US officials balance arms sales push against securing tech secrets

WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders working to revamp the U.S. process of selling arms around the globe are balancing the need to quickly close deals with that of protecting secrets about weapons’ inner workings, a senior official said.

The push to flush more American weaponry into the world market follows an increased appetite by governments to up-arm, Jed Royal, deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said at the Defense News Conference on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s establishment of a “Tiger Team,” or task force, for streamlining the Foreign Military Sales mechanic — a rulebook for selling U.S. weapons abroad that includes congressional approval for each case — was meant to harness the speed and urgency of U.S. efforts to equip Ukraine, according to Pentagon policy chief Colin Kahl. Kahl called it one of Austin’s top priorities.

“Our process is too slow,” Kahl said separately at the conference. “One of the things that I think we’ve demonstrated with Ukraine is that when we really lean in, we can defy the laws of bureaucratic physics. I mean, if you had told me eight months ago that we would have delivered nearly $13 billion of security assistance to Ukraine, I would have told you that’s crazy.”

Kahl stressed the comparison between Ukraine aid and foreign military sales is not perfect because the U.S. is drawing much of the materiel for Kyiv from existing Pentagon stockpiles.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed the move on Sept. 6, saying the analysis was “exploring a wide range of immediate and systemic areas for reform of Department of Defense processes, platforms and regional perspectives to improve our ability to work with allies and partners.” The effort was first reported last week by the Wall Street Journal.

Ryder said the initiative is not aimed at a particular region, but Pentagon acquisitions chief Bill LaPlante, one of the Tiger Team’s key figures, told conference attendees the effort is focused on Taiwan.

The Pentagon has long supported the island nation, which China claims as its own, with weapons to defend itself should Beijing decide to invade.

The Tiger Team was formed in August, in response to requests from U.S. combatant commanders and ambassadors, to evaluate the process of executing Foreign Military Sales cases from end to end. It’s co-led by Kahl’s policy office and LaPlante’s acquisition and sustainment office.

According to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Herndon, the team “may look at how to conduct better predictive analysis and strategic forecasting of partner demands to provide a more robust signal to industry; or examine ways to evaluate and expand the use of existing data and metrics to measure performance of the FMS case life cycles; or review case development, contracting and acquisition timelines to determine areas for process and policy improvements.”

While much of the FMS revamp is still playing out behind closed doors, Royal said one of the sticking points has been finding ways to inject tech protection considerations into the process without holding things up.

“Our allies and partners are demanding increasingly sophisticated equipment — and they should. We need to make sure that U.S. technology that needs to be protected is protected through that process,” he said.

Whereas such evaluations now typically happen midway through a sales case, beginning them sooner could move the whole process along faster, Royal said.

U.S. weapons designed for export from the beginning, like the F-35 fighter jet, have a leg up, according to LaPlante. That fact, along with a hot production line at manufacturer Lockheed Martin, has made it easy to fit the aircraft’s recent sale to Finland of 64 planes into U.S. production plans, he explained.

The Pentagon signed a handshake deal earlier this summer with Lockheed for production lots 15 through 17, encompassing roughly 375 planes, which includes the Finnish order. That schedule would see the aircraft rolling off the production line within a mere two years, LaPlante added, quipping: “I don’t think the Finns are going to be ready for the airplanes.”

The sales process can take longer when foreign governments order heavily customized weapons, which requires extra analysis on protecting technological secrets.

“We should probably not allow people to customize their FMS order explicitly,” LaPlante said.

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.

华盛顿——一位高级官员表示，五角大楼领导人正在努力改革美国向全球出售武器的流程，他们既要努力达成交易，又要保护武器内部运作的秘密，两者之间需要取得平衡。

美国国防安全合作局副局长杰德·罗亚尔周三在国防新闻发布会上表示，各国政府加强武装的意愿日益增强，推动更多美国武器进入世界市场。

据五角大楼政策主管科林·卡尔称，国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀成立了一个“老虎小组”（或称特别工作组），旨在简化对外军售机制——该机制规定了向海外出售美国武器的规则，每笔交易都需要国会批准——其目的是为了加快美国向乌克兰提供武器装备的步伐。卡尔称这是奥斯汀的首要任务之一。

“我们的进程太慢了，”卡尔在会上单独说道。“我认为我们在乌克兰问题上已经证明，只要我们真正投入，就能打破官僚主义的固有规律。我的意思是，如果八个月前你告诉我，我们会向乌克兰提供近130亿美元的安全援助，我会觉得这简直是天方夜谭。”

卡尔强调，将对乌克兰的援助与对外军售进行比较并不完全准确，因为美国向基辅提供的许多物资都来自五角大楼现有的库存。

五角大楼首席发言人帕特里克·莱德准将9月6日证实了这一举措，称该分析“旨在探索国防部流程、平台和区域视角等一系列亟待改革的直接和系统性领域，以提高我们与盟友和伙伴合作的能力”。《华尔街日报》上周率先报道了这项工作。

莱德表示，这项计划并非针对特定地区，但五角大楼采购主管比尔·拉普兰特（老虎团队的关键人物之一）告诉与会者，这项工作的重点是台湾。

五角大楼长期以来一直向这个被中国声称拥有主权的岛国提供武器，以防北京决定入侵。

老虎小组于8月成立，是应美国作战司令部司令及大使的要求，对对外军售项目的执行流程进行全面评估。该小组由卡尔的政策办公室和拉普兰特的采购与保障办公室共同领导。

据五角大楼发言人戴夫·赫恩登中校称，该团队“可能会研究如何更好地进行预测分析和战略预测合作伙伴的需求，以便向业界发出更可靠的信号；或者研究如何评估和扩展现有数据和指标的使用，以衡量对外军售案例生命周期的绩效；或者审查案例开发、合同签订和采购时间表，以确定流程和政策改进的领域。”

尽管FMS改革的大部分工作仍在闭门进行，但Royal表示，其中一个难点在于如何在不耽误进程的情况下，将技术保护方面的考虑因素融入到改革过程中。

他说：“我们的盟友和伙伴要求我们提供越来越精密的装备——他们理应如此。我们需要确保在这个过程中，那些需要保护的美国技术能够得到保护。”

Royal表示，虽然此类评估目前通常在销售案例进行到一半时才会进行，但如果能更早地开始评估，就能加快整个流程。

拉普兰特表示，像F-35战斗机这样从一开始就为出口而设计的美国武器具有优势。他解释说，这一事实，再加上制造商洛克希德·马丁公司高效的生产线，使得美国能够轻松地将最近向芬兰出售的64架F-35战斗机纳入其生产计划。

今年夏天早些时候，五角大楼与洛克希德公司签署了一份口头协议，订购第15至17批次的飞机，共计约375架，其中包括芬兰的订单。拉普兰特补充说，按照这个进度，这些飞机将在短短两年内下线，他还打趣道：“我觉得芬兰人还没准备好接收这些飞机。”

当外国政府订购高度定制的武器时，销售过程可能会延长，因为这需要对保护技术机密进行额外的分析。

“我们或许不应该允许人们明确地定制他们的FMS订单，”拉普兰特说。

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。

乔·古尔德是《防务新闻》的资深五角大楼记者，负责报道国家安全政策、政治和国防工业的交汇点。他此前曾担任国会记者。