U.S. working to keep up with surging weapons demand: Pentagon

[kristopher]

U.S. working to keep up with surging weapons demand: Pentagon
By Reuters Media on Nov 25, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government is working hard to ensure quicker processing of U.S. foreign arms sales, which surged 36 percent to $46.6 billion in fiscal 2015 and look set to remain strong in coming years, a top Pentagon official said.

"Projections are still strong," Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.

He said the agency was trying to sort out the impact of a much stronger-than-expected fourth quarter as it finalized its forecast for arms sales in fiscal 2016, which began Oct. 1.

The fight against Islamic State militants and other armed conflicts around the globe were fueling demand for U.S. missile defense equipment, helicopters and munitions, Rixey said, a shift from 10 years ago when the focus was on fighter jets.

"It's worldwide. The demand signal is coming in Europe, in the Pacific and in Centcom," he said, referring to the U.S. Central Command region, which includes the Middle East and Afghanistan.

U.S. companies ...

http://www.jamestownsun.com/news/nation-and-world/3890604-us-working-keep-surging-weapons-demand-pentagon

[valerief]

1. America, the planet's Deathmeister. nt

[GeorgeGist]

2. People are strange.

[enough]

3. This may be simultaneously the most realistic and the most surreal news story I have ever read.

snip from the article>

Rixey said DSCA was keeping up with surging arms sales requests largely through process improvements and better training, but he warned that potential cuts in Pentagon headquarters funding could pose a problem.

DSCA is handling a total of 13,500 cases with a total value of $461 billion. Last year's total was the biggest yet, outside of a spike caused by Saudi fighter jet sales in 2012.

Rixey said his agency was coordinating more closely with the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commerce Department and other Pentagon agencies and leaders to advocate for U.S. arms sales as a key instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

He said requests from countries that were "well-behaved" and protected U.S. technology were generally processed quickly, but the U.S. government would take its time vetting sales to countries with weaker records on human rights and technology.

end snip>


What a glorious vision of the actual function of the United States of America.

[gratuitous]

4. You know, it occurs to me . . .

That if there wasn't such a surging weapons market, perhaps people like our good friends in Daesh and Al Qaeda might have a little trouble carrying out their wholesale slaughter policies. Sure, we'd lose revenue equivalent to 30 days' worth of military funding, but maybe we wouldn't have quite such a need for the largest military force on the planet if we weren't so busy supplying arms to to the rest of the world.