Security Cooperation (SC) is founded on a tradition of cooperation between the United States and other sovereign nations with similar values and interests in order to meet common defense goals.

It consists of a group of programs authorized by the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, as amended, and related statutes by which the DoD or commercial contractors provide defense articles and services in furtherance of national policies and objectives.

On any given day, DSCA is managing “14,000 open foreign military sales cases with 185 countries,” the DSCA director Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper explained at the Brookings Institution in June 2019.

[5] FMS is managed and operated by DoD on a no-profit and no-loss basis.

Countries participating in the program pay for defense articles and services at prices which recoup costs incurred by the United States.