Rapid Fire May 24, 2012: US DoD Foreign Transactions
The US DoD published two FY11 reports on purchases from foreign entities and to foreign countries [PDFs]. DoD procurement actions from foreign entities amounted to $24B or 6.4% of the total. 67% of that comes from fuel, services, construction, or food. 18% or about $4.3B were spent on imported equipment.
Meanwhile US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) of $2M+ amounted to a total of $14.2B: $10.5B through the Army, $2.6B via the Air Force, $1B handled by the Navy and $102M via the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). One may conclude that the US exported $10B more in military equipment than it imported, but that would be a hasty conclusion. Substantial FMS transactions to countries like Afghanistan, Egypt or Israel are subsidized with American military aid funds.
Government Contract Costs, Pricing & Accounting Report has a scathing article [PDF] on the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)…
RAND’s Arroyo Center surveyed the US Army’s supplier relationship management, after having published a similar report for the Air Force earlier this year. Their conclusions have a familiar sound: there should be more systematic, better information sharing, and links between acquisition and sustainment contracting.
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry [D-MA] said during a hearing yesterday that he does not “currently intend to bring the [Law of the Sea] treaty to a vote before the November [presidential] election.” The Obama administration has been trying to drum up support for the US to join this UN treaty with a barrage of positive statements from senior civilian and military staff. But the issue has been moving at the pace of a glacier: 3 years ago Kerry was already trying to find how he could get this treaty ratified, and that was not the first aborted attempt to do so. Next step: lame-duck vote?
A fire started last night in USS Miami’s forward compartment at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire and was extinguished early this morning. 7 people were lightly injured. DoN statement.
It looks like Lockheed Martin’s plant is headed for its 6th week of strike. Some work is still done though what’s the real pace of production is unclear.
