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NEWS & MEDIA

NEWS | Aug. 17, 2026

Ten-Year Project Arrangement Accelerates CBRN Defense Collaboration between United States and United Kingdom

By Kelly Burkhalter, CPE CBRND Public Affairs

Collaborating on Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) projects recently became much easier for the United States and the United Kingdom thanks to a new 10-year project arrangement (PA) signed by theU.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Defense Exports and Cooperation and the U.K. Ministry ofDefence(MOD) Director for Science and Technology.

The PA covers cooperative research, development, test and evaluation and integration of new CWMD capability sets at all technology readiness levels, in addition to acquisition. This broad scope eliminates the need to develop new agreements for each individual capability over the next 10 years, allowing collaborative projects to begin faster and enabling joint U.S./U.K. response to emerging challenges and CWMD requirements. The Capability Program Executive for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (CPE CBRND) and Defense Threat Reduction Agency jointly administer theagreement on behalf of the United States.

“This PA is thestart of a new collaboration era with the U.K. We can now work with them in more efficient and seamless way,” said KimberlyLeButt, CPE CBRND deputy director for international programs.“The PA also is in alignment with Department of War’s priorities of acquisition reform, accelerating capability delivery, improving technology exportability and rapid response to threats; it gives us a lot of different opportunities to support our warfighters.”

Previous agreements were created on a project-by-project basis and required extended timelines for staffing, review and approval of each individual project. With the new agreement, all individual projects are nested under the 10-year PA and approved by a steering committee made up of leaders from both the United States and United Kingdom. In addition to approving new projects under the PA, the committee is responsible for organizing and overseeing the projects, including providing status reports to Office of the Secretary of War (OSW) and U.S. Army leadership. The 10-year agreement, combined with the steering committee approval process, shortens the timeline for kicking off a new project to weeks—a feat that will significantly accelerate international collaboration.

Efficiency has long been a goal of the Department of War (DoW), but it is especially critical in matters pertaining to CBRN defense where time can impact survival.

“Having an agreement like this would’ve enabled us to help more quickly in events like the Salisbury nerve agent incident from the mid-2010s,” said Jonathan Bartel, U.K. engagement officer for CPE CBRND.

The need to streamline collaboration between nations became apparent as the number of U.S./U.K. cooperative development projects for CWMD has increased significantly since 2019. Bartel said the nations started working on this 10-year PA in 2024, and it was finalized in Spring 2026.

In addition to accelerating the time it takes to create an agreement, the PA encourages interoperability by making it easier for the CPE CBRND’s Joint Project Managers (JPMs) and Joint Project Leads (JPLs) to develop capabilities jointly with the U.K. “The PA enables teams that may have been deterred to have a U.K. partnership due to the length of the process to move forward because it can now be done in a timely manner,” said Bartel.

CPE CBRND plans to leverage the recent PA to begin new projects and absorb existing projects across all capability areas for increased flexibility and integration of CWMD activities across the development space. CPE CBRND, other U.S. components and the U.K. MOD will jointly manage ongoing collaboration under the CWMD Science, Technology and Acquisition Forum (C-STAF), an annual bilateral in-person meeting to discuss CBRN defense issues, global security topics and opportunities for collaboration. The C-STAF results in multiple actionable and tangible collaboration opportunities, highlighting the benefit of cross-functional discussions in person. These international project collaborations will continue to save resources, time and money for both countries while delivering critical capabilities to the warfighter at speed.

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