Remarks by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks Launching the Defense Security Cooperation Service (DSCS) (As Delivered)

Good morning everyone, and happy fiscal new year. Thank you for acknowledging that. And we are - we have at least a C[ontinuing] R[esolution], so there you have it. (Laughter.) You can't always guarantee those things.

So, let me first thank Acting Under Secretary Dory, Director Miller, Director Bracero: thank you for your leadership, and for all the former leaders here. And to [Acting] Assistant Secretary Brown, thank you for representing the State Department.

Security cooperation is one of the most impactful missions that our departments do together, and neither of us can succeed at it without the other. So on behalf of Secretary Austin and all of DoD, we're grateful for the close partnership with our friends at Foggy Bottom.

Most importantly, to our security cooperation workforce, past and present, that's joining today - both in person and online, tuning in from embassies around the world - thank you for all that you do every day to contribute to the security and prosperity of America, and especially our allies and partners.

There's no single foreign counterpart engagement that any senior DoD official does where the work of this community is not front and center. I know the work is hard, but the payoff is huge.

Because of you, wherever U.S. forces operate, they do so alongside the world's best trained, best equipped, and most capable allied and partner militaries, from Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.

It's a major asymmetric advantage that we have, compared to our strategic competitors. Where we have partners of choice, our competitors are stuck with bedfellows of last resort.

Of course, that's not something we can ever take for granted. And it didn't happen overnight.

Our defense security cooperation enterprise goes back many decades, with foreign military sales and other forms of assistance totaling over $1.2 trillion since 1950. That's not even counting the historic levels provided through the Lend-Lease Act during World War II.

While the enterprise has increasingly formalized over the years - and while the scope of what we consider "security cooperation" has expanded, to include activities like institutional capacity-building and the State Partnership program, not to mention cooperative development, co-production, and co-sustainment efforts - the basic premises have always been clear:

When our allies are stronger, we are stronger.

When our fellow democracies can better defend themselves, we have greater operational flexibility, if we're ever called to fight alongside them.

When regional partners can do more to provide the security and stability that underpins regional and global prosperity, we have greater freedom of maneuver, if for instance, in a crisis, we might need to reprioritize where we allocate forces around the world.

And when our combined forces, platforms, and capabilities can operate together seamlessly, it makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. So we can accomplish missions that might otherwise be impossible.

It's worth noting that we don't do security cooperation with just anybody. It has to be in our shared interests. And we care about our partners upholding shared values, like respect for human rights, adherence to the law of armed conflict, and protecting civilians from harm, even amid the fog and friction of war.

We expect our friends and allies to aspire to the same high standards that we seek to meet ourselves. Because even in times when we or they miss the mark, that aspiration is part of what makes us better than our foes. We can never lose sight of that.

Now, the launch of the Defense Security Cooperation Service comes at a pivotal moment for America's security cooperation enterprise. Because the assistance you provide our allies and partners is more in-demand than ever before.

What two decades ago, and for decades prior, was typically a $10-to-15-billion-dollar-a-year endeavor, has grown exponentially since then: adding up to more than $30 billion in fiscal 2014, over $50 billion in fiscal 2020, and now totaling over $100 billion in the fiscal year that ended just yesterday. That's an astounding record.

Why so much demand? It's because like-minded nations and democracies around the world, from Eastern Europe to the western Pacific, are worried about naked aggression in their own backyards, to an extent that they haven't contemplated in a long time.

Nations of goodwill want to deter such aggression however they can, and effectively defend against it if they must.

And nations all around the world, and notably across the Global South, want to promote a rules-based international order, protect their coasts, and respond to humanitarian disasters.

So countries come to us for partnership. And every day, you make it possible for America to provide that.

At a time when you must do so at greater speed and scale, I want you to know that the Secretary and I, and everyone that you'll hear from today, are committed to making sure you have what you need to do the job well.

Because of the unprecedented demands on our security cooperation enterprise, we cannot accept more business as usual. In this generational era of strategic competition, we have to up our game, with confidence and urgency.

That's why Secretary Austin directed dozens of actions last June, to improve the effectiveness of our foreign military sales processes and other security cooperation efforts. That followed a rigorous tiger-team review, co-led by our Acquisition & Sustainment and Policy organizations, and leveraging expertise from across DoD. We appreciate everything the Tiger Team did to get us to this point.

And this, creating the Defense Security Cooperation Service, may be one of the most consequential actions from that review, because of the long-term change that a cohesive, deliberate, well-trained and well-resourced professionalized workforce can drive. And it's good to see that Congress agrees, having codified the DSCS in last year's National Defense Authorization Act.

After all, to deliver effective, responsive, and responsible security cooperation, it takes special skillsets, technical knowhow, the ability to forge relationships, and subject-matter familiarity, if not expertise, that spans sectors and fields.

Today is the start of a new chapter for the security cooperation enterprise, one that all of you will write together over the next 12 months, and the years that will follow.

The opportunities to succeed will be endless, just like the demands on your time and resources. Because the ability of our allies and partners to win future wars will be shaped by what our security cooperation community does today to deliver for their warfighters tomorrow.

You and your teams are at the vanguard of that. So we need you at the top of your game. And we know you are more than up to the task.

Thank you, and I look forward to the unveiling.

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