End Foreign Military Financing Affirmative

By: Dustin Rimmey, Topeka High School, Kansas

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce Direct Commercial Sales and/or Foreign Military Sales of arms from the United States.

Summary: It is new affirmative time! In seeing the variety of new positions people have broken throughout November and December, it offered some inspiration for some new affirmative research of my own. One of the potential methods for financing Foreign Military and Direct Commercial sales is through the Foreign Military Financing program. These can be either grants or loans offered to a handful of countries to help reduce the cost of mostly FMS but some DCS purchases. This file will be literally only affirmative stuff, and in the next month’s update, I’ll have some negative answers to the aff as well.

Table of Content

sEnd Foreign Military Financing Affirmative.....................................................................................1

The 1AC......................................................................................................................................3

Plan.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Advantage 1 is Bad Practices........................................................................................................................................5

Advantage 2 is Bad Alliances.....................................................................................................................................14

Extensions................................................................................................................................26

Ext-Terrorism...................................................................................................................................................................27

Ext-Corruption.................................................................................................................................................................28

Corruption Mpx--Democracy.....................................................................................................................................29

Corruption Mpx--Poverty............................................................................................................................................30

Corruption Mpx—Political Instability....................................................................................................................31

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Failed States Impacts.....................................................................................................................................................32

AT-Interoperability........................................................................................................................................................35

AT-DIB/Economy............................................................................................................................................................36

Country Scenario—Egypt............................................................................................................................................37

Country Example—Philippines.................................................................................................................................38

Reform Solvency Advocate.........................................................................................................................................39

AT-Your Ev Says Security Assistance.....................................................................................................................41

FMF FAQ’s...........................................................................................................................................................................47

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The 1AC

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Plan The United States federal government should end all Direct Commercial Sales and Foreign Military Sales which are financed through Foreign Military Financing requests.

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Advantage 1 is Bad Practices

The Trump Administration is increasing the amount of funds available for arms sales through Foreign Military Financing.Caroline Dorminey, a policy analyst in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute., 5-2-2018, "Your Taxes at Work: Some Foreign Arsenal Assembly Required," Cato Institute, https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/taxes-work-some-foreign-arsenal-assembly-required

F oreign M ilitary F inancing to the rescue. The Arms Export Control Act authorizes the president to financially assist nations interested in US defense products and services . While all that sounds

technically sound, this financing comes in the form of either a grant (free money to never be repaid) or as direct loans (which are then sometimes forgiven).

This type of financing comes directly out of the US federal budget — specifically out of the State

Department's portion. The final budget omnibus that was signed into law in March settled on $6.1 billion to give freely to other countries to purchase American weapons.

Profit is front and center in Trump’s new arms policy , and taxpayers are footing the bill.

That's right — $6 billion of American taxpayer dollars this year alone will go towards subsidizing the arsenals of other nations so that they too can "Buy American." Foreign Military Financing had, until now, been on the decline. From 1985 to 2015 the program decreased 50 percent in real terms. With this new

economic security component to stated guidance on arms sales, there is a very real possibility that F oreign M ilitary F inancing could continue to rise.

Virtually all of these FMF requests will be rubber stamped by Congress. However there is no benefit from these sales, it is akin to pouring money down a rat hole.Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky, Miller is a former director for Egypt on the National Security Council and current deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sokolsky is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the State Department for 37 years and was a member of the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015, 2-27-2018, "What Has $49 Billion in Foreign Military Aid Bought Us? Not Much," American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-has-49-billion-in-foreign-military-aid-bought-us-not-much/

It’s a scene right out of the movie Groundhog Day. Every year around this time, the administration submits its annual request to Congress to appropriate billions of dollars for America’s allies and partners in the Middle East to finance their purchase of U.S. military training and equipment.

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Congress rubber stamps these requests with little regard for whether this assistance achieves U.S. foreign policy objectives . It does the same when the executive branch requests congressional approval of arms sales for cold hard cash. Such docility might be good industrial policy—after all, it creates jobs in key congressional districts, provides corporate welfare for America’s defense companies, and helps maintain the

defense industrial base. But it makes for lousy foreign policy. The U nited S tates will continue to pour money down a rat hole until Congress and the executive branch better understand why these problems keep recurring and muster the political will to fix them . Based on our experience in the State Department, here is our diagnosis of the problem and some remedies for what ails U.S. military assistance in the Middle East.

In the U.S. foreign policy toolkit, security assistance and arms transfers have become the instruments of choice for American diplomats and soldiers. Grant assistance and weapons sales are treated as Swiss Army Knives, all-purpose tools appropriate for use in virtually any scenario. According to the prevailing view in the U.S. government, security assistance works wonders: it builds the capabilities of partner countries, provides influence over their policies, and guarantees access to influential institutions and personalities in capitals across the globe. If true, this would seem to more than justify the $48.7 billion the U.S. has spent on security assistance to the Middle East over the past decade.

In reality, U.S. military assistance promises more than it delivers. There is scant evidence outside of a few isolated cases that U.S. material support to Middle Eastern countries has fulfilled any of these purposes . Recipients of U.S. funding and weapons have largely failed to make major strides in their capabilities and, in some instances, may have even regressed.

Despite $47 billion in U.S. military assistance over 40 years, the Egyptian military has struggled mightily to contain an ISIS -affiliate numbering no more than 1,200 militants. The Saudis barely used their American- made advanced combat aircraft in the U.S.-led anti-ISIS operation in Syria, and $ 89 billion in arms sales to the kingdom over the last 10 years has not prevented Riyadh from getting bogged down in an increasingly costly quagmire in Yemen with U.S.-supplied weapons. The U.S. has sold hundreds of billions of dollars in military hardware to Persian Gulf countries and yet collectively they are not capable of defending the free flow of oil from the Gulf against a militarily weaker Iran without U.S. assistance.

Likewise, the track record of using security assistance to increase U.S. influence in the region is no more encouraging. While recipient countries are happy to utter platitudes about increased cooperation, they generally—and successfully—resist Washington’s requests to modify their policies in exchange for assistance. Ongoing U.S. assistance to Egypt did not leave Cairo open to American pleas to desist from forcibly dispersing two largely non-violent sit-ins in the capital, in which over 800 people were massacred.

Meanwhile, U.S. attempts to explicitly link military assistance and arms sales to a recipient country’s domestic political behavior have not borne much fruit. For instance, the Obama administration’s suspension of some types of military assistance to Egypt in 2013 did not lead to “credible progress” toward democratic reforms. Nor did putting a $4 billion arms package for Bahrain on hold yield an improvement in that country’s human rights environment.

Importantly, these failures have more to do with a lack of political will in Washington, in which the U.S. capitulated before its coercive measures could have the desired effect, than any inherent limitation in what withholding weapons shipments can accomplish. But the frequency with which the United States folds in these standoffs suggests a structural problem in U.S. assistance mechanisms that undermines its efficacy as a tool of influence.

We’ll isolate 2 scenarios

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**Scenario 1 is Corruption

First, foreign military financing creates dissonance between recipient governments and their people which creates terrorism and corruptionJonathan Helton, a research assistant with John E. Talbott & Associates, a law firm in Henderson, Tennessee., 8-19-2019, "Military Aid: Financing Foreign Conflict," Strategy Bridge, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2019/8/19/military-aid-financing-foreign-conflict

Thus, aiding states that do not cooperate with U.S. objectives can fail to quell violence in the recipient nation. In fact, F oreign M ilitary F inancing can lead to dissonance between recipient governments and their people . This dissonance has been proven to create more terrorism , not less.

A paper published by the Hoover Institution considered military aid to 106 countries. The authors found that “More U.S. military aid… is associated with poorer political-institutional conditions , which gives rise to grievances and anti-American terrorism in aid-receiving countries .”[14] The authors find military aid tends to corrupt governments , causing tension over poor governance which can lead to transnational terrorism. Seen as the supporter of the corrupt government, the United States is “Punished in the form of anti-American terrorism for the—ostensible or actual—facilitation of local grievances.”[15]

This effect is not limited to the Middle East. Columbia, for example, has received almost $850 million in Foreign Military Financing since 2000.[16] Research has shown in Columbia “increases in U.S. military aid increase paramilitary violence.”[17] The authors also stated that “our results suggest that…international military assistance can strengthen armed non-state actors.”[18] Thus, it may be

that Foreign Military Financing both distances the U.S. from recipient governments and incentivizes non-state violence.

Corruption causes poverty undermines economic growthThe Frontier Post, 2012, (Staff, “How corruption causes poverty”, October 2012, http://www.thefrontierpost.com/article/182703/)//LOH

Corruption is an effort to secure wealth or power through illegal means for personal gain at public expense; or a misuse of public power for private or personal benefit. Corruption as a phenomenon is a global problem and exists in varying degrees in different countries. Corruption is not only found in democratic and dictatorial politics, but also in feudal, capitalist and socialist economies. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures are equally bedeviled by corruption�

Corruption defined as an over use of power for the purpose to achieve their private goals and objectives. It is just like a horrible wave which has destroyed all working of departments and unfortunately it is also endemic in Pakistan, both public as well as private sector under the influence of this factor. Unluckily Pakistan stands top of the corrupt countries. This magnitude effects not only public and private sector but this phenomenon also maximize in judiciary, legislature and even in commercial sectors. Corruption is an old age phenomenon. This phenomenon increased in our society with the passage of

time. Corruption means destruction and exploiting the society or nation. It breaks all the values , integrity and principles of society. Mostly persons, those have power exercise corruption and exploit the resources of others on the basis of their power and achieve their private goals. In Pakistan, the effect of corruption is very worse. Mostly all

developmental sectors have been destroyed due to corruption. Because corruption hinders the development of economic sector and as a result country’s economy is going down day by day . Consequently

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poverty has increased in the country . Corruption takes roots in any society because of low wages, inequality of wealth and salaries. Inflation is also the economic cause of corruption. Both poor and rich are involved in the corruption. Rich because they have a power to exploit the resources of others and gaining more and more wealth. On the other hand poor is always exploited because of their low wages, social injustice and inflation. These factors compel poor to involve them in corruption. Theobald argues that poverty is the main cause of corruption. Public as well as private officials, because they have a low wages and unable to enjoy basic necessities of life, compel people to involve in corruption. Bad policies of government and lack of codified laws are also responsible for corruption. Corruption has increased in Pakistan due to different reasons including financial and political corruption. UNDP stated that two major crises in the world that isthe pillar of corruption i-e world war II and division of property after the partition of Indian subcontinent. UNDP shares the phenomenon that both corruption and bad governance shrunk the growth of economy as well as the working of private developmental sectors as a result poverty

increases (UNDP 1997). Good governance and accountability plays an effective role to reduce the rate of corruption. Good governance is very important for creating a peaceful environment, security, rules of law in which the human development can be promoted . Werlin says the fact that

bad policies of government and limited financial resources are responsible for increasing the wave of corruption in society (Werlin 2002).

Poverty outweighs nuclear warGilligan 96 [James, professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence. Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes.. P. 191-196.

The 14 to 18 million deaths a year caused by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those by genocide—or about eight million per year, 1939-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-66 (perhaps 575,000) deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973), and even a hypothetical nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the

U.S.S.R. (232 million), it was clear that even war cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year. In other words, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as

would be killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. Structural violence is also the main cause of behavioral violence on a socially and epidemiologically significant scale (from homicide and suicide to war and genocide). The question as to which of the two forms of violence—structural or behavioral—is more important, dangerous, or lethal is moot, for they are inextricably related to each other, as cause to effect.

Terrorism risks freakout prolifKurt M. Campbell, Senior Vice President & Kissinger Chair in National Security, CSIS, “Nuclear Proliferation Beyond the Rogues,” THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY, Winter 2002-2003, pp. 7-15.

York and Washington. Certainly, there is heightened vigilance regarding new domestic threats inside industrialized democracies and

elsewhere. The ways in which an increase in domestic terrorism can lead to larger systemic insecurity , however, have re-ceived less attention . The logical response to greater homeland security challenges is for each country to tighten borders, intensify intelligence and situational awareness, and increase cooperation with the United

States and other leading states, not to seek the development of nuclear weapons. Yet, one cannot fully dismiss some potentially illogical or, more precisely, unforeseen responses to wider and more frequent

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domestic attacks on a global scale. In such an environment, states might reconsider their nuclear position , viewing nuclear capability as a psychological assurance for its citizens as well as a viable deterrent against external threats, particularly In the face of rogue regimes’ support of nonstate actors. The potential interaction between groups such as Al Qaeda and rogue states with nuclear ambitions has not been lost on many U.S. allies and friends, and states could potentially regard a nuclear capability as a deterrent to being targeted by this collusion of terrorists and rogue states. A manifest increase in threats to homeland security alone is probably

not enough to trigger nuclear recalculation, although heightened anxiety over domestic vulnerability to external threats, coupled with other troubling domestic or foreign trends, could trigger a country to reassess its nuclear options more broadly.

