Foreign Military Sales

The U.S. Department of Defense's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program facilitates sales of U.S. arms, defense equipment, defense services, and military training to foreign governments. The purchaser does not deal directly with the defense contractor; instead, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency serves as an intermediary, usually handling procurement, logistics and delivery and often providing product support, training, and infrastructure construction (such as hangars, runways, utilities, etc.). The Defense Contract Management Agency often accepts FMS equipment on behalf of the US government.

FMS is based on countries being authorized to participate, cases as the mechanism to procure services, and a deposit in a US Trust Fund or appropriate credit and approval to fund services.

USAF FMS programs are assigned two-word codenames beginning with the word PEACE, indicating oversight by USAF Headquarters. The second word in these codenames is often chosen to reflect some facet of the customer, such as MARBLE for Israel or ONYX for Turkey. Codenames appear in all capital letters.

Also, not all countries use this program, a notable one being Canada and most other Western nations who negotiate directly with the manufacturer.

Current US Air Force FMS cases include military sales to Pakistan, Iraq and Egypt. FMS cases that are in pre-award status (as of 2nd Quarter FY 2011) are India & Saudi Arabia.

No partner nation has yet succeeded in applying strict schedule clauses to a FMS program.