Troops often find themselves surrounded by gear they cannot legally fix. A bipartisan push is trying to allow troops to turn to their own wrenches to repair military equipment rather than relying on civilian contractors.
Service members are allowed to fix a lot of military equipment on their own, with many troops specializing in mechanical repair for guns, aircraft, and even weapons optics.
But some equipment contracts come with strict provisions that stipulate that repairs can only be performed by contractors and limit the technical data and intellectual property that can be shared with troops for repairs. Some lawmakers say these stipulations are problematic for troops in need of urgent repairs and take advantage of DoD funding.
“When you’re deployed in the field and you have a mission to complete and you have people’s lives to protect, it just doesn’t make sense to be constrained by some commercial agreement that you have with the manufacturers,” said Greg Williams, the director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight.
Now, a bipartisan push from senators Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, is calling for a change amid new movement on the National Defense Authorization Act.
These lawmakers highlight instances of the Navy ferrying contractors to sea for simple fixes, Marines in Japan forced to send engines to the US for repair instead of repair on site, and one contractor that “charged $900 a page for upgrades to its maintenance manuals for an Air Force aircraft.”
These moves mark the latest in a string of actions to overcome right-to-repair barriers.
A 2023 California bill, for example, spurred Apple to endorse the ability for consumers to repair and modify their own devices. Medical device manufacturers came under fire during the pandemic for troublesome restrictions on ventilator repair. And US farmers have criticized farming equipment manufacturer John Deere, now embroiled in a federal lawsuit, for what they see as prohibitively restrictive controls on repair part access and burdensome diagnostics tech tools.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs could strengthen the right-to-repair movement throughout the nation, as some consumers grow increasingly reluctant to toss out high-priced goods that are damaged and seek to repair them instead.
Top Pentagon brass have pushed for comprehensive changes to repair policies since January. Amid major transformation initiatives within the Army, Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have each called for the inclusion of right-to-repair provisions in all new and existing Army contracts.
Navy Secretary John Phelan told lawmakers in June that when visiting the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, he discovered six of the ship’s eight ovens, essential tools required to feed thousands of sailors, were out for repair, adding that crewmembers aboard the vessel were legally prohibited from performing repairs.
“It is crazy. We should be able to fix this,” he said.
Such high-level advocacy comes as other military leaders have observed that future warfare will require more innovative fixes from troops on the front lines.
“The force of the future will fix on the spot,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said during a congressional hearing on military spending last month. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars saw robust base build-ups for troops, where equipment could be sent for intensive maintenance needs with the near-assurance of US air supremacy. Such guarantees are almost certainly a thing of the past, experts say, at least for high-end fights.
Right now, “it all comes down to the particulars of the contract involved,” Williams explained. “Different contractors have arrived at different arrangements with the Defense Department about when they have a chokehold on repairs and when they don’t.”
“And so it needs to be negotiated on a contract-by-contract basis,” he said.
Williams pointed to a near-miss naval incident and subsequent relief of USS John McCain’s captain as a clear example of what can happen when repairs go unaddressed. The destroyer nearly collided with another vessel during a refueling operation when the ship’s lingering steering problems arose unexpectedly.
It’s unclear whether the right to repair would have prevented that outcome, but the argument for it is that it eliminates the unnecessary tension that exists today.
As things stand now, Williams said, “it comes down to a push and pull between the manufacturer and the consumer.”
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