Prolif causes extinctionUtgoff 2 – Victor Utgoff, Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analysis, 2002(“Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions,” Published in a book, Available Online from p.87-90)

Further, the large number of states that became capable of building nuclear weapons over the years, but chose not to, can be reasonably well explained by the fact that most were formally allied with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Both these superpowers had strong nuclear forces and put great pressure on their allies not to build nuclear weapons. Since the Cold War, the US has retained all its allies. In addition, NATO has extended its protection to some of the previous allies of the Soviet Union and plans on taking in more. Nuclear proliferation by India and Pakistan, and proliferation programmes by North Korea, Iran and Iraq, all involve states in the opposite situation: all judged that they faced serious military opposition and had little prospect of establishing a reliable supporting alliance with a suitably strong, nuclear-armed state. What would await the world if strong protectors, especially the United States, were [was] no longer seen as willing to protect states from nuclear-backed aggression? At least a few additional states would begin to build their own nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to distant targets, and these initiatives would spur increasing numbers of the world’s capable states to follow suit. Restraint would seem ever less necessary and ever more dangerous. Meanwhile, more states are becoming capable of building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Many, perhaps most, of the world’s states are becoming sufficiently wealthy, and the technology for building nuclear forces continues to improve and spread. Finally, it seems highly likely that at some point, halting proliferation will come to be seen as a lost cause and the restraints on it will disappear. Once that happens, the transition to a highly proliferated world would probably be very rapid. While

some regions might be able to hold the line for a time, the threats posed by wildfire prolif eration in most other areas

could create pressures that would finally overcome all restraint. Many readers are probably willing to accept

that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not going to be acceptable. And, for many

reasons, it is not. First, the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in

outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent’s nuclear programme or defeat the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approaches

complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could cause serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons

failing into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous

manufacturing and storage activities. Worse still, in a highly proliferated world there would be more frequent opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons. And more frequent opportunities means shorter expected times between conflicts in which nuclear weapons get used, unless the probability of use at any opportunity is actually zero. To be sure, some

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theorists on nuclear deterrence appear to think that in any confrontation between two states known to have reliable nuclear capabilities, the probability of nuclear weapons being used is zero.’ These theorists think that such states will be so fearful of escalation to nuclear war that they would always avoid or terminate confrontations between them, short of even conventional war. They believe this to be true even if the two states have different cultures or leaders with very eccentric personalities. History and human nature, however, suggest that they are almost surely wrong. History includes instances in which states ‘known to possess nuclear weapons did engage in direct conventional conflict. China and Russia fought battles along their common border even after both had nuclear weapons. Moreover, logic suggests that if states with nuclear weapons always avoided conflict with one another, surely states without nuclear weapons would avoid conflict with states that had them. Again, history provides counter-examples Egypt attacked Israel in 1973 even though it saw Israel as a nuclear power at the time. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and fought Britain’s efforts to take them back, even though Britain had nuclear weapons. Those who claim that two states with reliable nuclear capabilities to devastate each other will not engage in conventional conflict risking nuclear war also assume that any leader from any culture would not choose suicide for his nation. But history provides unhappy examples of states whose leaders were ready to choose suicide for themselves and their fellow citizens. Hitler tried to impose a ‘victory or destruction’’ policy on his people as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat. And Japan’s war minister, during debates on how to respond to the American atomic bombing, suggested ‘Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?” If leaders are willing to engage in conflict with nuclear-armed nations, use of nuclear weapons in any particular instance may not be likely, but its probability would still be dangerously significant. In particular, human nature suggests that the threat of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not a reliable guarantee against a disastrous first use of these weapons. While national leaders and their advisors everywhere are usually talented and experienced people, even their most important decisions cannot be counted on to be the product of well-informed and

thorough assessments of all options from all relevant points of view. This is especially so when the stakes are so large as to defy assessment and there are substantial pressures to act quickly, as could be expected in intense and fast-moving crises between

nuclear-armed states. Instead, like other human beings, national leaders can be seduced by wishful thinking. They can misinterpret the words or actions of opposing leaders. Their advisors may produce answers that they think the leader wants to hear, or coalesce around what they know is an inferior decision because the group urgently needs the confidence or the sharing of responsibility that results from settling on something. Moreover, leaders may not recognize clearly where their personal or party

interests diverge from those of their citizens. Under great stress, human beings can lose their ability to think carefully . They can refuse to believe that the worst could really happen, oversimplify the problem at hand, think in terms of simplistic analogies and play hunches. The intuitive rules for how individuals should respond to insults or signs of weakness in an opponent may too readily suggest a rash course of action. Anger, fear, greed, ambition and pride can all lead to bad decisions. The desire for a decisive solution to the problem at hand may lead to an unnecessarily extreme course of action. We can almost hear the kinds of words that could flow from discussions in nuclear crises or war. ‘These people are not willing to die for this interest’. ‘No sane person would actually use such weapons’. ‘Perhaps the opponent will back down if we show him we mean business by demonstrating a willingness to use nuclear weapons’. ‘If I don’t hit them back really hard, I am going to be driven from office, if not killed’. Whether right or wrong, in the stressful atmosphere of a nuclear crisis or war, such words from others, or silently from within, might resonate

too readily with a harried leader. Thus, both history and human nature suggest that nuclear deterrence can be

expected to fail from time to time, and we are fortunate it has not happened yet. But the threat of nuclear war is not just a

matter of a few weapons being used. It could get much worse . Once a conflict reaches the point where nuclear weapons are employed, the stresses felt by the leaderships would rise enormously. These stresses can be expected to further degrade their decision-making. The pressures to force the enemy to stop fighting or to surrender could argue for more forceful and decisive military action, which might be the right thing to do in the circumstances, but maybe not. And the horrors of the carnage already suffered may be seen as justification for visiting the most devastating punishment possible on the enemy.’ Again, history

demonstrates how intense conflict can lead the combatants to escalate violence to the maximum possible levels. In the Second World War, early promises not to bomb cities soon gave way to essentially indiscriminate bombing of civilians. The war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s led to the use of chemical weapons on both sides and exchanges of missiles against each other’s cities. And more recently, violence in the Middle East escalated in a few months from rocks and small arms to heavy weapons on one side, and from police actions to air strikes and armoured attacks on the other. Escalation of violence is also basic human nature. Once the violence starts, retaliatory exchanges of violent acts can escalate to levels unimagined by the participants before hand. Intense and blinding anger is a common response to fear or humiliation or abuse. And such anger can lead us to

impose on our opponents whatever levels of violence are readily accessible. In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a substantial probability of

escalat[e ] ing to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.

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Scenario 2 is Failed States

Foreign Military Financing is used to equip and train foreign militaries of weak states, which only escalates the collapse of regimesMara Karlin, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Security and Strategy - Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, November/December 2017, "Why military assistance programs disappoint," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-military-assistance-programs-disappoint/

Since the end of World War II, U.S. administrations of both parties have relied on a time-honored foreign policy tool: training and equipping foreign militaries. Seeking to stabilize fragile states, the United States has adopted this approach in nearly every region of the world over the last 70 years. Today, Washington is working with the militaries of more than 100 countries and running large programs to train and equip armed forces in such hot spots as Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan.

The logic behind this approach is simple. Fragile states jeopardize U.S. interests, but large-scale interventions are costly and unpopular. By outsourcing regional security in places where U.S. interests are not immediately threatened, Washington can promote stability without shouldering most of the burden itself. And heading off threats before they metastasize means that the United States can keep its eye on more sophisticated rivals such as China and Russia.

Among U.S. policymakers, this approach enjoys widespread popularity. Writing in this magazine in 2010, for example, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called weak states “the main security challenge of our time” and made the case for dealing with them by “helping other countries defend themselves or, if necessary, fight alongside U.S. forces by providing them with

equipment, training, or other forms of security assistance.” And at a moment when public support for military intervention is falling and once coherent countries are dissolving, the prospect of stabilizing weak states cheaply and quickly is more alluring than ever. Indeed, these days , the commonly accepted narrative in Washington for security assistance in fragile states can be summed up in one word: “more” — more training , more equipment , more money , more quickly .

But history shows that building militaries in weak states is not the panacea the U.S. national security community imagines it to be. As examples that span the globe have demonstrated, in practice, American efforts to build up local security forces are an oversold halfway measure that is rarely cheap and often fall s short of the desired outcome .

For decades, the United States has poured countless billions into foreign security forces—to the tune of nearly $20 billion per year these days. But the returns have been paltry. Sometimes, the problem is one of execution, and the United States can improve the

way it conceives of and carries out military assistance. Often, however, the problems run deeper, and the U nited S tates must recognize that the game is simply not worth the candle .

Failed states exponentially increase the possibility of a catastrophic global warBailey, 17 [President of the Institute for Global Economic Growth, author of numerous books, recipient of several honorary degrees, medals and awards and two orders of knighthood, teaches economic statecraft at The Institute of World Politics, on the staff of the National Security Council at the White House, in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and in business, consulting and finance, professor of economics and national security at the National

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Security Studies Center, “Failed states and threats of war pulling world to precipice,” 8/12/17, http://www.atimes.com/weekend-failed-states-threats-war-pulling-world-precipice/]

Several countries in MENA are at various levels of disintegration, including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Libya. To this growing list must now be added Venezuela in South America. The resulting chaos is highly dangerous, because as is well known, nature abhors a vacuum, and all the failed states represent power vacuums that are now battlegrounds in which multiple states and non-state actors are in conflict. Adding to the anarchy is the precipitous decline of the former hyperpower, the US. Two disastrous governments in a row (2001-2009 and 2009-2017) followed by what gives signs of being a third (2017-2021) have resulted in a country monumentally indebted and with declining military predominance and international prestige. This adds to the power vacuum referred to above,

which results in failed states, but also in the second of the current phenomena we referred to. The world is on the edge of catastrophic war for the first time since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. China is rampaging around the East and South China Seas, creating naval and air bases in uninhabited island groups claimed by other countries. It has unambiguously asserted its hegemony in the entire Far Eastern region in a direct challenge to the US and its allies: Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. China has also engaged in a military confrontation with India in the Himalayas over disputed territory. In the entire western and southwestern periphery of Russia, that country is aggressively asserting its hegemony, very effectively using propaganda, economic strategies, subversion, massive air, naval and land military displays and even war, in Georgia and Ukraine. Minor powers, notably North Korea and Iran, are actively building nuclear capabilities and openly threatening other countries with eventual nuclear Armageddon, while in the case of Iran, actively supporting

terrorist and separatist groups and engaging in direct military intervention, notably in Syria and Iraq. Opportunities offered by failed states and the decline of American (and European) power, coupled with the ascendancy of countries such as Russia

and China and the adventurism of North Korea and Iran, has placed the world in position where a major war is a distinct possibility. Let us not forget that the outbreak of World War I was due to multiple errors of judgment and action on the part of European powers. Humankind has learned very little since then, despite the horrendous destruction of the two World

Wars, the Cold War and now the war against Islamic terrorism. If there is one thing that is predictable about the future, it is that human beings and their organizations, including states, will commit errors as a result of

misperceptions, faulty intelligence or simple hubris. That is the precipice that we are currently approaching .

Causes global war and turns every impactManwaring ‘5 (Adjunct professor of international politics at Dickinson (Max G., Retired U.S. Army colonel, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare, October 2005, pg. PUB628.pdf)

President Chávez also understands that the process leading to state failure is the most dangerous long-term security challenge facing the global community today . The argument in general is that failing and failed state status is the breeding ground for instability , criminality, insurgency , regional conflict , and terrorism. These conditions breed massive humanitarian disasters and major refugee flows. They can host “evil” networks of all kinds, whether they involve criminal business enterprise, narco-trafficking , or some form of ideological crusade such as Bolivarianismo. More specifically, these conditions spawn all kinds of things

people in general do not like such as murder, kidnapping, corruption, intimidation, and destruction of infrastructure. These means of coercion and persuasion can spawn further human rights violations, torture, poverty, starvation, disease, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, trafficking in women and body parts, trafficking and proliferation of conventional weapons systems and WMD , genocide, ethnic cleansing, warlordism, and criminal anarchy . At the same time, these actions are usually unconfined and spill over into regional syndromes of poverty, destabilization, and conflict .62 Peru’s Sendero Luminoso calls

violent and destructive activities that facilitate the processes of state failure “armed propaganda.” Drug cartels operating throughout the Andean Ridge of South America and elsewhere call these activities “business incentives.” Chávez considers these actions to be steps that must be taken to bring about the political conditions necessary to

establish Latin American socialism for the 21st century.63 Thus, in addition to helping to provide wider latitude to further their

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tactical and operational objectives, state and nonstate actors’ strategic efforts are aimed at progressively lessening a targeted regime’s credibility and capability in terms of its ability and willingness to govern and develop its national territory and society. Chávez’s intent is to focus his primary attack politically and psychologically on selected Latin American governments’ ability and right to govern. In that context, he understands that popular perceptions of corruption, disenfranchisement, poverty, and lack of upward mobility limit the right and the ability of a given regime to conduct the business of the state. Until a given populace generally perceives that its government is dealing with these and other basic issues of political, economic, and social injustice fairly and

effectively, instability and the threat of subverting or destroying such a government are real .64 But failing and failed states simply do not go away. Virtually anyone can take advantage of such an unstable situation. The tendency is

that the best motivated and best armed organization on the scene will control that instability. As a consequence, failing and failed states become dysfunctional states, rogue states, criminal states, narco-states , or new people’s democracies. In connection with the creation of new people’s democracies, one can rest assured that Chávez and his Bolivarian populist allies will be available to provide money, arms, and leadership at any given opportunity. And, of course, the longer

dysfunctional, rogue, criminal, and narco-states and people’s democracies persist, the more they and their associated problems endanger global security, peace, and prosperity.65

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Advantage 2 is Bad Alliances

Arms sales to allies receiving Foreign Military Financing fails to uphold US security goals which creates both Moral Hazard and Reverse LeverageAndrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky, Miller is a former director for Egypt on the National Security Council and current deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sokolsky is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the State Department for 37 years and was a member of the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015, 2-27-2018, "What Has $49 Billion in Foreign Military Aid Bought Us? Not Much," American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-has-49-billion-in-foreign-military-aid-bought-us-not-much/

In his State of the Union address, President Trump endorsed “legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America’s friends.” But even when this assistance goes to America’s friends, it rarely serves

American interests. Decisions to sell weapons to allies , friends, and partners often involve hand- waving and intellectual laziness . It is unusual when clear objectives with measurable benchmarks of progress are identified for weapons sales and assistance levels . Instead, proponents of these sales invoke tired bromides about how assistance will provide access to the recipient’s military leadership or further cement the bilateral relationship.

