LEARN / GLOSSARY
Dual-use
Products, services, standards, processes or acquisition practices capable of meeting both military and nonmilitary requirements. The term has a statutory definition and is frequently used more loosely than that definition allows.
Definition
Under 10 U.S.C. §4801(2), “dual-use” describes products, services, standards, processes, or acquisition practices that are capable of meeting requirements for military and nonmilitary applications. The same section defines a “dual-use critical technology” as a critical technology with both military and nonmilitary applications.
Why the dictionary version is insufficient
Common usage treats dual-use as a property of a technology. The statute treats it as a property of products, services, standards, processes and acquisition practices alike, which extends the concept to how something is bought as well as what is bought. A commercial acquisition practice adopted for a defense program is dual-use in the statutory sense.
Why it matters for capacity
Dual-use capability determines whether a defense requirement can draw on commercial production, and the consequence is a difference in who pays to keep a supplier alive between orders. A genuinely dual-use component has a commercial market that sustains its producer through the gaps in defense demand, which means the capability survives a program pause without appropriation. A single-use component has no such market, so the supplier depends entirely on program funding and the capability disappears with it.
Related terms
Industrial base · Surge capacity · Prime contractor
Appears in
What Is the U.S. Industrial Base?
Read next
What Is the U.S. Industrial Base?
Sources
- 10 U.S.C. §4801, Definitions. uscode.house.gov