Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

The defense industrial base is now operating in a global economy. In order to meet the needs of the warfighter, the Department of Defense acquires goods and services from an industrial base that includes foreign suppliers. Further, the Department has an interest in seeing that U.S. allies have access to weapons and equipment that will allow them to fight effectively and efficiently with U.S. forces. On the other hand, the U.S. has an enduring interest in seeing that advanced defense technologies do not fall into the wrong hands and thereby become a threat to both the U.S. and its allies. At the core of the effort to prevent the improper diversion of defense technologies is the arms export control policy of the U.S. Today’s circumstances, however, raise the question whether the U.S. needs to reform its export control policy at the legislative level in order to ensure a reliable supply of advanced defense technologies at a reasonable price and provide access to U.S. allies of select weapons and equipment. Our panel of highly qualified specialists from defense industry will seek to provide answers to this pressing question.

Join us as we discuss the options for legislative reform of U.S. arms export control policy.