But access should not be confused with influence —and “relationship maintenance” should not be treated as an end in itself. Washington has become so fixated on doling out billions of dollars for this purpose

that it often forgets what this assistance is for in the first place: securing U.S. interests . More often than not, our allies and client states take the money and use their weapons in pursuit of policies inimical to U.S. interests or kvetch about American unreliability. Saudi Arabia, which has used American-supplied weapons to visit ruin on Yemen and strengthen Jihadist groups there, is a poster child for this phenomenon. So, too, is the UAE, which is an accomplice in Riyadh’s immoral and strategically disastrous campaign in Yemen and used American-supplied weapons in Libya in support of a renegade general.

A second and related problem is that the U.S. government does a poor job of holding allies and clients to account for behavior that runs counter to American interests. There is no systematic review of what U.S.

military assistance accomplishes. The key questions that rarely get asked , let alone answered, are what does the U.S. want and expect from the assistance we provide and how does this aid help or hurt America’s ability to achieve these goals? If the U.S. cannot identify actions that the recipient would not have otherwise taken as a result of this assistance, then it is nothing more than a welfare program, and has two pernicious effects. First, it encourages “moral hazard”—

recipients to do whatever they want with the assistance without having to fear the consequences of their actions. Second , it creates “reverse leverage”— Washington bends over backwards to keep relations smooth and the assistance flowing , rather than leverage the recipient’s dependence on U.S. military support and political commitments.

Both of these pathologies are, in part, a legacy of the Middle East peace process. The Arab countries at peace with Israel (Egypt and Jordan) view their U.S. military aid packages as an entitlement owed to them in exchange for burying the hatchet with the Jewish

state, which supersedes U.S. concerns about military capacity or influence. What Washington gets for providing this aid is confidence that two of Israel’s neighbors will remain at peace with it. But this is a misrepresentation of history; Washington did not make a formal aid commitment to either

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country when they signed peace treaties with Israel. And, most importantly, the future of the peace treaties is no longer dependent on U.S. assistance. Egypt and Jordan find it in their own interests to preserve peace with Israel, with or without American support.

Egypt has received billions in Foreign Military Financing but have failed to comply with US goals and have been rampant human rights abusersJonathan Helton, a research assistant with John E. Talbott & Associates, a law firm in Henderson, Tennessee., 8-19-2019, "Military Aid: Financing Foreign Conflict," Strategy Bridge, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2019/8/19/military-aid-financing-foreign-conflict

Consider the case of Egypt. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in F oreign M ilitary F inancing yearly , but the U.S. receives belligerence in return.[10] The Government Accountability Office documented that Egypt’s compliance with State Department monitoring has been, “incomplete and slow ” for certain pieces of equipment.[11]

This limits America’s ability to determine whether Egypt is using the equipment in compliance with end-user requirements and if the underlying goals of providing Foreign Military Financing to Egypt—regional stability and counterterrorism—are being met.[12] Unfortunately, some of Egypt’s internal policies directly contradict these goals. Their harsh treatment of political prisoners can lead to radicalization, further damaging American foreign policy and the objectives of Foreign Military Financing. As Middle East

scholar Elliot Abrams stated, “If you take thousands of young men, toss them into prison, beat and torture them, incarcerate them for lengthy periods with actual jihadis, what comes out at the end of the process is in fact more jihadis.”[13] Policies that create more terrorism are hardly in line with U.S. objectives.

**We’ll isolate 2 scenarios

Scenario 1 is Human RightsThese Egyptian rights abuses decimate the ability of the United States to be a credible leader in the arena of human rightsHurley 18 (Daniel Hurley, staff intern for the office of Senator Robert Menendez, B.A. in political science, 8-4-2018, "U.S Provides Aid to Egypt, Human Rights Abused", SIR Journal, http://www.sirjournal.org/op-ed/2018/8/4/us-provides-aid-to-egypt-human-rights-abused)

The U.S. Department of State this week lifted restrictions o n $195 million in military aid that was previously frozen by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017 (1). Originally imposed to protest Cairo’s facilitation of North Korean illicit arms sales and Egypt’s abysmal human rights record , the financial restrictions, according to current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, needed to be lifted now due to Egypt’s response to specific U.S. concerns— concerns that have not been specified by the administration. Providing Egypt with military aid and other sources of financial assistance is routine for the U.S. Between 1946 and 2016, Egypt received $78.3 billion in bilateral foreign assistance from American taxpayers (2). Specifically since the ratification of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty, the U.S. has provided vast amounts of military aid to Egypt in an effort to support regional stability. With this aid, Egypt has mostly purchased large-scale conventional military equipment, including fighter jets and battle tanks. For fiscal year 2019, President Trump has requested $1.381 billion in foreign assistance to Egypt. What

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makes this transfer of funds unusual, however, is that aid is being provided despite the fact that one of the main goal’s for restricting the funds in the first place—to pressure Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to improve his record of human rights—has yet to be realized according to some experts. While past administrations, including those of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have made improvements in Egypt’s

domestic human rights conditions a precondition for the allocation of military and economic foreign assistance, the Trump administration is providing aid while the Egyptian government has not met the original “ human rights” precondition . Although the Egyptian government has apparently addressed some of the human rights concerns advanced by the State Department, the extent to which these concerns have been meet does not warrant the release of these funds. The Trump administration’s call for Sisi to overturn the conviction of 43 employees (including 17 American citizens) of international groups that promote democracy, for instance, has been addressed with Sisi’s minimalist decision to schedule a retrial rather than dismiss the charges altogether. Frankly, over the last year, Sisi’s government has cracked down more heavily on

nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and political opponents operating inside Egypt. In the period preceding the March 2018 presidential election, for example, critics of Sisi were arrested without a credible, legal-based justification (3). Under the guise of a counterterrorism strategy, Egyptian security services also blocked 64 news websites qqaz in June 2017, alleging that they did not align with the state media’s narrative of events. Adding to this track record, 47,000 nongovernmental organizations have been subjected to strict operational guidelines due to the enactment of a controversial 2017 law. The law restricts NGO activity to “developmental and social work” and threatens up to five years of incarceration for non-compliance (4). Effectively, NGOs in Egypt

are virtually inoperable under this law. Context & Consequences Given President Trump’s record of complimenting autocrats in an effort to build bilateral strategic partnerships, the fact that the funds were released is not surprising. During his first meeting with Sisi as president, Trump praised Sisi for doing a “tremendous job under trying circumstance” (5). The “trying circumstance” that Trump referred to is the ongoing, disruptive, and ineffective “brute force” strategy that Sisi has been undertaking in an effort to root out armed rebel groups occupying the Sinai Peninsula. According to residents of the Sinai, this strategy is causing more danger to their lives than proving to secure their safety. With regards to the U.S. administration’s approach to dealing with the threat posed by North Korea’s ballistic missile program, Trump again used praise to achieve national security interests. In a June 2018 interview with Fox News, Trump expressed admiration for Chairman Kim Jong-un’s intelligence, strategic way of thinking, and personality (6). Based on reports generated by international human rights watchdogs including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the North Korean government has imprisoned thousands of political dissenters, forced women to have abortions repeatedly, condoned rape, and turned a blind eye to acts of gender-based abuses. Yet, despite the well-documented track record of the North Korean regime abusing human rights,

Trump has chosen to laud the regime in an effort to attain strategic ends. By choosing to sideline human rights concerns in an effort to address national security interests, the Trump administration has effectively given Egypt ’s government a green light to continue to abuse human rights in the same way they have for years , since the U.S. apparently is comfortable with a policy of minimal (if tangible at all) improvements in domestic human rights conditions in exchange for strengthening bilateral military and economic partnerships. This is a dangerous policy, for two reasons. Primarily, such a disregard for human rights in a national security strategy weakens the leverage , and standing, that the U.S. has in international negotiations. By condoning the actions of human rights violators , allies of the U.S . may b e reluctant to pursue joint international efforts for fear of domestic backlash as a result of their nation’s leaders cooperating with a country that underestimates the value of human rights diplomacy . Such polarization among allies poses a threat to the longevity of Western alliances and the value of common strategic partnerships. On the other hand, repeated

displays of U.S. disregard for international human rights feeds into the narrative of American adversaries that the U.S. is a hypocritical state on the international stage . While the U.S. expresses a deep commitment to securing and advancing human rights in speeches and decrees,

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it does not so in its national policies and global initiatives—so adversaries say. While this argument is true and

false to an extent, that fact that the U.S. is supporting Egypt’s repressive regime fuels the “true” narrative. For a country that prides itself on promoting respect for human rights at home and abroad, the State Department’s decision is not conducive to the cause.

Human rights credibility solves nuclear escalation.Burke-White 04 (William; Lecturer in Public and International Affairs and Senior Special Assistant to the Dean at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; Spring 2004; Harvard Human Rights Review Journal, p. 279-280; TV)

This Article presents a strategic--as opposed to ideological or normative--argument that the promotion of human rights   should be given  a more prominent place in U.S. foreign policy. It does so by suggesting a   correlation   between  the domestic human rights practices of states and their propensity to engage in   aggressive  international conduct . Among the  chief threats to U.S. national security are   acts of aggression  by other states. Aggressive acts of war may directly endanger   the U nited States, as did the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in

1941, or they may require U.S.   military action   overseas , as in Kuwait fifty years later.

Evidence from the post-Cold War period [*250] indicates that states that systematically abuse their own citizens' human rights are also those most likely   to engage in aggression. To the degree that improvements in various states' human rights records decrease the likelihood   of  aggressive war, a foreign policy informed by human rights can   significantly enhance  U.S. and global security. Since 1990, a

state's domestic human rights policy appears to be a   telling indicator   of  that

state's propensity to engage in international aggression. A central element of U.S. foreign

policy has long been the preservation of peace and the prevention of such acts of aggression. n2 If the correlation discussed herein is accurate, it provides U.S. policymakers with a powerful new tool to   enhance national security   through  the promotion of human rights. A   strategic linkage   between  national security and human rights would result in a number of important policy modifications. First, it changes the prioritization of those

countries U.S. policymakers have identified as presenting the greatest concern. Second, it alters some of the policy prescriptions for such states. Third, it offers states a   means of signaling   benign  international intent through the improvement of their domestic human rights records. Fourth, it provides a way for a current government to   prevent future governments from aggressive international behavior   through  the institutionalization of human rights protections. Fifth, it addresses the particular threat of human rights abusing states   obtaining  weapons of

mass destruction (WMD). Finally, it offers a mechanism for U.S.-U.N. cooperation on human rights issues.

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Scenario 2 is Moral Hazard and Reverse LeverageOur FMF financed sales are used to continue radicalizing terrorists, strengthening Syria, and propping up North KoreaBinder and Hartung 18 – *expert in security assistance and Middle East affairs at Strategic Research & Analysis; **director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (*Seth; **William; “Time To Rethink U.S. Military Aid To Egypt”; 3/28/18; https://lobelog.com/time-to-rethink-u-s-military-aid-to-egypt/)

This week’s presidential election in Egypt offers an opportunity to rethink the amount and purpose of U.S. military aid to that nation, which has totaled over $40 billion since the signing of the Camp David peace

accords in 1979. Is U.S . aid helping Egypt to effectively combat a growing terrorist threat while maintaining good relations with

Israel? Or is it bolstering a corrupt , undemocratic regime whose human-rights abuses have undermined its ability to unify the nation in the fight against terror ? At this point the government of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is a democracy in name only. The only genuine candidates against al-Sisi in next week’s elections have withdrawn due to intimidation from the regime ,

including one who was jailed upon announcing his intention to run for president. And the remaining contender, who comes

from a party that initially backed al-Sisi, has said that he’s not even interested in a pre-election debate because he’s “not here to challenge the president.” Free and fair elections may not be happening, but Egypt does

have legitimate threats to its security that must be taken into account in gauging the terms and amounts for U.S. aid. Terror attacks by groups like the Islamic State’s Wilayat Sinai have occurred frequently in recent years, resulting in hundreds of deaths to security forces and civilians. These have included the Palm Sunday

bombings that killed 49 and Egypt’s deadliest terror attack in modern history , which killed 305 people in

an attack on a Sufi mosque. Certainly helping Egypt address these threats is in the U.S. interest. However,

the Egyptian government has continuously and vigorously cracked down on freedom of speech, assembly, and the press, while targeting marginalized groups and any person or organization perceived to be a threat to the state. These harsh measures have in turn sowed the seeds for an increase in terrorism throughout Egypt. Security forces have committed gross human-rights violations, including forcibly displacing thousands to create a buffer zone along the Gaza border, using U.S.-made

cluster bombs, and engaging in documented cases of arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings. What Egypt Gives the US Washington expects Cairo to return the favor for U.S. aid by providing fly-over rights for U.S. aircraft, expedited access through the Suez canal for the U.S. Navy, counterterrorism cooperation, and maintenance of the peace treaty with Israel. Putting these purported security benefits aside, the underlying issue is that Egypt is not playing the role of staunch ally worthy of over a billion dollars per year in military equipment and training . The

Egyptians have restricted access to the Sinai, not just for journalists, but for U.S. officials, making it nearly impossible for the United States to ensure that U.S. law and policy are upheld . And as the

Government Accountability Office has discovered, Egypt has even restricted access for U.S. officials trying to carry out standard end-use monitoring checks to ensure U.S.-supplied weaponry is used for its intended purposes. The Egyptian government has also helped perpetuate anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories despite receiving 20 percent of its defense budget from U.S. military aid . In

addition, Egypt’s foreign policy has increasingly acted counter to U.S. interests . In Libya, in partnership

with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt has actively supported anti-Islamist strongman General Khalifa Hiftar in opposition to U.S. policy of neutrality and a United Nations arms embargo. President al-Sisi has all but

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come out in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad through a thinly veiled call to respect national sovereignty. Al-Sisi has also come to a preliminary agreement to allow the Russians to use Egypt’s airspace and military base s. For this access, the Russians have sold nearly $10 billion in military equipment to Egypt since 2008, including a recent deal for 50 Russian MiG-29 fighter jets. The Egyptians

have also skirted sanctions, providing economic and military support to North Korea including, according

to a New York Times report, the purchase of 30,000 North Korean rocket-propelled grenades by the Arab Organization for Industrialization, one of Egypt’s main military-run businesses. It is often suggested that U.S. aid ensures Egypt will honor the nearly 40-year-old peace treaty with Israel. Congress has even codified this as a condition for continuing to

provide aid. Yet, Egypt has its own reasons to maintain the treaty. The two countries share similar security threats that have led to increased security cooperation, but they have also continued to develop economic ties, most recently signing a $15 billion gas deal.

