Building Partner Nation Capabilities with Commercial Technology

Commercial technologies are changing how wars are fought, and the use of such technologies in the Ukraine war demonstrates their utility and impact in modern conflict. While the Department of Defense is investing in commercial technologies to enhance its capabilities, there is no established lead, strategy or formal initiative to help partner nations understand use cases for commercial technologies for warfighting and critical task execution, or to acquire, integrate and deploy them. This report details IDA’s review of how the security cooperation enterprise can support partner nations in accessing and leveraging commercial technologies to enhance critical capabilities.