In the face of a flattening and even declining Pentagon budget, U.S. defense companies are targeting foreign nations as customers for their technologies. But they should not expect a blanket Obama administration approval to “hawk” their wares around the world, according to the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for policy, Michèle Flournoy.
Flournoy, who oversees defense policy at the grandest level, said that the Pentagon is looking at how it can help foreign partners build their military capacity and sell the right equipment based on their needs.
{mosads}Flournoy said that the Obama administration does not necessarily have a blanket “arms sales policy,” but rather a commitment to build “partner capacity.”
She stressed that it is more important to look at the needs of various regions and tailor the foreign military sales to address those needs.
She said, however, that the Pentagon has yet to approach the issue of whether to lobby Congress to allow the foreign sales of Lockheed Martin’s F-22. Japan and Australia have expressed strong interest in buying the fighter jet, but Congress has banned the foreign sale of the F-22.
The domestic sale of the F-22 is slated to end soon after Lockheed delivers the 187th airplane. The Pentagon will no longer fund the production after this year.
The United States has long used military sales to other countries as a powerful foreign policy tool. The U.S. government must first give its approval to any U.S. defense company that wants to participate with its weapons systems in a competition or bidding to supply another country’s military. For example, both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are vying in a competition to outfit the Indian Air Force with new fighter jets.