On paper, the guardrails are clear. When the U.S. ships weapons overseas, partner governments promise three things: That they’ll use them only for authorized purposes, keep them secure, and not hand them off to third parties.

If those conditions are violated or serious suspicions arise that they are, the State Department is obligated to investigate and, in many cases, alert Congress.

In practice, however, a new Government Accountability Office report shows the system is ad hoc, with little guidance or follow through.

The State Department largely relies on overseas Defense Department officials for tips about potential end-use violations.

Since 2019, the Pentagon has flagged more than 150 incidents that could be violations. But the State Department has reported just three end-use violations to Capitol Hill.

The report added that the State Department hasn’t informed Congress what merits reporting and that it investigates violations inconsistently.

Experts in the arms trafficking and conflict monitoring are dismayed, calling the reported gaps an affront to both national and global security.

“It was really shocking to see how far the U.S had fallen behind,” said Kathi Lynn Austin, executive director of the Conflict Awareness Project, who added the number of potential incidents flagged was “extraordinary.”

“We are violating our law and not protecting our own security — at a time when there is so much volatility in the world,” Austin said. “We need to understand this is urgent, and Congress needs to push to maintain transparency and public trust in our arms dealings.”

The 39-page GAO report, published to little notice in September, lays out a simple mismatch: Defense personnel stationed abroad are often the first to see or hear about possible violations, but diplomats with the State Department haven’t told military officials clearly what to flag. (GAO, Pentagon, and State Department officials said the government shutdown left them unavailable to comment.)

In other instances of being tipped to potential violations, the GAO says, the State Department could not produce records showing whether anyone ever decided if the law’s reporting thresholds were met.

The Arms Export Control Act requires notifying Congress when there’s information that a substantial violation may have occurred regarding purpose, transfer, or security; it also requires reporting when an unauthorized transfer actually happens. Those are low thresholds for alerting the legislature, by design. Yet the GAO found no formal procedures inside the State Department for........

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