Global Courant 2023-05-19 03:05:38
WASHINGTON
The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it is working to speed up arms sales and deliveries to foreign allies amid the growing challenges posed by Russia and China abroad.
The State Department said in a statement that the United States has sold approximately $45 billion in weapons, equipment and training to foreign partners through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, with completed purchases increasing 49% from 2021 to 2022.
In announcing the policy change, the ministry specifically listed the Russian war in Ukraine and “managing competition in the Indo-Pacific”, pointing to “changing global security conditions” as a reference to the growing great power rivalry in Asia. Pacific region between Washington and Beijing.
“The time has come to reassess and adapt security cooperation to meet new and emerging challenges,” the ministry said.
A new 10-point plan will now guide the FMS process and streamline it to better align with the “era of high strategic competition.”
“While 95 percent of FMS cases were evaluated and approved by the State Department within 48 hours, FMS 2023 examined how the Department’s review process could be improved for the remaining 5 percent of cases that may require complex policy issues and extensive inter-agency coordination. “Together with the Department of Defense, we will support the scaling U.S. industry to meet growing global demand among Allies and partners in the years to come.”
While the State Department oversees the FMS program, arms sales are approved by Congress and then enforced through the Pentagon and private defense contractors.
The new plan calls for moving away from evaluating sales purely on a case-by-case basis, taking a regional approach to save time, and further improving interoperability between U.S. and foreign partners by “forecasting comparable demands for their neighbors and making forward-looking policy decisions. potential future FMS purchases of these countries as well.”
It will also prioritize FMS sales for countries identified as priority under US national security strategies.
The State Department will also seek to expand “innovative and flexible financing mechanisms” for countries to complete arms sales.
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