It is reported by CNN that we spend a lot of our foreign military financing on these countries:
The top five recipients of foreign military financing in 2014, according to the report: (Also, the top two receive 75% of it.)
Israel: $3.1 billion
Egypt: $1.3 billion
Iraq: $300 million
Jordan: $300 million
Pakistan: $280 million
One word can summarize this: Middle East conflict.
What also stands out from the report is the regional distribution – the Middle East (64%) and Africa (23%) account for 86% of all U.S. foreign military financing last year.
Surprising or not? It costs us much less to deal with, say, North Korea. Not sure how much it costs (or even mutually benefits?) us in our deal with China today.
For comparison, the US imports about 1.16 million barrels of oil per day from the KSA. That means about 423 million barrels per year. At current oil prices around $43 per barrel, that is about $18.2 billion worth of oil purchased from the KSA per year. Some of that is used by the KSA government in various Middle East conflicts and politics…
Tell me again why we’re buying oil from people who are funding/exporting global terrorism to kill us, when we could be focusing on developing our domestic supply and/or importing from “friendly” countries to ensure our energy security.
Weren’t the Saudis the same people who embargoed us in the 70’s?
I think Egypt does not have much oil. So for some of the countries which are not oil rich (in this list of countries), we are buying a “friendly” government like cosmicfish said?
I think the Saudis tried to sell more oils in recent years to “kill off” the companies (most of them in US?) in the newer/“alternative” oil business. Each country has its own “national” interest to protect, just like us. The grey area is that the exact definition of the national interest could depend on who you ask this question. If in doubt, follow the money trail, i.e., who (mind you, not everyone in the country) would benefit from this.
Let’s just say, that the U.S. considers its national interests to be… ahem… flexible. There was a time we thought it was in out interests to arm and support Pakistan. (Oops.) The Shah of Iran (Oops.) The Afghan Islamic Fundamentalists (Oops.)
That chart is typically misleading. The simplest answer to “where does military aid go?” is: to US defense companies. But let’s start with something else: what does it cost to keep 150k US troops in friendly countries (not in war zones)? I don’t know the answer but it’s a very big number. We do that to “project US power” and to “maintain our status” as the “superpower”, whatever those mean. And we not only take that for granted but, without talking right or wrong, much of the political discussion is about whether we should increase that spending. That’s “aid” but it falls in different budget items so it isn’t labeled aid. And that aid dwarfs the numbers in the “aid” category.
Nearly all US military “aid” is the exact same thing: we project US power by doling out weapons. Not money but weapons. Because nearly all US military aid is in the form of credits held at the US Treasury and paid out to US defense contractors for “sales” to other countries. And beyond projection of power, a major goal is to keep those countries tied to the US because Russia (and now China) and France and other countries would love to sell more of their weapons around the world (a trend that is worsening and which is making R&D and “aid” credits more important competitively). And another major goal is to maintain the strength of our defense industry because it can’t be as strong if it is dedicated only to providing arms for the US military. And a goal beyond that is to give our military a qualitative advantage because, to be blunt, most of what we sell is older or not as fully capable - while those countries are then tied to our companies for parts and service. (And we have helped Egypt build an arms making capacity which focuses on producing older US designs.) All these things tie countries to us and to the US military. And in a much, much cheaper way than maintaining bases and troops and the entire military infrastructure of actual deployment.
There may be other small exceptions but the only one of note is, I believe, that Israel gets about $500M for R&D to spend as it wants. While listed as “aid”, it is really an investment because Israel has technology sharing agreements (and relationships) which means we benefit from what they spend money on developing. It’s not that Israel does R&D for the US military but that it shares R&D and even spends some of that money on things like missile development in conjunction with US companies. Considering Israel’s R&D skill, my perspective is that we are using our capital to gain a genuine advantage.
I’d also note that it’s very difficult to do a real analysis of “aid” because some comes from the State Department and some from Defense and some isn’t categorized as aid but is, etc.