Arms tenders followed from requirement to delivery: bid evaluation, offset obligations, unit pricing, schedule slippage and the politics inside an award.
The US Army's published budget materials and manufacturers' own announcements point the same direction: the binding constraint on air defense capacity is missile output, and the lines are being stretched to answer it.
The foreign military sales system runs on a fixed document chain, not politics, and by the Pentagon's own watchdog account it is that chain, not any single decision, that turns an uncontroversial sale into a multiyear wait.
Committing to three to five years of production at once converts certainty into savings — and converts budget flexibility into contractual liability.
An economic price adjustment clause is a pre-negotiated escalator built into a fixed-price contract, and Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 16.203 is the rulebook that decides when the Pentagon may use one and how the price actually moves.
Offset commitments are enforced by auditors, banks of credits and damage clauses — quietly, confidentially, and with penalties the public record almost never prices.
A delivery schedule written into a contract is a promise; the export license is the permission, and the gap between the two — measured in weeks, months or congressional review periods — is where most arms-delivery delays are actually born.