EVENT RECAP – Hosted by Politico and presented by Exiger
On June 26, 2024, Politico gathered leaders in the public and private sectors to discuss critical infrastructure supply chains. This topic has taken on increased urgency since the pandemic-era disruptions. The panelists all highlighted private actors’ progress in understanding the structure of their supply chains and sharing this data with the government. Speakers also stressed the need for long-term strategies and public-private partnerships to promote supply chain resilience.
Executive Remarks
Brandon Daniels – CEO, Exiger
Rye Barcott – Co-Founder & CEO, With Honor Action
In his opening remarks, Mr. Daniels emphasized the need to address continued vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure supply chains. For example, he described how Russia had been able to gain access to U.S. federal government cyber infrastructure. Mr. Barcott highlighted With Honor Action’s efforts in Congress to pass security-related laws. Both emphasized that significant work remains to be done to reach true supply chain resilience. As things stand, security weaknesses allow strategic rivals such as China and Russia maintain the capability to compromise U.S. supply chains.
Protecting Critical Infrastructure
Brandon Wales, Executive Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
Jeanette McMillian, Assistant Director of Supply Chain and Cyber, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Moderator: Kevin Baron, Editorial Director @ POLITICO Live
Mr. Wales and Ms. McMillian primarily focused on the cyber aspect of critical infrastructure. Mr. Wales emphasized that Chinese cyberattacks by groups such as Volt Typhoon follow a strategic design of limiting U.S. power projection in Asia and causing “societal panic.” Ms. McMillian added that addressing these threats required collaboration between the public and private sectors. She singled out industry reluctance to share valuable information with the government as an area of improvement. Mr. Wales concurred and highlighted as an example the need to make technology products “secure by design.”
Ms. McMillian and Mr. Wales were both hopeful about the role of generative AI. Both are currently seeing this technology operationalized for cyber defense more quickly than for cyberattacks. They emphasized the need to deploy generative AI in areas of the supply chain where it will most effectively reduce risk. Ms. McMillian and Mr. Wales stressed that cybersecurity and supply chain resiliency were collaborative undertakings and that the government is available as a resource for the private sector.
Executive Conversation
Carrie Wibben, President, Exiger
Katie Arrington, Vice President, Government Affairs, Exiger
Major General Cameron Holt, USAF (Ret), Government Solutions, Exiger
Moderator: Heidi Sommer, Vice President, Client Partnerships @ POLITICO
Ms. Wibben, Ms. Arrington, and General Holt discussed supply chain resiliency from the private sector perspective. They all emphasized Exiger’s progress in helping companies become more competitive by better understanding their increasingly complex supply chains. Ms. Wibben, however, highlighted that more work needs to be done. She concurred with Ms. Sommer’s observation that 65% of supply chain executives do not see beyond Tier 1 suppliers, the companies with which they directly conduct business. She also observed that incentives to promote resiliency were not yet strong enough. General Holt added that he observed a lack of urgency toward the issue.
Ms. Arrington highlighted the need for a more dynamic approach to supply chain policy. She mentioned that sanctioned Chinese companies often changed their names and continued to do business in the U.S., and that restrictions on trade with Chinese companies often did not account for how U.S. companies were to find substitute suppliers. General Holt also emphasized the United States’ strategic advantage in innovation, especially regarding AI, and cautioned against trying to replicate China’s centralized economic system.
Force Protection: Securing the Defense Supply Chain
Rep Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Member, House Armed Services Committee
HON Douglas R. Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army and Army Acquisition Executive, U.S. Department of the Army
Eric Fanning, President & Chief Executive Officer, Aerospace Industries Association
Moderator: Lee Hudson, Defense Technology and Influence Reporter @ POLITICO
Mr. Bush began by acknowledging the broad definition of critical infrastructure and highlighting his focus on supply chains for munitions production. He said that the U.S. experience supplying arms for Ukraine and Israel exemplifies that “economics drives to single sources of failure,” a tendency the government must mitigate. Rep. Sherrill also emphasized the information gaps in supply chains. A telling example from her state was Picatinny Arsenal, which recently discovered it sourced antimony almost solely from China.
Regarding “Buy American” policies intended to help critical supply chains develop within the U.S., Mr. Bush applauded bipartisan efforts to fund defense production. Mr. Fanning stated that the issue was nuanced and needed to include allies, cautioning that “Buy American can make it hard to sell American.” In the long term, he believed it was important for supply chains to remain a budgetary priority. Rep Sherrill added that values should play a larger role in supply chain considerations. All the panelists emphasized the need for public-private collaboration to prepare U.S. defense-industrial capacity for surges in demand.
A Conversation with Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-TX)
Moderator: Connor O’Brien, Defense Reporter @ POLITICO
Rep. Jake Ellzey sits on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Committee for Small Business. Prior to his election in 2020, he served as a pilot in the U.S. Navy and the Air Boss for the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. Rep. Ellzey highlighted the strategic considerations of supply chain resiliency. He shared that the aspect of supply chains that worries him most is the surrounding geopolitical climate. Rep. Ellzey compared Russian actions in Ukraine and Iranian actions through Middle Eastern proxies to the aggrandizing foreign policies of totalitarian states in the 1930s. Furthermore, he highlighted cooperation between China, Russia, and Iran to assert that they constituted a united front against the liberal world order.
Rep. Ellzey advocated for viewing support for different U.S. allies as an integrated challenge to this united front. He also emphasized the need to address other policy issues related to promoting resilient supply chains, such as environmental permitting reform and the national debt. Toward the end of the discussion, Rep. Ellzey claimed that “[e]verything China does is a military operation” and stressed that the U.S. had to adjust its critical infrastructure strategies accordingly.
Written by Isaac Oh, Public Policy Intern
The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) is an independent, national research and educational organization. An innovative think tank, Aii explores the intersection of economics, law, and public policy in the areas of climate, damage prevention, energy, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and transportation.