GMF Launches New Defense Tech Task Force

The German Marshall Fund of the United States announced the launch today of its Defense Tech Task Force.

This task force will bring together experts with high-level government, military, and business experience to focus on ways to accelerate defense-tech collaboration spanning the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific. Over the coming year, the task force will consider how ally and partner governments across these regions can collectively leverage a new industrial base comprising national-security-aligned investors, startups, and commercial companies to secure future military advantage. 

The task force will be co-chaired by two distinguished leaders: Nate Fick, chief strategy officer for equities at Cerberus Capital Management and a senior research fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs; and General (ret.) Denis Mercier, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. Dr. Daniel Kliman, GMF senior vice president for Global Power Shifts, will serve as the director of the task force.

“The next era of national security depends on US cooperation with allies and partners in Europe and Asia,” said Fick. “Building a more robust and integrated defense ecosystem requires actionable ideas to bring together technology, capital, and production at a scale no competitor can match.” 

“The battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East have unequivocally demonstrated that modern warfare requires a significant evolution of the defense industrial base,” said Mercier. “Securing Europe’s future military edge will depend on accelerating defense technology, underpinned by strong collaboration with the United States and global partners in innovative ways, while respecting the priorities and constraints on both sides of the Atlantic.” 

“Allied defense tech cooperation is at a crossroads, with untapped opportunity coexisting alongside new areas of friction,” said Dr. Kliman. “This task force will take a clear-eyed approach and chart a way forward, focusing on concrete action.” 

The task force will address ways to navigate growing strains on allied defense tech cooperation caused by the reassertion of sovereignty and divergence over military applications of AI. It will also provide a platform for identifying new forms of collaboration. A key upcoming activity associated with the task force is a Defense Tech Trilateral that GMF will convene on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Ankara, a unique setting for elevated discussion spanning governments, the private sector, and experts. 

Below is the full membership of the task force: 

Co-Chairs:

• Nate Fick, Chief Strategy Officer for Equities, Cerberus Capital Management; Senior Research Fellow, Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs
• General (ret.) Denis Mercier, former Head, NATO Allied Transformation Command

Members: 

• The Honorable Cara Abercrombie, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions 
• Marc Ablong PSM, former Deputy Secretary, Australian Department of Home Affairs; Managing Partner, Geostrategic Risk Partners Pty Ltd 
• Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director General, DIGITALEUROPE
• Odysseas Christofi, CEO, ECAPS
• Alex Fink, President and US CEO, Swarmer 
• Vice Admiral (ret.) Sanjay Mahindru, former Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, India 
• General (ret.) Curtis Scaparrotti, Member, Board of Trustees, GMF; former Supreme Allied Commander Europe
• Chris Schroeder, Chair, Board of Trustees, GMF 
• Dan Smoot, CEO, Vantor 
• Sebastian Straube, Venture Partner, Sunfish 
• Justin Zeefe, Founding Partner, Green Flag Ventures 

Director:

• Dr. Daniel Kliman, Senior Vice President, Global Power Shifts, GMF

All written task force products will reflect the views solely of the GMF authors.