Egypt’s relationship with North Korea culminates in mutual arms deals – North Korean weaponry gives Egypt the ability to attack Ethiopia – Egyptian cash finances North Korea’s nuclear programWalsh 18 (Declan Walsh, "Need a North Korean Missile? Call the Cairo Embassy", No Publication, 3-3-2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/world/middleeast/egypt-north-korea-sanctions-arms-dealing.html, 7-20-2019. Declan Walsh is the Cairo bureau chief, covering Egypt and the Middle East. He was previously based in Pakistan. He spent five months in the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign to write a column, Abroad in America, that considered the election from the perspective of a foreign correspondent)

CAIRO — On an island in the Suez Canal, a towering AK-47 rifle, its muzzle and bayonet pointed skyward, symbolizes one of Egypt’s most enduring alliances. Decades ago, North Korea presented it to Egypt to commemorate the 1973 war against Israel, when North

Korean pilots fought and died on the Egyptian side. But now the statue has come to signify another aspect of Egypt’s ties to North Korea: a furtive trade in illegal weapons that has upset President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s otherwise cozy relationship with the United States, set off a painful cut in

military aid and drawn unremitting scrutiny from United Nations inspectors. Egypt has purchased North Korean weapons and allowed North Korean diplomats to use their Cairo embassy as a base for military

sales across the region, American and United Nations officials say. Those transactions earned vital hard cash for North Korea, but they violated international sanctions and drew the ire of Egypt’s main military patron, the United States, which cut or suspended $291 million in military aid in August. Tensions may bubble up again in the coming weeks with the publication of a United Nations report that contains new information about the cargo of a rusty North Korean freighter intercepted off the coast of Egypt in 2016. The ship was carrying 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades worth an estimated $26 million. The report, due to be released this month, identifies the customer for the weapons as an arm of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, Egypt’s main state weapons conglomerate. Mr. Sisi heads the committee that oversees the group. Egypt has previously denied being the intended recipient of the weapons, or breaching international sanctions. In response to questions about the United Nations finding, the State Information Service said this past week: “The relevant Egyptian authorities have undertaken all the necessary measures in relation to the North Korean ship in full transparency and under the supervision” of United Nations officials. After the Trump administration slashed aid last summer, Egyptian officials said they were cutting military ties to North Korea, reducing the size of its Cairo embassy and monitoring the activities of North Korean diplomats. The relationship with North Korea is “limited to representation, and there is almost no existing economic or other areas of cooperation,” Foreign Minister Sameh

Shoukry said at a news conference with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson in Cairo last month. But that diplomatic

representation, in an embassy that doubles as a regional arms dealership, is the

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problem, American officials have said. In addition, Washington worries that North Korea, a longtime supplier of

ballistic missile technology to Egypt, is still supplying missile parts , said Andrea Berger, a North Korea specialist at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, speaking at a military ceremony last month, heads a committee that oversees an agency accused of buying rocket-propelled grenades from North Korea.CreditEgyptian Presidency

“Ballistic missile customers are the most concerning of North Korea’s partners and deserve the highest attention,” she said. “Egypt is one of those.” The Embassy North Korea’s largest embassy in the Middle East, an elegant, three-story Victorian building with a rusty brass plate over the entrance, sits on a leafy street on an island in the Nile. The embassy walls display photos of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, standing in a garden or strolling through a fish market. Its windows are usually shuttered, and security guards discourage passers-by from taking photos. Like those of many North Korean outposts, the duties of the Cairo embassy extend well beyond diplomacy. In Africa especially, North Korean diplomats have engaged in a wide variety of ruses and schemes to earn hard currency, United Nations investigators say. In South Africa and Mozambique, North Korean diplomats have been implicated in rhino poaching. In Namibia, North Koreans built giant statues and a munitions factory. In Angola, they trained the presidential guard in martial arts. In Egypt, their business is

weapons. United Nations inspectors and North Korean defectors say the Cairo embassy has become a bustling arms bazaar for covert sales of North Korean missiles and cut-price Soviet-era military hardware across a

band of North Africa and the Middle East. Shielded by diplomatic cover and front companies, North Korean officials have traveled to Sudan, which was then subject to an international trade embargo, to sell satellite-guided missiles, according to records obtained by the United Nations. Others flew to Syria,

where North Korea has supplied items that could be used in the production of chemical weapons. Inside the embassy, arms dealing goes right to the top. In November 2016, the United States and the United Nations sanctioned the ambassador, Pak Chun-il, describing him as an agent of North Korea’s largest arms company, the Korea

Mining Development Trading Corporation. At least five other North Korean officials based in Egypt, employed

by state security or various arms fronts, have been sanctioned. One of them, Kim Song-chol, traveled to Khartoum in 2013 as part of a $6.8 million deal for the sale of 180 missiles and missile parts to Sudan. According to this year’s sanctions report, Mr. Kim and another sanctioned official based in Cairo, Son Jong-hyok, continue to deal with Sudan’s state-controlled Military Industrial Corporation. “An arms dealer with a diplomatic passport is still an arms dealer,” Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council in 2016. The Ship For weeks in the summer of 2016, American intelligence had covertly tracked the Jie Shun, the ship filled with rocket-propelled grenades that has become a focus of Cairo’s ties to North Korea. As it neared the Suez Canal in August, according to a Western diplomat familiar with the case, the Americans warned the Egyptians it might be carrying contraband, effectively forcing them to intervene. The seizure was the largest interdiction of munitions since sanctions were imposed on North Korea in 2006 — a significant victory in the international effort, including an arms embargo and export restrictions, to force Kim Jong-un to abandon his nuclear weapons program. For the next three months, with the Jie Shun impounded at Ain Sokhna port, a diplomatic tug-of-war played out. The Americans wanted to send officials to inspect the dilapidated freighter and its illicit cargo. North Korea sent a diplomat to negotiate its release. The Egyptians refused both demands, but in November 2016 agreed to allow United Nations inspectors to board the ship. But by then, valuable information about the identity of the customer for the rockets, which had been hidden under mounds of iron ore, was missing. The North Korean crew had been sent home, which meant the inspectors could not interview them. But one piece of evidence remained, in the form of a name stenciled on the rocket crates: “Al Sakr Factory for Developed Industries (AOI),” Egypt’s principal missile research and development company and a subsidiary of its sprawling state weapons conglomerate, the Arab Organization for Industrialization. Mohamed Abdulrahman, the chairman of Al Sakr, did not respond to emailed questions about the shipment. In its statement, Egypt’s State Information Service said the measures taken by the country were “praised” by the United Nations’ sanctions committee, “which reiterated that

the way Egypt dealt with this case is a model to be followed in similar situations.” Secret Missile Cooperation The Jie Shun shipment was a glaring example of how cash-starved North Korea has helped finance its nuclear program by hawking stocks of cheap, Soviet-era weapons to countries that developed a reliance on those

systems during the Cold War, American officials and analysts say. But it also pointed to an established smuggling

route and an entrenched military-to-military trading relationship that American officials say has long been a conduit for ballistic missile technology. Starting in the 1970s, Cairo and Pyongyang collaborated to extend the range and accuracy of Soviet Scud missiles, said Owen Sirrs, a former

agent with the Defense Intelligence Agency. In the late 1990s, American officials worried that Egypt was trying to buy North Korea’s Nodong missile system, which has a range of about 800 miles. “We were sending démarches to the

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Egyptians to say, ‘Knock it off — we’re sending you hundreds of F-16s, and you don’t need that North Korean crap,’” said Mr. Sirrs, who was based in Cairo at the time and now lectures at the University of Montana. It is unclear if Egypt ever acquired the Nodong missiles. Although Cairo has spent billions on high-profile military purchases in recent years, including Russian fighter jets, French

aircraft carriers and German submarines, it has been notably cagey about its offensive missile capabilities. In 2013, a shipment of spare parts for Scud-B missiles, which have a shorter range than the Nodong, was intercepted in transit as it was shipped by air from the North Korean Embassy in Beijing to a military-controlled company in Cairo. The missile components had been labeled parts for fish-processing machinery. Egypt

denied that the military company had ordered the Scud parts. Such missiles could strike Israel from deep inside Egyptian territory. They could also reach Ethiopia , with which Egypt has a simmering dispute over a new dam on the Nile . The Politics of Sanctions Evasion The Trump administration has scored some successes in its drive to isolate North Korea from its allies, notably with the Philippines and Singapore last fall. But Egypt, which receives $1.3 billion annually in American aid, has resisted Mr. Trump’s entreaties. Egypt’s relationship with North Korea runs deep . President Hosni Mubarak was regularly feted in Pyongyang before his ouster in 2011. An Egyptian tycoon, Naguib Sawiris, built North Korea’s main cellphone network and invested in a bank there. Along with the AK-47 monument on the Suez Canal, North Korea built

a large war museum in Cairo that is frequently visited by Egyptian schoolchildren. Egypt’s military leaders are reluctant to cut those ties and lose access to Soviet-era weapons and ballistic missile systems, analysts say, a posture bolstered by their reflexive distaste for appearing to bow to American pressure. They may feel that, based on past experience, American criticism will eventually

abate. “They think they can evade the consequences,” said Andrew Miller of the Project on Middle East Democracy, who until last year worked on Egypt at the State Department. “That they are continuing to stonewall and obfuscate and

pursue this course of action indicates they think they can get away with it, and whatever price will be imposed on them will be bearable.” At the North Korean Embassy in Cairo, now under a new ambassador, business continues as usual. North Korean state media has said little about the ambassador, Ma Tong-hui, other than to note that his previous post was as head of a little-known government body in Pyongyang called the Disarmament and Peace Institute.

Egyptian escalation of the conflict with Ethiopia would draw in the US and other great powersCook 18 – Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). (Steven A, 01.10.18, “Is Annexation of the West Bank Already Here?” https://www.cfr.org/blog/annexation-west-bank-already-here)

I have not heard much about the issue recently, with the exception of the hypothesis that drought in southern Syria was a

contributing factor to the uprising-turned-civil-war that began there in March 2011. Now an actual conflict over H2O may be boiling, but no one in Washington has put down Michael Wolff’s book long enough to notice. Egypt , Sudan, and Ethiopia may come to blows —with the help of Turkey, Qatar, and the U nited Arab Emirates—over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project. This is a conflict that, if it actually comes to violence, is one that has long been in the making. In 1929, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty gave Egypt the lion’s share of Nile River water—about 50 billion cubic meters, whereas Sudan was allowed just 4 billion. The Egyptians were also granted the right to reject upstream construction projects. Postcolonial Egypt and an independent Sudan signed a new agreement in 1959 that increased both parties’ share of the river’s flow but maintained Egypt’s overwhelming benefits. Other riparian states such as what is now Eritrea, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan had no say, either because they didn't yet exist or were not independent nations. Over the years the Egyptians haven’t been terribly interested in altering the terms of the 1950s-era agreement for one simple reason: The Nile is a matter of life or death. Egypt gets negligible rainfall, and as a result has always relied on the Nile to feed itself and provide for the country’s economic well-being. The annual flood waters made it possible to grow fruit, vegetables, and cotton. These floods were life-giving but also dangerous: The annual deluge sometimes destroyed property and killed people. In 1956, the Egyptians began constructing the Aswan High Dam—with proceeds from the nationalized Suez Canal and the help of the Soviet Union—which would control the flood waters, ensure Egypt had adequate supplies of water during droughts, and provide hydroelectric power that would propel President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s plans for industrialization. The Nile is so important that, setting aside terrorism and internal stability, Egypt’s most significant security concerns lay largely to the south and

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are directly related to the unimpeded flow of the river’s waters. At the same time, even though Sudan could often be a problematic neighbor, the idea that there might be a conflict over the Nile always seemed theoretical—until April 2011. That was when the Ethiopians began construction of the GERD project along the Blue Nile. Just as the Egyptians did in the 1950s with the Aswan High Dam project, Ethiopia’s leaders regard their dam as a critical component of development. They, and officials from other riparian states, reject the argument that Egypt should continue to enjoy the largest share of water. That was always based on an Egyptian position that essentially amounts to “We are Egypt and you're not; you get rain and we don’t.” When GERD is completed, it will reduce Egypt’s share of Nile water by 22 billion cubic meters per year, devastating Egyptian agriculture and hydroelectric production, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources. This is obviously of critical concern to Egypt’s leaders, but they have not been able to reach a diplomatic solution to the problem. The country has been preoccupied with internal developments since the uprising in 2011 that pushed President Hosni Mubarak from power. In addition, the issue of the Ethiopian dam has been managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is not as influential as it once was, especially in comparison to the Ministry of Defense and the General Intelligence Directorate. There was an effort to resolve the problem in 2015, with Sudan acting as a broker between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that failed. Now the Egyptians and Sudanese are engaged in a spat that has become caught up in regional rivalries, and threatens to become intertwined with Ethiopia and GERD. The Sudanese recently welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Khartoum, where he signed a number of security-cooperation agreements, including a provision to allow the Turks to administer Suakin Island, located at a strategic point in the Red Sea between Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. The island used to be home to an Ottoman naval base, and the Egyptians fear the Turks plan to renovate the island and establish a permanent military presence there. A few months earlier, Qatar also upgraded its security relations with Sudan. This has not made the Egyptians very happy, given Turkish and Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has exacerbated tension between Cairo and Khartoum over the Hala’ib and Shalateen disputed zones, which are located on the border between Egypt and Sudan but administered by the Egyptians. Now Sudan is mucking about in the sensitive issue of the Sanafir and Tiran islands, implying that Egypt did not have the right to transfer them to Saudi Arabia—which caused an outcry among many Egyptians—because they may actually have been Sudanese in the first place. This is Sudanese trolling to malevolent ends. In response to all this, the Egyptians deployed a helicopter carrier in the Red Sea and sent troops to an Emirati base in Eritrea. This in turn angered the Ethiopians. Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 and the two countries fought a border war in the late 1990s that killed an estimated 80,000 people. In 2016 they briefly clashed again, killing hundreds more. In response to the presence of Egyptian troops in Eritrea, the Ethiopians not only rejected a Cairo proposal to cut Khartoum out of negotiations over GERD, but Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn hosted the Sudanese defense minister and vowed to speed up dam construction. All the while the Sudanese deployed thousands of troops to its border with Eritrea. The Egyptians have both called on the World Bank to help resolve the impasse over Ethiopia’s dam and vowed to protect Egypt’s share of Nile waters. There is a certain amount of implicit bellicosity in this rhetoric, given that Egyptian leaders have openly threatened war in the recent past. But this is something they can ill afford, given the

instability they face from an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and a terrorist threat in the Western desert. It is not hard to imagine how all this escalates into warfare . We are not dealing with the best militaries in the world, which

reduces the margin for error and miscalculation. It is also a potential conflict that involves a number of important American allies against each other . Turkey, a NATO ally, and Qatar, which hosts the largest American military base outside the United States, have aligned themselves with Sudan and by extension with Ethiopia, another American ally. On the other side we have Egypt, a longtime partner of the United States in the Middle East, and Eritrea. The United Arab Emirates, a critical player in the Persian Gulf and beyond, would also likely be involved given its ties to Egypt and Eritrea.

