As I conduct key leader engagements and attend combatant command (COCOM) forums throughout the world, I cannot go anywhere without hearing this recurring theme: Security assistance and building partner capacity are essential to Army readiness.
As the Army Materiel Command's executive agent for security assistance and building partner capacity through foreign military sales (FMS), the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC) is supporting COCOMs and bolstering the Army's ability to sustain readiness on multidomain battlefields. Simply put, COCOMs set USASAC's priorities and drive requirements, and USASAC's outputs enable strategic readiness.
Through trust, teamwork, transparency, and the Total Package Approach (what I call the 4T's) USASAC successfully manages more than 5,000 FMS cases in more than 150 nations. These cases have a total value of more than $177 billion. Despite this staggering tally, USASAC's security assistance mission is not about the dollars. It's about the effects and outputs delivered.
Through FMS cases, the United States enters into contracts with allied nations and organizations to provide them materiel, including some of the world's most sophisticated weapons and equipment. This materiel transforms previously reliant nations into mission partners that help our globally engaged Army provide expanded capability and capacity to COCOMs.
The United States wants as many teammates as it can muster to bolster strategic readiness and share the burden. As our globally engaged Army prepares to fight alongside its international partners across multiple domains and in nontraditionally contested areas, international partners must also be prepared.
Interoperability and the ability for partners to be self-sustaining with the capabilities USASAC has provided are the true testaments of success. That is why USASAC focuses on the long game.
THE TOTAL PACKAGE APPROACH
USASAC's security assistance mission is a perpetual operation that touches every phase of life cycle management, from gathering requirements to negotiating contracts, and acquiring, delivering, and sustaining equipment. Managing such a large and complex enterprise requires USASAC's FMS experts to pay strict attention to each step of the life cycle. The cycle begins with a partner nation's letter of request for equipment and services and ends with sustainment. (See figure 1.)
Sustainment is critical because the lack of a viable concept of support can result in failed FMS cases. Failed cases can have serious implications and strain the Army's and a COCOM's relationships with mission partners. A solid concept of support not only fuses relations with international teammates and empowers strategic readiness; it also allows the Army to operate more quickly and effectively in support of COCOMs.
In accordance with COCOM requirements, partner nations receive more than just equipment through FMS. The FMS process comes with USASAC's Total Package Approach, which includes refurbishment, training, facilities, spare parts, publications, maintenance, logistics support, and other services to ensure each capability.
Providing materiel without sustainment services can transform a brand new tank or helicopter into a large paperweight. The Total Package Approach is what makes USASAC and the Army different from other competitors in the FMS market and industry. USASAC doesn't just provide equipment and "cut sling-load." It shares the risk and remains with its partners for the long game.
A successful total package brings about successful joint and coalition operations. The United States depends on partner nations to have interoperable weapon systems that can aid in deterring and defeating its adversaries. Systems must be able to communicate operationally and tactically and work in unison. If an international partner is using a different system configuration with outdated software, the potential for the system to share accurate data is slim to impossible.
Thanks to the FMS process that provides U.S. materiel and the associated training and support, participants in coalition operations can rest assured that their international partners have the necessary capability and knowledge to successfully conduct missions and fulfill their share of the tasks.
The Total Package Approach begins long before, and continues long after, partner nations receive purchased materiel and equipment. USASAC manages the concept of support and sustainment closely for every case, especially COCOM priority cases.
If a country begins to neglect its commitment to the sustainment line of effort, then USASAC personnel immediately notify the COCOM and requisite Army service component command. These entities, along with the embassy country team and security cooperation officer, can engage the country's leaders to influence their line of thinking. These engagements are key to helping the Army operationalize capability and capacity with its mission partners.
A viable and successful FMS concept of support is discussed early in requirements determination. USASAC's country program managers, logistics specialists, and the Army Materiel Command security assistance enterprise system experts guide international partners in developing long-term sustainment solutions.
From spares to maintenance to training to publications and even to the sustainment of nonstandard equipment, FMS experts bring specialized and focused expertise to develop and tailor the best solutions for international partners based on their requirements and sustainment structure.
SPARES
Spare parts are furnished by contractors or purchased through FMS cases. Partner nations also buy into the wholesale logistics system through cooperative logistics supply support arrangements based on forecasted recurring demands. Items are prestocked and requisitioned as needed.
Spare parts may also be obtained when partners purchase technical data packages for in-country manufacturing through the Army's simplified nonstandard acquisition process or through the Air Force's Parts and Repair Ordering System.
A system support buyout notification informs international partners of the Army's intent to stop supporting a system two years prior to the termination. This is an opportunity for partners to take advantage of a one-time option to buy lifetime spares.
