Over the past few weeks, the US State Department and the US Defense Department released separate but similar statements about the changes each organization has instituted to the Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, process. There are 80 recommendations coming out of the Pentagon, but in short, they all advocate for less bureaucracy and more speed.
This should be good news for America’s Middle Eastern partners because they purchase more arms from the US than any other around the world. Their complaint has always been that the FMS system is slow, confusing and even unpredictable, which makes defense planning challenging.
Credit goes to both Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon for conducting an all-out blitz to advertise the suggested reforms of the FMS process, which is broken. That was impressive and also desperately needed because many US partners, especially those in the Middle East, are fed up with the FMS system and looking to meet their defense requirements elsewhere. US officials worry about our regional partners going to China and Russia for military equipment.
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