; export controls; and foreign investment screening through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Mission — Joint Acquisition Protection Exploitation Cell (JAPEC) source

The DoD established a joint analysis capability, the Joint Acquisition Program and Exploitation Cell (JAPEC), to produce analytics products in support of the technology protection mission, such as for foreign investment screening; engage with acquisition, intelligence, counterintelligence, and law enforcement sources to determine consequences of, and appropriate preventative/mitigation actions against unwanted technology transfer; and assess controlled unclassified technical information losses. JAPEC detects and characterizes past technology losses, conducts damage assessments of lost information, and provides insights with predictive value to support and promote activities. JAPEC enables comprehensive, detailed assessments of U.S. military technological vulnerability, as well as inform the development and application of effective policies, countermeasures, and enforcement actions to preserve U.S. technical superiority in all warfighting domains. JAPEC engages with select allies and partners to develop protection efforts across the extended supply chains resulting from the partnerships created by the global S&T community. JAPEC and supporting organizations synchronize, integrate, coordinate, and inform DoD efforts to protect critical technologies from malign investment by strategic competitors and to combat malign activities. JAPEC conducts trend analysis of protection efforts for the Department’s critical acquisition programs and technologies, incorporates findings into protection processes and activities, and analyzes losses, to determine consequences and appropriate courses of action, such as deterrence of our strategic competitors as well as promotion of the NSIB. JAPEC also manages OUSD(R&E)’s responsibilities for CFIUS, including the assessments, reviews, and investigations of transactions on the CFIUS docket, especially those pertaining to critical technology, sensitive personal data (such as genomic data), and the NSIB, as well as the identification of “non-notified” transactions that are not yet before CFIUS but which may raise national security concerns for OUSD(R&E) programs and mission space, meriting formal review. This line of effort involves the initial screening of all CFIUS transactions (to determine OUSD(R&E) equities), coordination with subject matter experts who provide vulnerability and consequence information to support the analysis of the risks to national security presented by each transaction affecting OUSD(R&E) mission space, and full market analytics to consider risks presented by aggregate industry investment trends and the 2025 America First Investment Policy to scrutinize and prohibit Chinese investments in critical technology sectors. JAPEC is also the focal point for related efforts, such as OUSD(R&E)’s screening of mergers and acquisitions for antitrust consideration, when they might impair the health of the Defense Industrial Base, and OUSD(R&E)’s export control activities where JAPEC provides technical advice and recommendations to the Defense Technology Security Administration regarding regulations of, and applications for licenses to export critical technology. This project also funds collaborative activities to ensure consistent technology protection guidance and actions across the DoD enterprise, leading the way for reviving our defense industrial base and reforming acquisition processes on technology and program protection matters.

Mission — Program and Technology Protection source

The Department of Defense (DoD) must address System Security Engineering risk, including cyber resilience, cybersecurity, and supply chain risks to DoD networks, weapon systems, and information stored and processed on both the DoD and the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) unclassified contractor information networks that The Department of Defense (DoD) must address System Security Engineering risk, including cyber resilience, cybersecurity, and supply chain risks to DoD networks, weapon systems, and information stored and processed on both the DoD and the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) unclassified contractor information networks that support DoD programs. Advanced persistent threats (APTs) that can evade commercially available security tools and defeat generic security best practices, drives the need for diligent program protection planning and execution. This project supports implementation of DoDI 5000.83, Technology and Program Protection to Maintain Technological Advantage. Activities carried out for Program Protection Planning include providing Program Protection Plan (PPP) review and oversight for Acquisition Category 1D Acquisition Programs and providing guidance to ensure consistency and comprehensive protection of the acquisition program. Program protection planning must address protection of controlled technical information, critical program information, critical components and critical mission functions; and integration of system security policies and acquisition and S&T practices, secure cyber resilient engineering activities, and system security risk reduction activities. This initiative is developing new and maturing existing system security engineering methodologies and capabilities to advance DoD Programs’ ability to protect critical information, functions, and components. This initiative is supporting the education and training of system security and program protection acquisition professionals through the establishment and course development of Defense Acquisition Credentials. This project funds continual engagement with other Department stakeholders;, acquisition programs, and the defense industrial base to ensure protection of controlled unclassified information; improve software and hardware assurance mitigations and management of information communication technology (ICT) supply chain risk management risks; improve integration of cybersecurity into the engineering processes through secure cyber resilient engineering methods; improve software assurance and hardware assurance practices; mature processes to identify and protect Critical Program Information; and mature processes to integrate defense exportability features to allow for expediated transfer of U.S. defense systems. This project supports the maturation of SSE and assurance best practices through community and working group engagements. Methodologies, tools, and capabilities are made available and scaled through enterprise resources to maximize adoption. Activities funded by this initiative support DoD Instruction 5200.44 Trusted Systems and Networks with the use of proven mitigation techniques and tools, the ongoing refinement of ICT risk management processes, and creation of needed technology; implementation of DoD Instruction 5200.39 Critical Program Information (CPI) Identification and Protection Within Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) and DoD Directive 5200.47 Anti Tamper to identify and protect Critical Program Information; and implementation of DoD Instruction 8582.01 Security of Unclassified DoD Information on Non-DoD Information Systems for Safeguarding Controlled Unclassified Information on contractor owned networks.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (4)