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# Commentary: Foreign military sales reflect national policy, expand customer base

By Colin Jay WilliamsDLA Historian

                FORT BELVOIR, Va.  –              
The Defense Logistics Agency has long provided goods and services to allied nations. From NATO cataloging in the 1960s to today’s worldwide crises, the agency has used the Foreign Military Sales program to advance national policy and realize economies of scale. While allies and technology have changed, the procedures by which sales are conducted have remained largely the same.

FMS and DLA grew up together. Even though the United States distributed aid after World War II – most famously through the Marshall Plan – the way it did so wasn’t codified until the Foreign Assistance Act, signed into law less than a month before the Defense Supply Agency formed in 1961. In addition to creating the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Foreign Assistance Act authorized the president to “furnish defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense ... to any friendly country or international organization ... if such country or international organization agrees to pay the value thereof.” The authority included used equipment in serviceable condition. DSA’s Defense Logistics Services Center sold these items.

                DLA provides critical supplies to USAID for India pandemic response                            Pallets containing lifesaving oxygen equipment sit April 27, 2021, in the 60th Aerial Port Squadron Warehouse at Travis Air Force Base, California. The supplies included rapid test kits, N95 respirator masks and oxygen concentrators provided by the Defense Logistics Agency in support of the U.S. Agency for International Development-led effort. Photo by Nicholas Pilch            SHARE IMAGE:Download ImageImage DetailsPhoto By: Nicholas PilchVIRIN: 210427-F-UO290-2059The Defense Logistics Services Center was already involved in helping allies acquire U.S. equipment. The center had been cataloging NATO items since its predecessor formed in 1959. It kept the mission when it became DSA’s first subordinate command in November 1961.  

Cataloging wasn’t the only service DSA offered. One of the Defense Logistics Services Center’s first projects was to design a dial-up network called the international logistics communications system. Run by the agency’s Defense Automatic Addressing System Office, the ILCS exchanged data with foreign headquarters. An additional mission evolved after DSA formed the Defense Contract Administration Services. By 1969, DCAS quality assurance was preventing problems from developing on command and reconnaissance vehicles Canada wanted to buy and helping Australia acquire armored vehicles.

While DCAS was assisting Canada and Australia, the Foreign Military Sales Act of 1968 involved the agency in commodity sales. Unlike cataloging and contract administration, DSA sold goods through military service implementing agencies. The Army Security Assistance Command, Navy Supply Systems Command and Air Force International Logistics Center needed clothing, medical items and repair parts for their FMS cases. They bought these items from the agency in arrangements governed by the newly formed Defense Security Assistance Agency.

Names and responsibilities changed over the years but missions didn’t. DSA became DLA on Jan. 1, 1977. Its foreign sales grew when DOD consolidated contract management under its auspices in 1990 but decreased when this consolidated command separated from the agency in 2000. Meanwhile, the Air Force’s International Logistics Center became the Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate and the Defense Security Assistance Agency became the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. Finally, the element in DLA invested with implementing authorities became known as DLA Disposition Services in 2010.

                DLA, DSCA look to the future during foreign military sales summit                            Representatives from government agencies attend the Defense Logistics Agency/Defense Security Cooperation Agency Foreign Military Sales summit Jan. 18 at DLA’s headquarters on Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Agencies at the two-day event included DLA, DSCA, Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation, Army Security Assistance Command, Naval Supply Systems Command, DLA Troop Support, DLA Land and Maritime, DLA Distribution, DLA Disposition Services, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Finance Accounting Service and Office of the Secretary of Defense. (Photo by Christopher Lynch)            SHARE IMAGE:Download ImageImage DetailsPhoto By: Christopher LynchVIRIN: 230118-D-HE260-0001 Other changes involved recipients, not procedures. In 1973, DLA provided 700 lines of machine tools and shop equipment to Iran, now no longer a partner. DLA also sold items for Pakistan to give Afghanistan’s mujahadeen. In a twist, the Afghan government, which the mujahadeen opposed, became a significant DLA customer in the war on terror.

No matter the customer, FMS increased DLA’s customer base. While the agency never explicitly sought financial advantage from allies, sales increased purchase quantitates, exerting downward pressure on prices and allowing supply chains to negotiate lower prices from vendors. In November 1984, FMS constituted 1.4% of medical supply chain dollars. Its share of other supply chains was more significant, totaling 3.3% for clothing and textiles, 5.2% for general supplies, 7.2% for construction supplies, 8.4% for industrial supplies and 12.7% for electronics.

The end of the Cold War changed participating nations but only modified purchase methods. Georgia and Lithuania, no longer part of the Soviet Union, became FMS customers while Britain and Germany, fully recovered from World War II, no longer needed used hardware. Economic reasons drove Colombia and Costa Rica to drop from the program and Kenya and Ethiopia to join it. DLA still sold services directly and commodities indirectly but technology now hid the military services’ role in the latter. Once the Army, Navy and Air Force had agreements in place, foreign units could order through FedMall, the same system U.S. forces use to buy DLA goods.

Developments over the last five years have extended the reasons why DLA sells to foreign counties but not the procedures by which it does so. In January 2019, the agency became product support provider for F-35 Lightning II warehousing. This assignment quickly expanded to include cataloging and distribution services for overseas aircraft, both American and allied. In May 2021, DLA provided USAID 15 million N95 masks, 1 million test kits and 704 oxygen concentrators so India could survive a surge in COVID-19 cases. In July 2023, the agency elevated its FMS support for Ukraine when the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command started buying a $43.5 million repair-parts package assembled by DLA Logistics Operations.

FMS continues today not just because the past is prologue but because the program enhances America’s position in the world. All agency assistance to Israel is currently FMS. Additionally, DLA sales help countries such as Taiwan and Australia oppose China’s quest for hemispheric dominance. While these transactions don’t make foreign policy, they invariably reflect it.

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AlliesNational Securityeconomies of scaleInteroperabilityjointFMSForeign military salesDLA History