Deadline: 30-Jul-25
The Bureau of International Security-Nonproliferation is accepting applications for the Countering Chinese and Russian Proliferation of Advanced Conventional Weapons Program
Goals and Objectives
- This Notice of Funding Opportunity has four aims corresponding to individual projects detailed below with outlined objectives.
- These aims include:
- Countering procurement networks used to acquire advanced conventional weapons,
- Countering state-sponsored proliferation of advanced conventional weapons,
- Addressing strategic defense dependencies, and
- Countering malign activity of private military companies to include exploitation of natural resources including critical minerals. Projects should be sustainable beyond the project lifecycle and build cross-sector relationships between partners.
- Specific Aim 1: Countering Chinese and Russian Proliferator Procurement Networks
- Objective: Use commercially-available and open-source data to develop and disseminate reports that help partners to identify components, front companies, and illicit procurement pathways for military-related items in order to de-risk and disrupt those activities. Conduct engagements that enhance partners’ ability to develop and utilize open-source data to identify high-risk transactions, suspicious corporate activities, and procurement networks of military applicable components to proliferator states.
- Objective: Engage private sector technology manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and wholesalers on tools and resourced to enhance due diligence for procurement practices, know your customer’s customer [KYC(C)], and specific commodities (such as polymers, printed circuit boards, Surface Mount Technology (SMT) equipment, etc.), with military applications.
- Objective: Engage major machine tool, microelectronic, semiconductor, and other high-end dual-use manufacturers to raise awareness on the risk of illicit entities seeking to invest or engage in joint ventures with primary or sub-tier supply chain companies involved in the design, production, or sale of these technologies.
- Objective: Improve private-public partnership, data sharing, and other types of collaboration.
- Objective: Develop and disseminate commercially-available, open-source information to identify high-risk defense networks and exports to include: the methods, vessels, and aircraft facilitating these transactions, and the trade restrictions and sanction risks associated with transacting with these entities.
- Specific Aim 2: Countering Chinese and Russian Proliferation of ACW
- Objective: Raise awareness in the public and private sector on designated proliferator-state linked defense entities seeking to establish business operations or joint ventures in foreign countries for defense sector and ACW sale purposes. Share commercially available information to proliferator-state linked defense networks, the methods, vessels, and aircraft facilitating these transactions, and the trade restrictions and sanction risks associated with transacting with these entities
- Objective: Support key business consultation firms to provide peer-to-peer engagements with foreign private sector partners to limit corporate risks and exposure to sanctioned, prohibited, or otherwise high-risk defense firms linked to proliferator states.
- Specific Aim 3: Addressing Strategic Defense Dependencies
- Objective: Develop and disseminate technical reports focused on the hidden costs of doing business with Russian and Chinese defense firms (to include repairs, spare-parts, corruption, long-term deals that bind countries to strategic reliance in international forum, inflated costs over time, and impact of potential sanctions), and ACW functional and operational limitations.
- Objective: Support technical defense consultations to identify pragmatic defense diversification procurement opportunities. Develop technical analyses for partner countries on defense-related infrastructure, manufacturing, human capital, and supply chains, to explore diversification opportunities.
- Specific Aim 4: Countering Malign Activity by Private Military and Security Companies (PMSC):
- Objective: Assist key defense, security, law enforcement, and private sector entities to professionalize and standardize best practices during the solicitation, procurement, and oversight processes when obtaining PMSC services. Simultaneously, focus in-person training content on promoting American alternatives to the use of known unaccountable mercenary groups
- Objective: Promote implementation of international PMSC procurement best practices and due-diligence measures including adoption of standards outlined in the Montreux document and International Code of Conduct Association (ICOCA).
- Objective: Implement tailored in-person engagements that provide the target audience with case studies, open-source training tools, and research methodologies to identify PMSCs involved in extralegal acts described above. This would include open-source data and information on PMSC deployments, modes of transport, financing, subsidiary, and logistics networks facilitating PMSC deployments to public and private sector partner enforcement officials
- Objective: Demonstrate disadvantages of Chinese and Russian companies securing and exploiting critical natural resources, including critical minerals and their ties to PMSCs.
Funding Information
- Total available funding: $17,000,000 Pending availability of funds
- Award amounts: Awards may range from a minimum of $250,000 to a maximum of $6,500,000 (approximately)
Duration
- Length of performance period: 12-24 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- The following organizations are eligible to apply:
- U.S. for-profit organizations or businesses;
- U.S.-based non-profit/non-governmental organizations with or without 501(c) (3) status of the U.S. tax code;
- U.S.-based private, public, or state institutions of higher education;
- foreign-based non-profit organizations/non-government organizations (NGO);
- Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs);
- Public International Organizations (PIO);
- Foreign Public Entities (FPE); and
- foreign-based institutions of higher education.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.