Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. Introduction Since World War II the United States has provided what is euphemistically called security assistance to countries throughout the world. That assistance has included direct sales of weapons by the U.S. government, government subsidies for sales by private manufacturers, cash assistance, and training for foreign military personnel. Security assistance has been a major component of the Cold War strategy of containment.
Recent trends show an ominous increase in security assistance.
That aid, unlike hard-cash sales, which make up the bulk of the arms transfer agreements, is essentially a taxpayer subsidy that transfers equipment on highly favorable terms that allow buyer nations to obtain weapons that they would otherwise have to forgo. In addition to being expensive, security assistance programs say a lot about how the United States chooses to deal with the rest of the world. The Bush administration is acting as an enthusiastic booster of arms sales. It is time to reassess our military aid programs to determine whether they serve the best interests of either Third World societies or the American people. Those programs, which arose as part of the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, were of dubious merit even in that context.