North Korea nuclear expansion causes miscalc and nuclear war – ongoing advancements ensure deterrence breakdowns with first-strike pressures, none of their defense applies Warrick 17 (Joby, author of numerous books, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, “As North Korea’s arsenal grows, experts see heightened risk of ‘miscalculation’,” 3-11. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-north-koreas-arsenal-grows-experts-see-heightened-risk-of-miscalculation/2017/03/11/0a0b5cd2-05be-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.50002fdf2bcb)

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A decade later, that confidence has all but evaporated. After a week in which Pyongyang successfully lobbed four intermediate-

range missiles into the Sea of Japan, U.S. officials are no longer seeing North Korea’s weapons tests as amateurish,

attention-grabbing provocations. Instead, they are viewed as evidence of a rapidly growing threat — and one

that increasingly defies solution. Over the past year, technological advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have dramatically raised the stakes in the years-long standoff between the United States and the

reclusive communist regime, according to current and former U.S. officials and Korea experts. Pyongyang’s growing arsenal has rattled key U .S. allies and spurred efforts by all sides to develop new first-strike capabilities, increasing the risk that a simple mistake could trigger a devastating regional war , the analysts said. The military developments are coming at a time of unusual political ferment, with a new and largely untested

administration in Washington and with South Korea’s government coping with an impeachment crisis. Longtime observers say the risk of conflict is higher than it has been in years, and it is likely to rise further as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seeks to fulfill his pledge to field long-range missiles capable of striking U.S. cities. “This is no longer about a lonely dictator crying for attention or demanding negotiations,” said Victor Cha, a former adviser on North Korea to the Bush administration and the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington

think tank. “This is now a military testing program to acquire a proven capability.” Pyongyang’s ambition to become an advanced nuclear-armed state is not new. North Korea began building its first reactor for making plutonium more than three decades ago. Over the years, it has shown ingenuity in increasing the range and power of a stockpile of homemade short- and medium-range missiles, all based on Soviet-era designs. Often, in the past, the new innovations have been accompanied by demands: a clamoring for security guarantees and international respect by a paranoid and nearly friendless government that perceives its democratic neighbors as plotting its destruction. After the first atomic test in 2006, then-leader Kim Jong Il threatened to launch nuclear missiles unless Washington agreed to face-to-face talks. North Korea has been slammed instead with ever-tighter United Nations sanctions meant to cut off access to technology and foreign cash flows. Yet, despite the trade restrictions, diplomatic isolation, threats and occasional sabotage, the country’s weapons programs have continued their upward march, goaded forward by dictators willing to sacrifice their citizens’ well-being to grow the country’s military might. And now, in the fifth year of Kim Jong Un’s rule, progress is coming in leaps. ‘A living, breathing thing’ Pyongyang’s fifth and latest nuclear weapons test occurred on Sept. 9 on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s founding. Seismic monitoring stations picked up vibrations from the underground blast and quickly determined that this one was exceptional. Scientific analyses of the test determined that the new bomb’s explosive yield approached 30 kilotons, two times the force of the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. The device was twice as powerful as the bomb North Korea tested just nine months earlier, and it was 30 times stronger than one detonated in 2006 in a remote mountain tunnel. More ominously, North Korea last March displayed a new compact bomb, one that appears small enough to fit inside the nose cone of one of its indigenously produced missiles. Regardless of whether the miniature bomb is real or a clever prop, North Korea does finally appear to be “on the verge of a nuclear breakout,” said Robert Litwak, an expert on nuclear proliferation and director of International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He said Pyongyang’s arsenal is believed to now contain as many as 20 nuclear bombs, along with enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium to make dozens more. “When I got into this field,” Litwak said at a symposium on North Korea this month, “I couldn’t have conceived of North Korea acquiring a nuclear arsenal approaching half the size of Great Britain’s.” The country’s missiles also have grown more sophisticated. Last year, North Korea’s military conducted the first test of a two-stage ballistic missile that uses solid fuel — a significant advance over the country’s existing liquid-fueled rockets because they can be moved easily and launched quickly. Also in 2016, North Korea broadcast images of engineers testing engines for a new class of advanced missiles with true intercontinental range, potentially putting cities on the U.S. mainland within reach. The provocations have continued in the weeks since the inauguration of President Trump, who, just before taking office, appeared to taunt Pyongyang in a Twitter post, saying that North Korea’s plan for building intercontinental ballistic missiles “won’t happen.” A month later, Kim launched one of the country’s new solid- fuel missiles, interrupting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago dinner with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Last week’s coordinated launch of four intermediate-range missiles appeared intended to showcase the country’s ability to fire multiple rockets simultaneously at U.S. military bases in Japan, increasing the likelihood that some will penetrate antimissile shields. North Korea’s state-run media has occasionally shown propaganda footage of Kim huddling with his generals over what some analysts have jokingly called the “map of death”: a chart that portrays Japanese and U.S. mainland cities as potential targets. The laughter has now stopped, said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on North Korean weapons systems. “This idea that these things were just bargaining chips — something that was true years ago — is superseded by the fact that there is now a rocket force . . . with a commander and a headquarters and subordinate bases, all with missiles,” said Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “This is now a living, breathing thing.” There have been notable failures as well. Numerous test rockets have drifted far off course, and others never made it off the launchpad. Many analysts say it could still be several years before Kim can construct a true ICBM that could reliably reach the U.S. mainland, and perhaps longer before he can demonstrate an ability to incorporate a nuclear payload into his rocket design. Yet, already, the basic components for a future arsenal of long-range, nuclear-tipped missiles are in place, Lewis said. “The ICBM program is real,” Lewis said. “They’ve showed us their static engine test. They showed us the mock-up of the nuclear warhead. They have done everything short of actually testing the ICBM. When they do test it, the first time it will probably fail. But eventually it will work. And when it works, people are going to

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freak out.” Danger of miscalculation For decades, the United States and its East Asian allies have tried an array of strategies to blunt North Korea’s progress, ranging from diplomacy to covert operations to defensive antimissile shields. Lately, the search for solutions has taken on an intensity not seen in years. As diplomatic initiatives have stalled, U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials have broadened the search for measures to ensure that Pyongyang’s missiles remain grounded, or — in the event of a launch — can be brought down before they reach their target. The efforts have proved to be partly successful at best. Three years ago, alarmed by North Korea’s advances on missile systems, the Obama administration ordered the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to deploy highly classified cyber and electronic measures against North Korea, largely aimed at undermining the country’s nuclear and missile programs, two former senior administration officials said. Aspects of the initiatives were described in a recent report by the New York Times. The effort was further intensified last year, the officials said, in response to new intelligence assessments showing North Korea inching closer to its goal of fielding long-range ballistic missiles. [China fuming about U.S. deployment of anti-missile shield] The clandestine effort begun under President Barack Obama appears to have borne fruit, judging from a rash of missile failures in the past year, said one former official familiar with the program. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the secret operations. “We’re stopping shipments. We’re making sure things don’t work the way they’re supposed to,” one former official said. “We’ve been able to delay things, in some cases probably by a lot. It’s a cat-and-mouse game.” But the second official, familiar with the Pentagon’s cyberwarfare efforts, acknowledged that North Korea remains an exceptionally difficult target because of its isolation and limited digital infrastructure. The official suggested that at least some of the recent missile failures were probably caused by North Korean errors. “I would be wary of claiming too much,” he said. “We were trying to use all the tools that were available to us in order to degrade as much of their capabilities as possible,” a second former official said. “But we just did not have nearly as much game as we should have.” In handoff meetings with Trump, Obama described the gathering threat in stark terms, calling it the most serious proliferation challenge facing the new administration, according to aides familiar with the discussions. The Trump White House has since convened three deputies’ committee meetings on North Korea and ordered a new, top-to-bottom threat assessment. White House officials say that Trump is weighing all options, from a new diplomatic initiative to enhanced military capabilities, possibly including a highly controversial return of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea for the first time since the early 1990s. The administration is dispatching Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to East Asia this week to confer with counterparts in Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. And the White House is defending its decision last week to send antimissile batteries to

South Korea despite vehement opposition from China. The initiatives have failed to calm tensions in the region. As more missiles streak across North Korea’s eastern coast, Japanese and South Korean officials are pledging increased investments in defensive shields and highly accurate, conventionally armed missiles designed to preemptively destroy North Korean launch sites and command centers if an attack seems imminent.

North Korea has responded with similar threats , describing its recent missile launches as a dry run for a preemptive attack on U.S. bases in Japan , the presumed staging ground for forces preparing to come to

South Korea’s aid if war breaks out. In the past, such a strike would be seen as suicidal, as it would certainly result in

a devastating counterattack against North Korea that would probably destroy the regime itself. But Kim is betting that an arsenal of long-range, nuclear-tipped missiles would serve as an effective deterrent, said Cha, the former Bush administration adviser. Military, defense and security at home and abroad. “That’s why they want to be able to reach the continental United States, so they can effectively hold us hostage,” Cha said. “Do we really want to trade Los Angeles for whatever city in North Korea?” Such an attack on the U.S. mainland is not yet within North Korea’s grasp, and U.S. officials hope they

can eventually neutralize the threat with improvements in antimissile systems. But in the meantime, each new advance increases the chance that a small mishap could rapidly escalate into all-out war , Cha said. In a crisis, “everyone is put in a use-it-or-lose-it situation , in which everyone feels he has to go first,” he said. “The growing danger now,” he said, “is miscalculation . ”

Finally, these U.S. made weapons kill civilians in Egypt – the plan is a crucial step in taking responsibility for bad sales Benjamin and Davies 18 (Medea Benjamin, American political activist, received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize, Nicolas J.S. Davies, British journalist and author, 9-26-2018, "In Yemen and Beyond, U.S. Arms Manufacturers Are Abetting Crimes against Humanity", Foreign Policy In Focus, https://fpif.org/in-yemen-and-beyond-u-s-arms-manufacturers-are-abetting-crimes-against-humanity/)

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But the killing and maiming of civilians with U.S.- made weapons in war zones around the world is a n all too regular occurrence . U.S. forces are directly responsible for largely uncounted civilian casualties in all America’s wars, and the United States is also the world’s leading arms exporter. Pope Francis has publicly blamed the “industry of death” for fueling a “piecemeal World War III.” The U.S. military-industrial complex wields precisely the “unwarranted influence” over U.S. foreign policy that President Eisenhower warned Americans against in his farewell address in 1961. The U.S. wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and the “global war on terror” served as cover for a huge increase in U.S. military spending. Between 1998 and 2010, the U.S. spent $1.3 trillion on its wars, but even more, $1.8 trillion, to buy new warplanes, warships, and weapons, most of which were unrelated to the wars it was fighting. Five U.S. companies — Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics — dominate the global arms business, raking in $140 billion in weapons sales in 2017, and export sales make up a growing share of their business, about

$35 billion in 2017. In a new report for Code Pink and the Divest from the War Machine campaign, we have documented how Saudi Arabia,

Israel, and Egypt have systematically used weapons produced by these five U.S. companies to massacre civilians , destroy civilian infrastructure, and commit other war crimes . The bombing of the school bus was only the latest in a consistent pattern of Saudi massacres and air strikes on civilian targets, from hospitals to marketplaces, and U.S. arms sales to Israel and Egypt follow a similar pattern. U.S. laws require the suspension of arms sales to countries that use them in such illegal ways, but the U.S. State Department has an appalling record on enforcing these laws. Under the influence of Acting Assistant Secretary of State Charles Faulkner, a former lobbyist for Raytheon, Secretary Pompeo falsely certified to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are complying with U.S. law in their use of American weapons. The U.S. sells weapons to Saudi Arabia and other allies to project U.S. military power by proxy without the U.S. military casualties, domestic political backlash, and international resistance that result from direct uses of U.S. military force, while U.S. military-industrial interests are well-served by ever-growing arms sales to allied governments. These policies are driven by the very combination of military-industrial interests that Eisenhower warned Americans against, now represented by Secretary Pompeo, Acting Assistant Secretary Faulkner, and a cabal of hawkish Democrats who consistently vote with Republicans on war and peace issues. They ensure that the “war party” always wins its battles in Congress no matter how catastrophically its policies fail in the real world. Republicans derided President Obama’s

doctrine of covert and proxy war as “leading from behind.” But the Trump administration has doubled down on Obama’s failed strategy, surrendering even more power over U.S. policy to foreign clients like

Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt, and to the “unwarranted influence” of the U.S. military-industrial complex. Lockheed Martin is earning $29.1 billion in sales from the $110 billion Saudi arms package announced in May 2017, a deal struck as the war on Yemen was already killing thousands of civilians. Yet no conflict of interest is too glaring for Lockheed executives like Ronald Perrilloux Jr., who has taken part in public events to promote the war and defend Saudi Arabia and its allies, arguing that the U.S. should “help them finish the job” in Yemen. Not to be outdone, Boeing, the second largest arms producer in the U.S. and the world after Lockheed Martin, has also been linked to the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Yemen. Fragments of Boeing JDAM bombs were found in the debris of a 2016 attack on a marketplace near the Yemeni capital of Sana’a that killed 107 civilians, including 25 children. Human Rights Watch found that the airstrike caused predictably indiscriminate and disproportionate civilian deaths, in violation of the laws of war, and called for a suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. To profit from wars on some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world, from Yemen to Gaza to Afghanistan, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics have developed a business model that feeds on war, terrorism, chaos, political instability, human rights violations, disregard for international law, and the triumph of militarism over diplomacy. Real diplomacy to bring peace and disarmament to our war-torn world poses the most serious “threat” to their profits. But the American people have never voted to funnel the largest share of our taxes into endless war and

ever-growing profits for the “industry of death.” It is time for the sleeping giant, what President Eisenhower called “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry,” to wake from its slumber , take responsibility for our country’s foreign policies and act decisively for peace .

