“A bill to require coordination of depot-level maintenance in multinational exercises conducted by the Air Force.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section directs the Secretary of the Air Force to incorporate depot-level maintenance, repair, and sustainment considerations—including binational planning on minimizing transportation requirements, munitions coordination, mutual airworthiness certification recognition, and emergency tabletop exercises—into at least one multinational exercise each year in the United States Indo-Pacific Command area of operations with covered nations (Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom, or others designated by the Secretary). It requires coordination with the Air Force Sustainment Center and representatives from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Pacific Air Forces, Air Mobility Command, and the Sustainment Center. (Thus, the provision promotes allied logistics interoperability and resilience in a contested Indo-Pacific environment.) This section further requires the Secretary to submit to Congress, not later than one year after enactment, a report on lessons learned from such an exercise with the Republic of Korea and Australia. The report must assess (1) candidate systems and depot-level repair opportunities for co-sustainment; (2) incorporation of Korean and Australian industry partners; (3) logistical challenges and impediments related to intellectual property, data rights, and International Traffic in Arms Regulations; (4) allies' organic industrial base capabilities and gaps; (5) suitable maintenance activities for partnership; and (6) contributions to contingency operations, interoperability, and regional posture, including Air Force force generation considerations and recommendations such as status-of-forces agreement changes.