ABU DHABI – The Army officer in charge of selling U.S. weapons and platforms to allies wants to speed the process of delivering capabilities and grow the base of countries that purchase American military gear.
Maj. Gen Stephen Farmen, who heads the Army’s Security Assistance Command (ASAC), said Feb. 21 that both the U.S. and its allies benefit from the “strategic readiness” that is achieved when the U.S. not only sells, but partners with other countries on weapon programs.
Farmen was on his first trip to the United Arab Emirates to visit the International Defense Expo (IDEX), where he spoke to a gathering at the Association of the U.S. Army’s booth. When he took command just shy of a year ago, he said IDEX “shined out there” as a can’t miss international trade show, he said.
ASAC, which oversees the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process for Army platforms and weapons like armored vehicles and helicopters, currently does business with 150 countries “and counting” with much more room to grow, Farmen said.
In fiscal 2016, the Army oversaw $14.5 billion in weapon sales to allies. That figure should grow by up to $2 billion in fiscal 2017, he said. In total, ASAC has about 5,000 FMS cases it oversees worth about $170 billion.
Opportunities abound to increase both the number of FMS cases and the coalition of countries that buy and operate equipment similar to the U.S., which enhances interoperability in times of conflict.
There is a strong thirst for ammunition of all sorts particularly in the Central Command region because current stocks are being depleted fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and against an insurgency in Yemen,” Farmen said.
With 2,100 FMS cases worth $126 billion, CENTCOM is leading U.S. geographic commands in sales. The market for light attack and utility aircraft is another major opportunity in the region, Farmen said. There is a need for missile defense systems in Europe and helicopters. African nations also are in the market for new military helicopters, unmanned aerial systems and training systems.
“We have to work together and communicate effectively,” Farmen said. “Of course, we all know what the strategic environment is like not just in the CENTCOM area, but across the globe, foreign military sales are very, very important to that.”
The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act has provisions that should grease the gears of the FMS process, Farmen said. It includes authorization to bundle money together for foreign security forces, he said. Instead of having multiple pots for specific regions or programs, several accounts – building partner capacity funding, counter-weapons of mass destruction responsibility funding, global security contingency funds, counter-terrorism funding for Africa – will be combined for the general purpose of facilitating FMS.
“The goodness is that it will allow the flexibility to craft and balance realistic multi-year plans and we can develop capabilities with our fellow partners,” Farmen said.
Also included in the law is authorization for train-and-equip programs parallel to FMS cases through improved cooperation between the Defense and State departments. Consolidating those disparate funding streams should speed the process and help ASAC tailor its FMS programs as new technologies become available, Farmen said.
“Tech transfer, what’s that going to look like when you get out beyond 2026?” Farmen said. “Let’s face it, we’re going to have UAVs. We’re going to have robotics We’re going to have autonomous activities going on. Just some samples of the type of equipment it’s going to be.”
As more and more sophisticated military technologies are fielded, U.S. FMS customers are developing a strong desire to add autonomous systems and the like to their own arsenals. ASAC is having to work through how to satisfy that demand while adhering to treaty restrictions and other limitations on FMS, Farmen said.
“That’s going to come probably sooner versus later,” he added. “It seems like it is way distant in the future, but it is really coming up a lot quicker. I walked the halls at IDEX and have already seen some pretty futuristic equipment that is out there that is starting to get down into that neck of the woods.”