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Extensions

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Ext-Terrorism FMF causes terrorism, we should cut itJonathan Helton, a research assistant with John E. Talbott & Associates, a law firm in Henderson, Tennessee., 8-19-2019, "Military Aid: Financing Foreign Conflict," Strategy Bridge, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2019/8/19/military-aid-financing-foreign-conflict

Finally, if the U.S. cannot leverage aid to achieve its goals, it should consider ceas ing it. F oreign M ilitary F inancing has tangible negatives — reduced cooperation and increased transnational terrorism . These negatives can be avoided via aid cuts . The U.S. should not be afraid to end aid to certain countries, even with the risk that one of its rivals would gain a foothold. Just because aid recipients might hold reverse leverage does not mean the U.S. has none of its own. Such a cut would likely be net beneficial to an at-risk recipient.

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Ext-Corruption FMF is prone to corruptionJohn Hurley, 5-30-2017, "Foreign Military Financing Program Loans: The Good, the Bad, and the Potentially Very Ugly," Center For Global Development, https://www.cgdev.org/blog/foreign-military-financing-program-loans-good-bad-and-potentially-very-ugly

There is a frightening lack of transparency to the FMF sales program that leaves it vulnerable to corruption —a not-insignificant risk, as demonstrated by past activities in the Department of Defense procurement

process. There does not seem to be a transparent, accountable process for determining the terms of the loans, much less how the grants are applied. Moreover, based on statements by OMB Director

Mulvaney at the May 22 budget briefing, there does not seem to be a n agreed methodology for determining which countries would continue to receive grants and which would receive loan s.

And finally, the fact that the US Treasury Department database on foreign credit exposure does not reflect the 2016 Iraq loan raises doubts that the lending program will be subject to the oversight and public financial management best practices that the U nited S tates encourages other governments to adopt.

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Corruption Mpx--Democracy

Corruptions crushing democracy nowTransparency International 17 April 2013 (Official international organization for screening corruption on a global scale, Transperencia Venezuela, “CITIZEN ELECTION NETWORK REPORTS ON IRREGULARITIES DURING VENEZUELA’S ELECTION”) http://www.transparency.org/news/pressrelease/citizen_election_network_reports_on_irregularities_during_venezuelas_electi

On Tuesday April 16th, representatives of the organizations which are members of the Citizen Election Network delivered to the National Electoral Commission (NEC) a document highlighting the most significant reports they had received through the reporting mechanisms set up for the presidential elections held on April 14th.¶ The document prepared by Transparencia Venezuela, Espacio Público (Public Space), Voto Joven (Youth Vote), Venezuela Inteligente, Vision Democrática and the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press and Society Institute – Ipys) requests the NEC to initiate an investigation of these reports, in order to establish their veracity and to determine any civil, penal or administrative consequences which may arise due to viol ations of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Organic Law of Electoral Processes, the Law Against Corruption and the Penal Code.¶ These civil society organizations also asked the President of the Electoral Commission, Tibisay Lucena, for a meeting in order to deliver the information in detail, which includes witness testimonies, graphic and audiovisual material.¶ THE REPORTS¶ Among the 1029 reports received , the 52 cases of unjustified voting assistance stand out , in particular in the municipality of Mara in Zulia state. At this location, citizens observed that numerous voters were forcibly accompanied during the act of voting, without having requested this assistance.¶ The document also notes that there were 184 reports of intimidation or threats , highlighting the presence of so-called “Red Spots” (Puntos Rojos) around which individuals identifying with one of the presidential candidates would gather while displaying intimidating behaviour towards voters at nearby voting centres.¶ The Citizen Election Network also received 63 reports of physical violence . This category includes the presence of individuals riding motor vehicles in the surroundings of the voting centres and attacking voters.¶ One of the most widely reported type of incidents was regarding the abuse of power and the use of public resources, with a total of 288 reports. The case of the Mayor of Maturin, Jose Vicente Maicavares, stands out in this category, as he allegedly drove through the town in vehicles belonging to the municipality calling on citizens to vote for one of the candidates.¶ Finally, the Network also received reports on lack of compliance with electoral regulations, which are gathered under the category “Irresponsibility of the National Electoral Commission”, with a total of 393 reports including the closing of voting centres before the official closing time while voters were still queuing, delays in opening voting centres and the existence of non-official voting centres.

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Corruption Mpx--Poverty

Corruption causes povertyTransparency International, 2012, (Transparency International, “POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT”, 4/27/2012, http://www.transparency.org/topic/detail/poverty_and_development)

Year after year, it’s the same. Our Global Corruption Barometer confirms that corruption hits poor people hardest – with devastating consequences. A bribe demanded by a police officer may mean that a family

can’t afford school fees or even food to eat. Findings from Mexico , for instance, show that the typical poor family must spend one-third of their income on bribes . Corruption also means that the services people depend on – from drinking water to health clinics – suffer . They are often are of a low quality or not

sufficient to meet society’s most basic needs. Corruption siphons off monies needed to improve them while also distorting policy decisions, such as where roads and schools are built . The 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals to halve poverty is approaching. But targets might not be met. If not, corruption in governments, business and regulators will have been a leading cause. The solution?

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Corruption Mpx—Political Instability

Corruption is directly correlated with political instabilityTuason, 04, (PhD Thesis, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, “Corruption - a threat to political stability? : The Philippines, a case study”, 2004, http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:106894)

The thesis analyses the association between corruption and political stability using the Philippines as a

case study during the time of the Marcos regime. Research on corruption has shown that die direct consequences of corruption are felt on the economy, society and polity. There is both theoretical and empirical evidence to suggest that corruption causes economic development and growth to falter by promoting a climate which is not conducive to investment both foreign and domestic, by increasing

bureaucratic requirements and by decreasing market competitiveness. The literature also maintains that indirectly and mainly through economic stagnation corruption results in social ills, such as, poverty, illiteracy and an increase in income inequality gaps. Politically, corruption analysts have only tentatively discussed links between corruption and political instability and done so by primarily using intervening variables such as loss of governmental legitimacy . Hence, there appears to be a gap in the literature regarding theoretical discussion and empirical evidence concerning the effects of corruption on the polity and particularly concerning political stability in terms of regime stability. The thesis explores these two facets of an under-theorised area

and the lack of evidence regarding interaction between corruption and political stability and posits that corruption directly caused political instability in the Philippines under the Marcos regime. Political instability in the thesis is defined in terms of a dramaturgical event constituting an extra-constitutional executive ouster . Using both primary and secondary sources and a comparative historical narrative approach the researcher explores three different corruption types existing under Marcos, crony capitalism, military favouritism and electoral manipulation and demonstrates how

these types of corruption caused regime instability. Both primary sources such as reports, surveys and interviews and secondary sources were used to support the argument and eliminate rival hypotheses. Primary sources comprised interviews, a questionnaire survey, two Work Shops and an examination of documents, and official records. Secondary sources analysed were in the form of books, journal and magazine articles and newspaper reports. Case study methodology was chosen as die route to

highlight the contextual complexities of corruption and political stability in the era under examination. Corruption in the

Philippines under Marcos maintained a unique role interrelated to structures and institutions embedded in the system of governments. The researcher believes that corruption is enmeshed in a country's political economy, its structures and institutions and that in order to fully understand the complexities and subtleties of corruption it must be seen within its own milieu and how it is entrenched within state systems. The route chosen to prove causal relationship in the thesis was through the elimination of rival hypotheses or proof of non-spuriousness. Three theories of causes of political instability

economic stagnation, military repression and lack of electoral freedom were refuted using empirical evidence. Although corruption was not the only remaining variable which could have produced political instability, it was shown in the thesis to be a substantial causal variable. The thesis demonstrates how counterelites disenfranchised, marginalised and unable to participate in spoils due to cronyism, military favouritism and electoral fraud fought back as vehicles of regime change in a so-called People Power Movement to oust the corrupt dictator. The thesis finds that the relationship between processes of political instability as in regime change and corruption are mutually reinforcing and that in the

case of the Philippines, due to excessive presidential corruption in an authoritarian environment, economic, military and political counterelites united in opposition, mobilized and overthrew a corrupt regime, its leader and supporters.

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Failed States Impacts Failed states thesis matches empirical realities and understanding the impact of failed states is key to policymaking.Newman 9 EDWARD NEWMAN, Senior Lecturer in International Relations and former Deputy Head of the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. He is also an International Associate at the Center for Peace and Human Security, Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. Newman was previously Director of Studies on Conflict and Security in the Peace and Governance Programme of the United Nations University in Tokyo.[1] He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Civil Wars, “Failed States and International Order: Constructing a Post-Westphalian World,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.30, No.3 (December 2009), pp.421–443

This suggests that international conflict and security in the 21st century – in terms¶ of empirical patterns, and how these are studied and addressed in policy terms –¶ reflect a broader transformation to a post-Westphalian world. This is conceived of¶ as a world where notions of inviolable and equal state

sovereignty – never actually¶ a reality but often respected as a norm – are breaking down; where states are no¶ longer the sole or even the most important actors in many areas of international¶ politics; where states cannot be assumed to be viable or

autonomous agents; where¶ insecurity and conflict is primarily characterized by civil war, insurgency and state¶ failure, rather than inter-state war; where the distinction between domestic and¶ international politics is irreversibly blurred in terms of causes and impacts; where¶ the nature of, and responses to, security challenges hold implications for norms of¶ state sovereignty and territorial integrity; and where solidarist norms related to¶ governance and human rights are slowly – and selectively – transcending absolute¶ norms of sovereignty and non-interference.

Failed states key to terrorismPiazza 08 (James A. Piazza is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Penn State University, Ph.D., New York University. “Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism?” Published Aug 7, 2008. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2008.00511.x/full#b17)

But Hehir (2007) argues that this is only one possible dimension of state failure. In addition to “coercive

incapacity,” failed states suffer from “administrative incapacity,” which involves a failure to provide the basic services that most citizens expect from modern governments, such as a minimal level of personal security, economic stability, and functioning bureaucratic and judicial institutions .

Rotberg (2002) explains that failed states are unable to provide “political goods,” and describes a pattern of distinguishing features that failed states exhibit: government failure to maintain the essential wellbeing of their populations and/or governments that have begun to “prey upon their own citizens” through kleptocracy; a sustained degradation of the infrastructure necessary for citizens to maintain a “normal” life, resulting in substantial humanitarian crises and/or migration; widespread lawlessness to the point that criminal groups act with impunity or rival the authority of government actors; and a transference of some or many citizens’ loyalties to non-state actors in many parts of the country. First, because they lack the ability to project power internally and have incompetent and corrupt law enforcement capacities, failed and failing states provide opportunities, and lower costs, for terrorist groups to organize, train, generate revenue, and set up logistics and communications beyond those afforded by the network of

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safe houses in non-failed states.1 Terrorist groups can therefore develop their own capabilities with little governmental interference or scrutiny. This phenomenon is also referred to as the exploitation of “stateless areas,” or the use of actual, spatial regions of a country that are beyond the policing control of the central government and within which non-state actors can set up autonomous political, economic, and social institutions, or the segments of the polity of a country that are impenetrable by state power and provide networks of resistance to state authority. An example of the former would be the southern region of Afghanistan where the Taliban is active, and an example of

the latter would be the system of radical “madrassas” or religious schools in Pakistan. The presence of stateless areas within states frees-up group resources otherwise allocated towards evading government agents and permit more extensive and aggressive fundraising, recruitment, and training efforts. Those groups with ambitions to launch transnational attacks, in particular have more extensive logistical and training needs and therefore need autonomous space without the costs of evading law enforcement.

