Axios Event: U.S. seeks edge as it turns to commercial market for innovative defense tech

WASHINGTON – As tensions with a combative China rise, the U.S. is looking at the commercial market to modernize with new military technology applications, speakers at a Future of Defense event said.

Why it matters: President Trump issued an executive order last week that aims to ramp up innovation and production capabilities across aviation, shipbuilding and more.

Axios' Colin Demarest and Alex Fitzpatrick spoke with Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.); Joby Aviation chief product officer Eric Allison; Liz Young McNally, DoD Defense Innovation Unit deputy director of commercial operations; and Anduril Industries president and chief strategy officer Christian Brose. The April 10 event was sponsored by RTX.

What they're saying: "One thing that continues to be true is that commercial tech can be used across so many different aspects of what the [Defense] Department does," McNally said.

• "There is a recognition that much of what we are dealing with in the defense enterprise is broken, that we are not where we need to be, that we are behind our peer competitor in China in some very important ways," Brose said.

State of play: The commercial market for defense tech is seeing multiple avenues of opportunity as the Trump administration. emphasizes modernizing its industrial base.

• "We have to move at the speed and scale of commercial technology, and this is another great step toward the ability to do that," McNally said of Trump's executive order, part of which was focused on defense acquisition reform.
• "The other thing that I've been thinking more about, as we speed up acquisition, we also need to speed up the other part so that all of the different aspects of getting commercial technology into the hands of the warfighter goes fast."

Case in point: Joby Aviation has contracted with the Defense Department, providing its electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for logistical missions on a couple of U.S. bases.

• "The Defense partners have been really excited to see how this commercial tech can actually have applications in different contexts within the defense side of things," Allison said.

Zoom in: Autonomous capabilities and pilotless fighters are some of the next big things the commercial market is working to integrate into defense operations in the air and at sea.

• "This idea of manned-unmanned teaming really being at the heart of where air dominance is going I think is absolutely right and certainly something that we're excited to contribute to," Brose said.

What's next: Rep. Kiggans' district includes the East Coast Master Jet Base NAS Oceana, which she says is struggling due to a lack of funding. She thinks bringing F-35s there could help fix that.

• "We see the Navy integrating F-35s on the West Coast, and there's a lot of focus on the West Coast right now, appropriately, because we know that the next fight more than likely would be in that region with China," Kiggans said.
• "We know that money follows the new toys, right? As a person who represents that base, there's no better way to get that funding to come to our district, to come to that base, than to have plans for the F-35."

Content from the sponsored segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, Raytheon president Phil Jasper said its priority is to ramp up production of its defense systems to meet increased demand.

• "Almost every customer interaction I'm having these days, the customer usually ends a meeting with something like, 'Your systems are so effective, they're performing so well, and we're very happy with them, but we need more of them and we need them faster,'" Jasper said.