A bipartisan Congressional task force released its recommendations on Thursday for speeding up the U.S.’ foreign military sales (FMS), to include raising the thresholds for notification and holding Defense and State Department officials more accountable for management of high-value cases.
The new report from the FMS Technical, Industrial, and Governmental Engagement for Readiness (TIGER) Task Force, established by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), states the current process “fails to meet the challenges posed by the most dangerous national security environment since World War II.”
“Delays and lack of transparency associated with FMS present increased risk to U.S. national security, as allies and partners must choose between waiting on the U.S. for needed defense capabilities or looking elsewhere at the expense of U.S. influence and domestic defense manufacturing,” the lawmakers write in their report. “As the U.S. seeks to be the partner of choice to nations around the world, it must realize that speed is a key factor for nations choosing their security partners, and the U.S. must compete more effectively.”
McCaul first announced the FMS TIGER Task Force last June, which is led by Reps. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and also includes Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.), Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) (Defense Daily, June 27 2023).
The group said its report was informed by meetings with representatives from the U.S. government, defense industry and with international partners and allies.
“The Task Force found that the FMS process remains oriented towards a prior era when the paramount security concern was preventing the transfer of technology to the Soviet Union, not on maximizing the policy and strategic value of our network of alliances and partnerships. The return of great power competition, marked most acutely by the rise of a technologically advanced China, makes the outdated FMS process an unacceptable security risk,” the lawmakers write in the report.
More specifically, the task force said its findings concluded the FMS process is hindered by an increasingly lengthy congressional review process, a lack of accountability for State Department and DoD officials to bring urgency to high-value FMS cases, insufficient prioritization of getting FMS cases on contract and a lack of a common operating picture for the FMS process across the DoD, State, Congress, defense industry and allies and partners.
A State Department report released last month stated FMS cases in FY ‘23 jumped nearly 60 percent over the prior year to a record $80.9 billion, driven by more than a dozen billion dollar-plus deals (Defense Daily, Jan. 29).
A major change recommended by the task force includes raising the threshold for congressional notification on FMS cases, which it said has not been adjusted since fiscal year 2003 “despite a 69 percent DoD total inflation rate since that time.”
“As a result, far more FMS cases are subject to congressional review than originally intended by the AECA, and those cases are often for smaller transactions than would have previously been subject to congressional review. While this process is resolved quickly for most cases, it is the cause of significant delays in a small number of cases,” the task force said.
For FMS cases with NATO countries as well as South Korea, Australia, Japan, Israel and New Zealand, the lawmakers propose raising the threshold of notification for the sale of major defense equipment from $25 million or more to $42 million, from $100 million to $166 million for defense articles or services and $300 million to $500 million or more for design and construction services.
The same recommended process would be applied to FMS cases with all other countries, raising the thresholds for for the sale of major defense equipment from $14 million or more to $23 million, from $50 million to $83 million for defense articles or services and $200 million to $332 million or more for design and construction services.
To increase accountability for high-value FMS cases, the task force recommends mandating a senior-level quarterly State and Defense Department review of pending deals worth at least $1 billion.
For FMS cases that face delays of longer than three years, the lawmakers put forth a proposal that would require the State Department to review whether the use of Presidential Drawdown Authority could expedite any such deals.
“An automatic trigger for waivers and certifications by the policy officials at State and DoD would make sure that the Departments’ leadership remained actively involved in the FMS process,” the lawmakers write in the report.
The lawmakers also recommend transferring $1 billion from DoD to the Special Defense Acquisition Fund, which it says could improve anticipating future demand for high-use items, such as night vision devices, long-range fires and ammunition, air and missile defense and commonly required component parts.
“The U.S. needs a better mechanism to anticipate future demand and stockpile high demand, disposable items. The Special Defense Acquisition Fund is resourced to the State Department for this specific purpose, but remains underused,” the task force writes. “The Departments of State and Defense should utilize a funding swap mechanism to link the resources and acquisition decisions of the two agencies.”
Improved communication between FMS stakeholders and allies and partners can also improve the process, according to the task force, which advocates for sharing an enhanced common operational picture of the global threat environment to inform capability needs.
“There is mutual benefit to increased understanding of the threat environment. Better information increases the likelihood that the partner buys the capabilities that best enhance their own security, and it increases the likelihood that their capabilities mutually reinforce those already in the region. Ideally, their acquisition of weapons would help reinforce U.S. posture in theaters abroad,” the lawmakers write in the report.
The Pentagon last June released recommendations from its own FMS Tiger Team tasked with looking at how to accelerate and improve the process, which included calling for closer engagement with allies and partners to better understand requirements as part of the demand signals to industry and a new governance board that will oversee implementation of the review and focus on continuous process improvement (Defense Daily, June 13 2023).