Failed states cause multiple scenarios for extinctionMyers and Choi 6- Young-Jin Choi is the permanent representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations, and Joanne Myers is Director of the Carnegie Council's Public Affairs Programs, “Terrorism, Failed States, and Enlightened National Interest”, 12/12/2006,

The question arises now: Can we turn a blind eye to those failed states? The interdependence works both ways. It works between strong nations through means of trade, but also it works between strong and weak nations, the have's and have-not's. It works both

ways. In other words, if we do not tend to them, they will come to us. The failed states, if unattended, will become hotbeds of international terrorism, nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation, communicable diseases, and overpopulation—all the transnational problems. And those problems do not recognize borders. They will come to us in the end. We cannot turn a blind eye to those failed states for our own interests, not for theirs. Not the traditional war and peace problem, but these transnational issues will become our major concern in the future, the 21st century. So the question is how to deal with them. Are we prepared to deal with newly emerging transnational issues? If you remember the headlines of newspapers for the last two decades, there is hardly any mention about traditional war and peace problems. No major wars broke out among nations. But the headlines are filled with transnational problems: failed states, international terrorism, and proliferation of nuclear weapons. So transnational issues will preoccupy human beings for the foreseeable future and we have to find a way to deal with them in the 21st century. In dealing with the transnational issues, there is

one thing that is absolutely clear. That is, no nation, however powerful, can win the war against international terrorism alone; no nation, however determined, can prevent nuclear proliferation alone; no nation, however advanced scientifically, can avert the outbreak of communicable diseases alone; and no nation, however isolated geographically, can prevent the global warming alone or other environmental degradation . So we have to work together. We are bound to work together. There is no other way out. The problem is we do not take into account this dramatically changed new international order or the environment of the 21st century. In the current situation, how nations deal with those important traditional issues is really discouraging. We are

divided through the fault-line of have's and have-not's—in a way, the North/South divide. This divide is the self-defeating dynamic of all the transnational issues. For example, on nuclear proliferation, the have's want to focus only on nonproliferation. On the other hand, the have-not's want to focus only on disarmament. The upshot is that for the last five years there has been not a single agreement in the international affairs in terms of disarmament or nonproliferation. The disarmament conferences in Geneva stopped working for the last five years. In 2005 the Nonproliferation Review Committee produced not even a single

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sentence that was agreed upon. Nothing works on this front. The same with all the other transnational issues. The North/South divide seems increasingly to replace the East/West divide of the Cold War period, and this will be the dominant dynamic of the 21st century governing international relations—North/South divide, have's and have-not's—this is the serious situation we are facing

now. Within this North/South divide, each nation is resorting to traditional national interests. But suppose that within this shrunken global village each nation seeks to prevail on their own national interests. What will happen to our planet? It will become uninhabitable. Each country wants to have nuclear weapons. Each country does not care what happens with global warming . Each country does not care what happens with overpopulation and communicable diseases . So national interest does not work anymore. It works only in an open world, when we had unknown territories to expand, to conquer, and to explore. But in this closed world of a global village, a small village, national interest does not work. We have a precedent. With the advent of industrialization in the 18th century, people didn't care about other people. Children under the age of four who were not rich had to work in factories. The scavengers, the piecers, are the names we still remember. Four-year-old children were scavengers, were

piecers, in the factories. And women were not an exception. But as citizens within a nation or national border became interdependent, more and more closely knit, they began to realize that they are truly interdependent. Whenever these bad things are happening to other people, one cannot truly prosper, one cannot be truly happy. That is why industrialized countries began to discover the value of enlightened self-interest. We pay a high rate of taxes in the name of enlightened self-interest. We take care of those failing or failed citizens inside our borders. The ill, the poor, the old, children, the unemployed or unemployable, we take care of them. There is an element of altruism, but also basically we are doing it for our own interest. So it is self-interest which saved us from this difficult situation. This is the analogy we have to introduce to international relations now, because in a closed world nations have become interdependent, the same way that citizens have become interdependent inside a border. No nation can be truly happy, secure, or stable when there are many failed states out there. This is not because we want to be altruistic, but this is because we want to ensure more fully our own national interest. So, in a way, enlightened national interest is a better form of national self-interest, and this is the way we have to go. Some may say that this is ethics, this is altruism, and by definition is against national interest. No. Enlightened national interest encompasses traditional national interest and wants to do more than the national interest. So those terms are not in opposition, but enlightened national interest is encompassing the national interest. This is the larger concept which will better ensure our survival in this interdependent world. But again, the situation is not encouraging. During the Cold War period, all the developed countries tried to reach the target of 0.7 percent of ODA, Official Development Assistance. Many countries were approaching that target. But, after the demise of the Cold War, what we are witnessing is that instead of moving toward that target, countries are back-stepping from that target. So most countries contribute less than they did in terms of assisting failed states. This is another discouraging sign. This is a sign that we have not fully taken into account the dramatic change, the historic paradigm shift, from raid to trade. This is a very serious matter we have to take into account somehow.

The major transnational issues are really, really serious. The problem these transnational issues are posing is that, for the first time in history, they are irreversible. Global warming, once it happens, cannot be turned back. Nuclear apocalypse, once it happens, cannot be undone . This is a new situation in our history. It never happened in the past. Any wars of conquest, expansion, massacre, could be healed. Not global warming, not nuclear apocalypse.

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AT-Interoperability

Arms sales don’t cause interoperability, foreign militaries limit accessAndrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky, Miller is a former director for Egypt on the National Security Council and current deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sokolsky is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the State Department for 37 years and was a member of the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015, 2-27-2018, "What Has $49 Billion in Foreign Military Aid Bought Us? Not Much," American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-has-49-billion-in-foreign-military-aid-bought-us-not-much/

U.S. officials have excellent access in Middle Eastern capitals, but it is hard to attribute this to military assistance and arms sales. The United States remains a predominant international player and most countries do not have the luxury of

ignoring Washington for long. Pentagon officials argue that the provision of material support increases their contacts with foreign militaries, creating opportunities to learn more about partner armed forces. In practice, however, recipient countries take great precautions to limit and regulate U.S. access to their troops. As an example, most Egyptian military personnel are prohibited from interacting with U.S. officials, while a small core of vetted senior officers are entrusted with managing Egypt’s military relationship with the United States.

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AT-DIB/Economy Other engines are net better for the economyAndrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky, Miller is a former director for Egypt on the National Security Council and current deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sokolsky is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the State Department for 37 years and was a member of the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015, 2-27-2018, "What Has $49 Billion in Foreign Military Aid Bought Us? Not Much," American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-has-49-billion-in-foreign-military-aid-bought-us-not-much/

Under existing conditions, U.S. interests and taxpayers are not the primary beneficiaries of military assistance and arms sales. Instead, it is U.S. defense contractors and regional militaries that often prioritize domestic political influence over operational capabilities. In recent years, the U.S. arms industry has registered record profits, a pattern likely to continue given President Trump’s initiative to expedite government approval of weapons sales. Indeed, the State Department cleared a record number of arms sales in Fiscal Year 2017 ($75.9 billion).

While champions of the U.S. arms industry defend it as an engine of job growth, economists have found that investments in other industries are more efficient job generators.

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Country Scenario—Egypt

Egypt is an example of FMF being badJonathan Helton, a research assistant with John E. Talbott & Associates, a law firm in Henderson, Tennessee., 8-19-2019, "Military Aid: Financing Foreign Conflict," Strategy Bridge, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2019/8/19/military-aid-financing-foreign-conflict

Consider the case of Egypt. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing yearly, but the U.S. receives belligerence in return.[10] The Government Accountability Office documented that Egypt’s compliance with State Department monitoring has been, “incomplete and slow” for certain pieces of equipment.[11]

This limits America’s ability to determine whether Egypt is using the equipment in compliance with end-user requirements and if the underlying goals of providing Foreign Military Financing to Egypt—regional stability and counterterrorism—are being met.[12] Unfortunately, some of Egypt’s internal policies directly contradict these goals. Their harsh treatment of political prisoners can lead to radicalization, further damaging American foreign policy and the objectives of Foreign Military Financing. As Middle East

scholar Elliot Abrams stated, “If you take thousands of young men, toss them into prison, beat and torture them, incarcerate them for lengthy periods with actual jihadis, what comes out at the end of the process is in fact more jihadis.”[13] Policies that create more terrorism are hardly in line with U.S. objectives.

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Country Example—Philippines

The US funds homicidesNoah Alexander Flora, journalist and summer 2018 digital media intern with The Progressive., 8-9-2018, "The U.S. is Funding a War on Poor People in the Philippines," Progressive.org, https://progressive.org/dispatches/the-us-is-funding-a-war-on-poor-people-in-the-philippines-180809/

As a key U.S. military ally and former territory, the Philippines have long received substantial financial and institutional support through U.S. foreign aid. The State Department allocated $50 million in foreign military financing and $5.3 million for narcotics control and law enforcement to the Philippines for the 2018 fiscal

year. This puts the Philippines behind only Israel and Egypt among recipients of U.S. military funding outside the Western hemisphere.

Since 2016, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has been waging a war on drug trafficking and even drug users, calling for their execution. This war is being carried out by the Philippine National Police, who have become the object of international censure for the extraordinarily high number of extrajudicial killings they have committed.

Numbers vary widely depending on the source, but by the police’s own count, at least 3,967 “drug personalities” had been killed by

the end of 2017, in the first two years of Duterte’s presidency. The police also count 16,355 unsolved drug-related “homicides,” suggesting that the actual death toll could be more than 20,000 people.

When asked to account for the killings, the police routinely offer the same justification they used against the NutriAsia workers: that it was those on the other side of the gun who incited violence first.

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Reform Solvency Advocate

Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky, Miller is a former director for Egypt on the National Security Council and current deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sokolsky is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the State Department for 37 years and was a member of the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015, 2-27-2018, "What Has $49 Billion in Foreign Military Aid Bought Us? Not Much," American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-has-49-billion-in-foreign-military-aid-bought-us-not-much/

U.S. military assistance in the Middle East (and more broadly) is in need of serious reform. Here are four major innovations to help fix it:

Before allocating security assistance, recipients should first have to demonstrate their commitment to a set of norms, standards, and rules of good security-sector governance.

The State Department and Congress should create new mechanisms to rigorously assess, monitor, and evaluate security assistance against performance benchmarks that are linked to U.S. foreign policy objectives.

The sale of weapons should be linked to new training commitments that the host country would have to fulfill in advance before taking delivery of the weapons and equipment.

To demonstrate its commitment to performance and results, all contracts for the supply of weapons and training should include “sunset” provisions based on mutually agreed upon performance milestones.

Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky, Miller is a former director for Egypt on the National Security Council and current deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sokolsky is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the State Department for 37 years and was a member of the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015, 2-27-2018, "What Has $49 Billion in Foreign Military Aid Bought Us? Not Much," American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-has-49-billion-in-foreign-military-aid-bought-us-not-much/

Most in the American defense establishment would agree in principle that introducing more accountability for U.S. military assistance and arms sales is a worthy goal. But they would also express concern that the measures we recommend would prompt Middle Eastern countries to

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turn to Russia or China for easier terms. However, for many of our security partners, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt, integrating Russian and Chinese weapons into their force structure would create serious operational and logistical problems. Moreover, neither Moscow nor Beijing offers grant assistance, which means they are not viable substitutes for countries that depend on U.S. financial help to buy equipment. Even for countries that use their own money, their strong preference for U.S. equipment, which they view as both superior to the alternatives and a sign of American support, suggests they would be willing to submit to more rigorous oversight if that is the price of obtaining American weapons.

U.S. military assistance in the Middle East could magnify our influence and help build local military forces that reduce the burden on U.S. forces. Unfortunately, billions in American taxpayer money have been spent for unclear purposes without sufficient oversight. By learning from past mistakes and implementing our recommended reforms, the U.S. government can begin to break this cycle of waste and missed opportunities.

FMF needs to be regulatedJohn Hurley, 5-30-2017, "Foreign Military Financing Program Loans: The Good, the Bad, and the Potentially Very Ugly," Center For Global Development, https://www.cgdev.org/blog/foreign-military-financing-program-loans-good-bad-and-potentially-very-ugly

As mentioned above, the United States has had to write off a considerable amount of debt over the years following debt treatments negotiated at the Paris Club . These debt reduction agreements cover a

number of countries that have recently benefited from the FMF program, such as Liberia, Egypt, Pakistan, and Iraq. There is a considerable risk that US lending activity, if not well managed in accordance with recently endorsed G20 operational guidelines for sustainable financing , will push these countries toward the brink of another series of debt crises.

Members of the US Congress would be well advised to take a closer look at the FMF program as it transitions from grants to loans. Questions they may want to pose include:

Why should some countries that can afford loans be given grants, and others that struggle with debt sustainability be required to take loans?

Is there a transparent and accountable methodology for determining the terms of the loans?

Is the US government consulting with the IMF and World Bank on the terms of loans to developing countries?

Taking a transparent, disciplined approach to FMF loans can help mitigate the risk of needing to provide debt relief in future years, which would cost considerably more money for American taxpayers than would be saved in the early years of a lending program.

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AT-Your Ev Says Security Assistance Security assistance and FMF are functionally the same thingSusan B. Epstein and Liana W. Rosen, Specialists in Foreign Policy, International Crime and Narcotics for the Congressional Research Service, 02-01-2018, “U.S. Security Assistance and Security Cooperation Programs: Overview of Funding Trends,” Congressional Research Service, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45091.pdf

Discussion of military and related assistance to foreign countries is sometimes hindered by a lack of a standard terminology.9 The following terms are frequently used to describe assistance to foreign governments, security services, and militaries: Security Assistance (Title 22). Although not defined in Title 22 of U.S. Code, the term security assistance is commonly used to refer to the six budget accounts for which the State Department requests international security assistance appropriations and whose underlying authorities reside in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA, P.L. 87-195) and Arms Export Control Act in 1976 (AECA, P.L. 90-629), as amended. 10

Arms sales do not solve the root issue of weak middle eastern militariesBilal Y. Saab, 2-22-2018, "What Does America Get for Its Military Aid?," National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-does-america-get-its-military-aid-24605

As fundamental as the issue of (lack of) policy is, it is not the only one undermining security assistance. Security assistance hasn’t adjusted to the new U.S. priorities in the Middle East. Also, many of the United States’ laws and procedures are old—the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Arms Export Control Act of 1976 still govern the security-assistance process—and need to be updated. Its focus seems to be misplaced, too. Born in the Cold War and designed to

address conventional threats, U.S. security assistance is still focused on and better suited to deal with external defense rather than a holistic process of security, from intelligence to intervention, and from arrest to rehabilitation. The emphasis on external defense is not necessarily a big problem when it comes to U.S. allies that are stable democracies, with few worries about terrorist armies and insurgencies. But in the case of Arab partners, none of which is a true democracy, one would reason that their chief threats emanate from within.

