The Air Force can garner more budget efficiencies by sharing procurement costs with nations in the Asia/Pacific region the United States has had “less comprehensive relationships” with over the years, according to its chief of staff.
Gen. Norton Schwartz told an audience Monday in downtown Washington at the Atlantic Council that nations like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are prime candidates for sharing procurement costs.
“These are air forces in which we have had less comprehensive relationships over the years as compared to others in the region,” Schwartz said. “I think that there is certainly opportunity for us to share procurement efforts that ease the financial burden for our respective nations.”
Schwartz cited Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Boeing’s [BA] Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) as two specific procurement efforts where the Air Force could share procurement costs with non-traditional partner nations.
But Schwartz said there are catches to sharing procurement costs with non-traditional partner nations, saying these nations have to have the knowledge and ability to properly secure and sustain such high-tech equipment.
“It depends on assuring ourselves that the partners have adequate security practices in place, whether it might be either proprietary technology or security considerations that those partners, again, have the capacity to sustain the equipment that we might provide for their use,” Schwartz said. “Not every air force can afford or is able to operate an F-16 effectively, not every air force can afford or operate a C-17 effectively.”
The F-16 fighter jet is manufactured by Lockheed Martin while Boeing manufactures the C-17 cargo aircraft.