Growing demand for US weapons due to global armed conflicts: Pentagon
The US Defense Department says there is a growing demand for US weapons due to the ongoing fight against the ISIL terrorist group as well as other armed conflicts across the world.
"It's worldwide. The demand signal is coming in Europe, in the Pacific and in the Middle East," Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.
US foreign arms sales jumped 36 percent to $46.6 billion in fiscal 2015 and look set to remain strong in coming years, Rixey said. "Projections are still strong," he said.
The Pentagon official said the US government is working hard to keep up with surging arms sales, largely through process improvements and better training.
US companies and some foreign countries have expressed growing frustration in recent months about delays in arms sales approvals.
The demand for US weapons in the past 10 years has shifted from fighter jets to US missile systems, helicopters and munitions, Rixey said.
He said requests from countries that were "well-behaved" and protected US technology were generally processed quickly.
The US, the world's top exporter of military equipment, accounted for one-third of all foreign military sales in 2014, according to the IHS publishing company.
Saudi Arabia surpassed India to become the world's top importer of arms in 2014, IHS reported in March.
Rixey said his agency was coordinating more closely with the US State Department, the US Commerce Department and other Pentagon agencies and leaders to advocate for US arms sales as a key instrument of US foreign policy.
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