The Defense Department has spent nearly $3 billion in the fiscal year that expired in October.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced on Tuesday sales of $33 billion in military goods for Fiscal Year 2016. The total sales include $2.9 billion of Foreign Military Financing-funded cases; $5. billion in Building Partner Capacity-funded cases; and $25.7 billion funded by partner nations.
DSCA has been working with stakeholders throughout the U.S. Government, defense industry, and foreign partner communities to implement a series of initiatives aimed at improving various aspects of the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process to ensure that it continues to effectively and efficiently meet demand.
“Fiscal Year 2016 sales were strong and demonstrate that the FMS process is responsive,” Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey, Director, DSCA stated. “Whether a sale is ‘counted’ under one fiscal year or the next is dependent on when each case is implemented, so comparison of the year-to-year totals can be misleading. Instead, when you examine the three-year moving sales averages, you can see the continuing, growing sales-trend over the last decade,” Rixey continued. “This year’s totals indicate that our partners continue to seek the quality products and services we offer.”
FMS is a form of security assistance authorized by the Arms Export Control Act under the direction of the Secretary of State through which the United States may sell defense articles, defense services, and military training to foreign countries and international organizations. It is among several programs enabled by DSCA, the lead agency for DoD in the execution of security cooperation programs, which contribute to the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States.