Readiness, Innovation, and the Right to Repair
At this year’s Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll delivered a message emphasizing the urgency of modernization: “move fast, break procurement.”
Drawing lessons from Ukraine’s battlefield ingenuity, Driscoll warned that the U.S. military cannot afford decade-long procurement programs or rigid bureaucracy.
“If you look at Ukraine, they’re updating their software on their drones every two weeks. We as a nation would have struggled to do it within two years,” Driscoll said. “We’re having to retrain the entire Pentagon that the bigger threat is inaction rather than fast action, with a little bit of scrappiness required.”
That same mindset drives the Warrior Right to Repair Act — a bipartisan initiative that empowers service members to repair their own equipment, speed up maintenance, and keep America’s fighting force ready to respond.
From Battlefield Innovation to Legislative Reform
Every hour that equipment is down for maintenance is an hour it’s out of the fight. Yet too often, troops must wait for contractors — sometimes halfway across the world — to provide parts, tools, or technical data for even routine repairs.
This dependency slows operations, increases costs, and limits flexibility. Recognizing the right to repair is about more than efficiency; it’s about ensuring the U.S. military can act with autonomy, agility, and resilience when it matters most.
The Warrior Right to Repair Act (H.R. 5155 / S. 2209) was reintroduced earlier this year on a bipartisan, bicameral basis by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT), and Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Jen Kiggans (R-VA), and Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), with Kiggans and Goodlander—both Navy veterans and members of the For Country Caucus—co-leading the bill in the House.
Versions of this legislation have been incorporated in both the House and Senate-passed versions of the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
A Commonsense Fix with Broad Support
Momentum continues to grow for incorporating right-to-repair provisions across the Department of Defense.
Rep. Maggie Goodlander’s amendment, requiring contractors to provide “reasonable access to repair materials,” was adopted in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the NDAA.
In the Senate, the Armed Services Committee included language in its version of the bill that would require contractors to provide “Instructions for Continued Operational Readiness” (ICOR), ensuring access to technical data, software, and documentation for in-house repair and maintenance.
A September 2025 Government Accountability Office report reinforced the need for reform, highlighting that major programs, such as the F-35 and Littoral Combat Ship, lack critical data rights, which results in sole-source contracts, higher costs, and longer maintenance times.
In testimony and interviews, Secretary Driscoll has consistently made clear that reforming sustainment is essential to readiness:
“If we think about engagement with a peer like China, being able to repair our parts in areas around the world will be crucial to that. And, if we are having six-month delays in CONUS and paying 100x the rate, that is not scalable in an actual conflict.”
Our Commitment to Warrior Right to Repair
We support the Warrior Right to Repair Act because it strengthens our national defense by returning control, agility, and problem-solving power to the people who need it most — our service members.
Every hour a piece of equipment waits on a contractor instead of being fixed in the field is an hour of lost readiness. This legislation ensures that the men and women defending our nation have the authority, tools, and technical data to make critical repairs when and where they’re needed.
That empowerment also saves taxpayer dollars and reduces waste tied to sustainment contracts — freeing up resources to invest in modernization, training, and innovation. It’s about ensuring that our military can move as fast as the challenges it faces and that our troops have the independence and trust they deserve.
Right to Repair isn’t just a policy reform. It’s a critical readiness issue. It’s a reaffirmation that trusting those who serve to act, adapt, and innovate makes our nation stronger, safer, and better prepared to meet the challenges ahead.
Bottom Line
The Warrior Right to Repair Act isn’t just about fixing equipment; it’s about fixing how we think about readiness. In modern warfare, agility is as critical as armor. Our troops must have the authority and tools to adapt in real time, not wait for permission or paperwork.
By empowering service members to repair and sustain their own equipment, we strengthen the core of America’s defense: the initiative and ingenuity of those who serve. Every faster repair, every cost saved, and every mission that moves forward without delay translates directly into greater operational readiness.
In today’s modern battlefield, speed is crucial, and our military should focus on outpacing our adversaries, not our bureaucracy.
