Hit the Road, Jack.

We live in a big country.  Having spent a lot of my life over the course of the past fifteen years on airplanes going to where the work is, I know. 

There was one eighteen month stretch where I was commuting from my home outside of Boston to a facility outside of San Diego, at least twice a month, and every time I made that trip corner-to-corner I was reminded how big the United States is.

Direct flights to San Diego are about six and a half hours for me.

But if I look the other way, I can be in London in a little over six hours.  Six and a half or seven gets me to Amsterdam, Paris, or Frankfurt.  Yup, it’s just as easy for me to get Western Europe as it is Southern California.

Once there, I have all sorts of options.  Asia.  Africa.  The Middle East.  Heck, I don’t even have to leave the airport in Amsterdam to catch a bullet train; there’s an escalator down to the train station in the terminal.

As we watch defense markets in the US dry up, look to the rest of the world.  Places like India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Turkey are spending, and expected to spend more.

Through the US Government’s Foreign Military Sales program, US companies sell defense products and services to foreign countries and international organizations.  The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) oversees the programs across the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the State Department, the combatant commands, the services and U.S. industry.

According to a recent posting on the defense.gov website, DSCA has 12,881 active foreign military sales cases valued at $394 billion, 443 humanitarian projects worldwide, 768 security cooperation officers in 148 countries, 7,344 international students from 141 countries, and 7,090 participants in five regional centers around the world. DSCA does business with 227 countries and international organizations.

Going forward, the agency expects about $30 billion a year, with about $25 billion in 2013 sales.  Before fiscal 2006, DSCA foreign military sales hovered between $10 billion and $13 billion.  Fiscal year 2012 was a banner year, with FMS sales falling just short of $70 billion.

The US Government is even willing to help.  Check out their website (this US Govenment website actually works.)

As we continue to see defense budgets in the United States melt down, remember that “overseas” is closer than you think.