Work is underway to build a deep and diverse defense industrial complex that spans the U.S. and its NATO partners, a panel of experts said July 16 during the Association of the U.S. Army’s LANDEURO Symposium in Wiesbaden, Germany.

“Magazine depth wins wars. It’s not just a tagline,” said retired Gen. Ed Daly, a former commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command who is now president of Daly Consulting and Logistics. From weapons systems and munitions to repair parts and sustainment capabilities, “that’s a product of the defense industrial complex’s capabilities and capacity,” he said. “That piece plays a critical and foundational role and is really a pillar of both deterrence and the ability to win wars, not just when you look at it through a regional lens but a global lens.”

The U.S. and its allies are not ready right now, warned retired Maj. Gen. Bo Dyess, senior vice president for business development, munitions and government at Day & Zimmerman.

However, interest in building the defense industrial complex is high, Daly said. “The conditions have never been better, from an economic perspective and a geopolitical perspective … to expand the defense industrial complex,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Miles Brown, deputy commanding general of Army Futures Command, said that in his interactions with international partners, many are interested in how they can invest in more capabilities. “The thing we always say is don’t put money that gets old things,” he said. “Put new money after new things, and those capabilities being interoperable is really important.”

One area where the Army has been working with partners on co-production is in producing 155 mm rounds, which are in high demand, particularly with the fighting in Ukraine as a backdrop.

“One of the things that we have done recently is released a technical design package for some of our more common rounds to increase 155 production,” Brown said. “That’s not something we’ve normally done.”

What takes time, when it comes to co-production, is explaining and laying out the risks, who’s taking risk and for how long, he said. “You have to trust each other, you have to build that trust,” Brown said. “The actual act of working with somebody, that doesn’t take much time. It’s all the work to get to that point.”

Once that trust is established, “then you can get production increased, you can get magazine depth increased,” Brown said.

As production ramps up, the supply chain and the workforce are critical components, Dyess said. Daly agreed, adding that it takes time to get production moving if it stalls. “You just can’t cold-start that,” Daly said.