Shelf-life extension plans are recommended to extend the life cycle of a weapon system. The original equipment manufacturer may also provide services.
MAINTENANCE
USASAC offers options for the continual, long-term sustainment and maintenance support of obsolete systems through the Fair Share Sustainment Program and the International Engineering Services Program. In fact, sometimes several FMS customers join together to support the program management of an obsolete system.
International partners may have a maintenance capability in country based on previous FMS sales. In addition, the FMS case may include mobile training teams, field service representatives from the equipment manufacturer, contracted logistics support, field and intermediate maintenance support, maintenance augmentation teams or maintenance support services, institutional Army maintenance training (from the Training and Doctrine Command), postproduction system support, and depot and contractor repair-and-return processes for components.
TRAINING
The training support included in an FMS case depends on the international partner's requirements. Cases include new equipment training when new systems are introduced. Contract field service representatives from the manufacturer may also provide training.
Other frequently used resources include mobile training teams, postproduction system support services, and various stateside and overseas training options provided by the Training and Doctrine Command's Security Assistance Training Field Activity and USASAC's Security Assistance Training Management Organization.
The Security Assistance Training Field Activity manages Army institutional training solutions for international military students. It receives, processes, and executes requests for Army institutional FMS training and technical assistance and develops training plans that are synchronized with equipment fielding.
The Security Assistance Training Management Organization at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, provides maintainer training, logistics support training, and on-the-job training. It also offers best practices regarding the sustainment of equipment based on international partners' current experiences and capabilities and offers agile, flexible, and cost-effective training teams that provide tailored and specialized security assistance training at overseas locations.
HOW FMS WORKS
In every FMS case, USASAC's total package is the element that transforms purchased materiel into a real capability. For example, in Iraq, the M1A1 Abrams is playing a crucial role in the ongoing fight to liberate Mosul.
Iraq obtained 150 tanks several years ago through the FMS process. But USASAC, in cooperation with the AMC Security Assistance Enterprise, the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, and other theater partners, also provided training to the crews, contracted logistics support (even during combat operations), and spare parts for the equipment at a rate sufficient for combat operations.
Iraqi nationals are now in the process of building in-country maintenance expertise. The COCOM and theater partners continue to work with the Iraqi army to develop on-the-job training for Iraqi tank maintainers.
Through its security assistance enterprise, USASAC also provided thousands of rounds of ammunition, recovery vehicles, spares, and maintenance for the tanks. It even provided fuel trucks and a fleet of support vehicles (trailers and the aforementioned recovery vehicles) to move tanks from place to place.
In addition to the large number of vehicles USASAC and its team of teams provided to Iraq after many of its vehicles had been destroyed in Mosul, USASAC provided contractor logistics support and spares for armored bulldozers and up-armored humvees. This was only possible through close coordination with the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command and private industry, another set of partnerships vital to the security assistance process.
The Total Package Approach for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Patriot Advanced Capability program seamlessly introduces a new component as part of an integrated, overarching ballistic air and missile defense solution. Saudi Arabia is one of the Army's long-time partners and is engaged in an extended conflict. Without the Total Package Approach, Saudi Arabia would obtain the major end items but would not have the skills to employ, train, maintain, or sustain the world's most advanced system, whether for training or for air defense engagement.
Essential elements such as training programs and publications introduce Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces operators to a familiar but new deterrent while spares and maintenance keep the fire units operational. This capability provides Saudi Arabia with a means to protect its citizens and infrastructure and to save lives. Since the program started, Saudi Arabia has expanded capabilities, become increasingly self-sustaining, and become more capable of helping the United States carry the load.
USASAC is building partner capability and deterring adversaries by providing capabilities for international partners. It is operationalized to deliver readiness in support of the Army's priorities and COCOM requirements through the building partner capacity line of effort. Its effectiveness in this generates forward presence, forward power, and military-to-military engagements.
USASAC is globally engaged and fully supports COCOM missions. During the FMS process, it offers excess defense articles that enable coalition interoperability as part of the Total Package Approach.
USASAC enables international partners with the capabilities and capacities to execute combined arms operations in multidomain and multinational environments. It is the Army's "face to the world" as it strengthens its partner nations' capabilities and capacity to achieve regional stability and promote democratic values.
When the Army gets it right and the long game is intact, it enables strategic readiness. This aligns with USASAC's motto: Trust+Teamwork=Strength in Cooperation!
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Maj. Gen. Stephen E. Farmen is the commanding general of USASAC. He holds a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Richmond and a master's degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. He is a graduate of the Transportation Basic and Advanced Courses, the Naval Command and Staff College, and the Joint Forces Staff College. He also served as a Senior Service College fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Transportation and Logistics.
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This article was published in the July-August 2017 issue of Army Sustainment magazine.
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