Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said yesterday Foreign Military Sales (FMS) are part of the discussion on many visits to his counterparts and those sales can help keep the defense industrial base going, even as the service is preparing to enter the fourth year of budget cuts and sequestration.
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| Gen. Raymond Odierno U.S. Army Photo |
‘Every trip I go on, many of our discussions are on foreign military sales and the ability for countries to purchase things they may find useful,” Odierno said at the American Enterprise Institute’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies.
For example, he mentioned that India was interested in Boeing’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, and many countries have M1 tanks, produced by General Dynamics [GD].
FMS “makes it easier to be interoperable,” he said, adding they help build strong relationships between the United States and other countries and thus could sustain the industrial base over the long term.
The Army does the best it can to increase FMS and increase the use of U.S. military equipment around the world “because it’s is important to us from an operational perspective,” Odierno said.
But looming sequestration cuts could also curtail Army investment in science and technology and research and technology, he said. Before Army budget reductions began, the Army could invest in science and technology and research and development. Now with cuts in place and more cuts potentially coming, the service must trim funding, and reduce the number of programs it funds, yet still develop new technology. The service also has to leverage commercial off-the-shelf solutions where possible and find new ways to do development and procurement.
The next two to three years will be “tough on modernization,” he said. However, by 2019, 2020 and 2021, the service would likely be in better balance to get back into investing in future technologies.
What needs to happen as budgets become more restricted is to determine what is necessary, he said. For example, what procurements are needed–which are the most important systems that are needed immediately. At the same time the service must work out how to invest in research and development to allow the Army to pick the right new technology to be able to quickly move into a development program in the future.
Also, some large modernization programs are hanging fire awaiting Army decisions, such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) the potential Humvee replacement that the service is working with the Marines.
Another big question is the future of the Ground Combat Vehicle. As he has said repeatedly over the past few months, Odierno responded to an audience question saying that with across the board sequestration cuts in the offing, everything is on the table.
“We need the ground combat vehicle and we have to have it,” Odierno said, though it might be delayed.