US Department of Defense reveals comprehensive changes to FMS

The tasking memo approved by Secretary Austin, named “Tiger Team”, is a central part of the Department’s commitment to improve the FMS system and advance the direction of the 2022 National Defense Strategy to break down barriers to working with allies and partners.

Tiger Team conducted detailed analysis across a number of case studies at all phases of the FMS process, providing best practices to benchmark and identify systemic challenges across the US Defense Department’s Foreign Military Sales ecosystem.

The team reviewed the findings of historical reform efforts and also solicited and incorporated feedback from allies and partner nations and US industry on ways to improve the efficiency of DoD’s implementation of the FMS process.

Accordingly, Secretary Austin instructed the FMS-implementing agencies to:

• Improve the department’s understanding of ally and partner requirements. To accelerate discussions with allies and partner nations about FMS requirements and reduce delays during the FMS case life cycle, the department will change the way it organises, trains, and equips for security cooperation, including by establishing a Defense Security Cooperation Service on par with the Defense Attaché Service.
• Enable efficient reviews for release of technology. To reduce barriers to the export of key capabilities, the department will review and update relevant policies and empower accountable officials to improve the efficiency of the review and release of technology to allies and partner nations. The department will also continue to support interagency efforts focused on technology review and release.
• Provide allies and partner nations relevant priority capabilities. To better enable allies and partner nations to support their own national security needs, the Department of Defense will develop methodology to facilitate Non-Programs of Record.
• Accelerate acquisition and contracting support. To advance FMS acquisition prioritisation and award timelines for allies and partner nations, the department will establish contract award standards and metrics as well as develop associated process maps to monitor the FMS prioritisation and award process.
• Expand defence industrial base (DIB) capacity. To reduce production timelines, the department will incorporate ally and partner requirements into ongoing efforts to expand DIB production capacity. This will include developing a comprehensive study to incentivise DIB investment in production capacity and building surge capability for high-demand, low-supply platforms, systems, and services. The strategy will include use of multi-year contracts; enhanced use of the Special Defense Acquisition Fund; five-year predictive analyses of partner demand; and sustained engagement with the DIB.
• Ensure broad US government support. Recognising that DoD is part of the broader US government FMS ecosystem, the department will work with the Department of State and other stakeholders, including Congress, to identify opportunities to improve the FMS process.

In order to implement these recommendations and ensure the elevation of emergent issues to senior leadership across the department, as part of this, Defence is to establish an FMS Continuous Process Improvement Board (CPIB) to act as a long-term governance structure operating within the department.

The department announcement reinforced the importance of a viable and timely FMS process for US foreign policy and supporting allied partners in the era of great power competition, stating, “FMS is a fundamental tool of US foreign policy and national security and strengthens the United States’ unmatched network of allies and partners. Under the FMS program, the US government uses DoD’s acquisition system to procure defence articles and services on behalf of US allies and partner nations. The program is administered by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) and is authorised by the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), as overseen by the Department of State.”

This board will report directly to the defence secretary and will provide accountability in implementing the recommendations, measuring impact, and continually pursuing areas to improve the overall process.

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Secretary Austin established the FMS Tiger Team in August 2022 to address historical inefficiencies in the United States’ transfer of defence articles and services to foreign allies and partners.

The team, including senior representatives from across the Department of Defense, is co-led by Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Dr Radha Plumb and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Sasha Baker.