Even if a coherent policy does exist, which is rare, let’s be perfectly honest: security assistance to politically fragile and militarily weak Arab partners requires a great deal of hard work over a long period of time. It is far easier to transfer a weapons system to Arab partners than it is to commit to helping them build full-spectrum military capabilities, a process that includes education on

how to effectively use, maintain and deploy the weapons system in service of a national defense strategy. Arms, no matter how powerful, should not be equated with military capabilities . Indeed, buying a Ferrari will not

automatically enhance the owner’s driving skills. There is abundant evidence from the Middle East of U.S. military equipment rusting on tarmacs and in deserts, barely used, stolen or prematurely retired. It is true that Arab militaries have gotten better at handling and servicing imported U.S. arms, but the adage that “Arabs don’t do maintenance” has not entirely lost its credibility.

The process of military education and training on doctrine, strategy, policy, organization and leadership also has a political dimension. Enhancing the effectiveness of law-enforcement and security agencies in authoritarian Arab governments often requires political reengineering, as well as institutional and legal capacity building, which Washington is not good at and decreasingly interested in doing (so as to avoid even the perception of nation building). It is one thing to help an Arab country train and equip its

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coast guard, for example, but it is another altogether to help that government create legal systems and authorities that are necessary for that military service’s role and jurisdictions.

Personnel is another handicap in the U.S. government when it comes to security assistance for Arab partners. There simply are not enough Arab country specialists in Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon who also have experience in the process of U.S. security assistance. DOS could use more “warrior diplomats” who understand security and the use of force, while DOD could use more “diplomat generals” who are familiar with foreign cultures and history. This is particularly important with regard to U.S. security assistance, because there are cultural and historical reasons, not just competence-related reasons, why security integration with the

United States, among and even within the Arab states has not worked well. To make matters worse, a systematic debriefing/lessons-learned process to collect and analyze the experiences of officers when they complete their Middle East assignments does not exist. Such officers tend to “move on to the next assignment” and just disappear into “the system,” along with the things they have learned. Fiscal year 2017’s NDAA mandates a professionalization of the security-cooperation workforce, including developing career paths, but if that’s not treated as a priority to which resources would be allocated, it simply won’t happen.

Top recipients of security assistance from the united states are guilty of terrorism, genocide, and corruptionStephen D. Biddle, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, Fall 2017, "Building Security Forces & Stabilizing Nations: The Problem of Agency," American Academy of Arts & Sciences, https://www.amacad.org/publication/building-security-forces-stabilizing-nations-problem-agency

*PA Denotes a reference to principal-agent theory

Security force assistance is a classic PA problem. In SFA, the United States is the principal, the ally receiving the aid is the agent, and the principal’s aim is to meet a threat to American security more cheaply than by sending a large U.S. ground force to do the job directly. As with any other PA problem, SFA is thus subject to agency loss as a consequence of interest asymmetry, information asymmetry, and moral hazard; unfortunately, the particular circumstances of SFA promote agency losses that are much larger than

many SFA advocates expect. Large interest asymmetries, for example, are ubiquitous in U.S. SFA. Of course, no two states ever have identical interests. This is true even for close allies like the United States and Great Britain: during World War II, divergent U.S. and British interests led to tension over the priority placed on campaigns in Southern Europe and North Africa, for example, where British postwar geopolitical and colonial interests conflicted with America’s.4 U.S. SFA, moreover, is rarely

provided to allies as close as Britain. The top fifteen recipients of U.S. SFA between 1980 and 2009 have included Pakistan, which provides safe haven for Al Qaeda’s global headquarters and for Taliban militants who have killed thousands of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; Sudan, which has been accused of widespread ethnic cleansing against its non-Arab minority; four of the top seven state sources of foreign fighters for ISIL; and Afghanistan, which ranks fourth on Transparency International’s list of the world’s most corrupt states (placing behind only Somalia, a top-

twenty-five recipient of U.S. SFA, Sudan, a top-fifteen recipient, and North Korea).5 In fact, this is a systematic phenomenon. If we use UN voting patterns as a proxy for interest alignment, then there is a statistically significant negative correlation between U.S.-partner interest alignment and U.S. SFA provision: the closer the interest alignment, the less likely the United States is to provide military aid.6 We see a similar relationship if we consider corruption: a state’s rank on the Transparency International list of most corrupt states correlates directly with its rank on the list of U.S. SFA recipients, with an ability to reject the null hypothesis of no relationship at the 0.1 level.7

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Security assistance from the united states increases regime instabilityStephen D. Biddle, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, Fall 2017, "Building Security Forces & Stabilizing Nations: The Problem of Agency," American Academy of Arts & Sciences, https://www.amacad.org/publication/building-security-forces-stabilizing-nations-problem-agency

This relationship is not an accident. The United States rarely gives SFA to Switzerland or Canada because they do not need it; the states that need it are rarely governed as effectively as Switzerland or Canada.8 And the governance problems that give rise to the U.S. interest in SFA often simultaneously promote interest divergence between the United States and its partner.

Regional instability, terrorist infrastructure, and humanitarian crises – the kinds of real-but-limited threats to U.S. interests that SFA is often meant to address – are strongly associated with weak states and corrupt, unrepresentative, clientelist regimes. In such states, political order often requires what Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast have called a “double balance,” wherein the distribution of economic spoils matches the distribution of power among potentially violent elites.9 Regimes that allow the internal balance of power to misalign with the balance of rents risk violent overthrow, and in such systems, the threat of violence from armed elites within the state apparatus often exceeds the real threat from foreign enemies, international terrorists, or antigovernment insurgents. Rational leaders of such states thus cannot treat their militaries as disinterested defenders of the state against foreign enemies; the armed forces are natural rivals and potential threats. Order under such conditions thus requires regimes to undertake some mixture of appeasement, mutual implication, and enfeeblement toward their own militaries. Appeasement strategies buy off potential rivals with economic spoils proportional to the rivals’ real power; for armed forces with ready access to violence, this can create an officer class accustomed to economic privilege as the price of obedience, with little incentive to pursue disinterested expertise. Mutual implication encourages loyalty by implicating officers in criminal or unethical regime behavior, tying officers’ fate to the regime’s. Enfeeblement shifts the internal balance of power by deliberately weakening armed forces’ ability to seize power or intimidate rivals. For example, many such regimes create multiple, overlapping lines of military command, discourage lateral communication among officers, create redundant security organizations, and replace foreign-trained military technocrats with reliable political loyalists.10 Foreign military aid (such as U.S. SFA) is often welcome in such settings (especially when it takes the form of financial transfers or gifts of equipment), but not for the purposes the providers often assume; instead, regimes typically see such aid as a form of largesse, an additional source of benefits to be distributed to buy political loyalty.11 More broadly, under the conditions common among U.S. SFA recipients, the regime’s interests are typically focused less on external enemies than on internal threats from rival elites, and especially the state military itself, which is often seen as a threat at least equal to that of foreign enemies.

By contrast, U.S. interests in such states typically focus on external threats, and especially transnational terrorists or aspiring regional hegemons.12 U.S. SFA is commonly intended to strengthen partner militaries’ ability to meet these ostensibly common threats by improving

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the partners’ military proficiency. But whereas Americans often assume that these external dangers threaten the partner as well as the United States, and that strengthening the partner military will therefore serve both parties’ interests, this is often mistaken. In fact, the kind of powerful, politically independent, technically proficient, noncorrupt military the United States seeks is often seen by the partner state as a far greater threat to their self-interest than foreign invasion or terrorist infiltration. Increased military capability destabilizes the internal balance of power; diminished cronyism and corruption weakens the regime’s ability to control the empowered officers. The result is a commonplace and major divergence in U.S. and partner interests that derives from the very issues that created the demand for U.S. SFA in the first place.

Arms sales have been used to fetishize alliances, which only increase the risk of security threats against the United States. Terminating alliances is the only way to increase US moral credibility and power projection.Patrick Porter, professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham, 04-16-2019, “Advice for a Dark Age: Managing Great Power Competition,” The Washington Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2019.1590079

Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, Trump has materially increased American alliance commitments. U.S. troop deployments and investment in NATO have risen, troop deployments to the Middle East and arms sales to Gulf States have risen, and the frequency of

FONOPS in Asia has risen. If the United States maintains its alliances and refuses to revise that choice, then it must rediscover what its alliances are for. They are not “ends” in themselves, but means to an end,

namely protecting American security interests. To make alliances serve that purpose, however, Washington should exert some discipline on its allies. This is so especially in the Middle East, where U.S. clients too often act in ways that infringe on U.S. security interests. Only recently, it was revealed that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates transferred U.S.-supplied weapons to Sunni jihadi groups with Al Qaeda links in Yemen, adding to a long record of Saudi sponsorship of anti-Semitism in schools and jihadist preaching, as well as passive support for Islamist causes and organizations. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence’s ties with the Taliban and the Haqqani network are well known, admittedly a difficulty Washington has been wrestling with for decades. Cultivated as a bulwark of

stability in Central Asia, Kazakstan has embarrassed Washington with its human rights violations while pursuing defense cooperation with Moscow. To make alliances work for its interests, the United States should restore what used to be part of its repertoire as a great power —the imposition of

conditions on its protection, and the credible threat of abandonment. In other words, contrary to the standard orthodoxy often invoked by Trump’s critics, a critical ingredient in an effective patron-client relationship is the cultivation of a reputation for limited reliability, if not unreliability. Thus, the United States should make clear that it is willing to walk away and that its alliance commitments are conditional on its ally’s prudent behavior. In a world of worsening rivalries, the U.S. ability to control escalation and limit inadvertent spirals depends partly on its capacity to restrain third parties and keep its

initiative. To make this threat credible, it may require the United States occasionally to terminate an alliance relationship. There are fine lines to be walked here. The United States has alliances for the most basic purpose of augmenting its power, its reach and the totality of its presence. From this perspective, it is in Washington’s interests to have militarily proficient friends. But its alliances have other rationales that cut against that simple desire. Another central historical purpose of American alliances in the postwar period is to contain its allies. By providing security, Washington in theory removes

incentives for its allies to rearm and reassert themselves as challengers. This imperative, to depress allies’ defense expenditure, requires in turn that Washington must establish a reputation for being a reliable

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security provider. Failure to maintain that baseline of confidence could lead the client to pursue belligerent self-help, or even other allies in lieu of the United States. Yet, establishing a reputation for reliable security provision can and does have a perverse result—it creates a moral hazard. Allies’ confidence in American backing can embolden them to behave recklessly in ways that Washington dislikes. Conversely, the dependency Washington forms on the alliance, as an indispensable platform for its power projection, creates reverse leverage, making Washington reluctant to attempt to impose itself with threats of abandonment or even public criticism.33 Some allied states have tested the possibilities of this relationship with a spirit of adventure, tolerating or encouraging militant Islamist activity, suppressing peaceful protests, committing human rights violations, locking up citizens of allied countries in humiliating and brazen fashion, and threatening or carrying out military campaigns against Washington’s wishes with strategically corrosive results, such as the present onslaught in Yemen. Even the most outspoken supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance will admit that U.S. guarantees have not restrained Tel Aviv from settlement expansion. As Asia becomes more competitive, a rearming Japan could also start to test alliance boundaries, either because of lost faith in American security guarantees or because it takes them for granted. In Eastern Europe, the cast-iron guarantee built into NATO could lead states to miscalculate and behave recklessly against Russian minorities in their own territory, quickly fomenting a cross-border crisis. There is a difficult balancing act to be struck here, if the United States chooses to maintain allies to increase its material strength

while containing those same allies. The threat of abandonment, or withdrawal of patronage, was once a greater part of U.S. diplomatic repertoire behind the scenes.34 The United States explicitly threatened West Germany, South Korea and Taiwan in order to prevent nuclear proliferation, for instance. It seems to have receded to an extent,

after the Cold War, when the sense weakened of the need to keep allies in line coercively. Trump’s public humiliation of and threats to allies, usually followed swiftly by increased U.S. commitment, are probably too hollow and less effective in the long run than the quiet threats made by past administrations. Certainly, the United States has an interest in preventing allies being complacent about American guarantees, or worse, of the

United States being so anxious about losing access and influence that it dare not exercise it. One of the superpower’s greatest advantages is its ability to leave. This is a possibility it should deftly exploit. Against traditional orthodoxies about “global leadership,” the overall U.S. position would benefit from the possibility that Washington might not have an ally’s “back” if it behaves recklessly against the superpower’s stated preferences, or if it hedges too much in favor of rivals. In other words, U.S. alliances are likely to serve U.S. interests better if it ceases fetishizing them.

Weapons grants and training sustain terrorism and create divergence from US security goals, negating any potential solvency from the sale.Andrew Boutton, School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida, 04-30-2019, “Military Aid, Regime Vulnerability and the Escalation of Political Violence,” British Journal of Political Science, https:// doi:10.1017/S000712341900022X

US military aid typically entails military education and training programs to boost capacity and human capital (Jadoon

2017; Savage and Caverley 2017), the provision of grants and weapons systems, logistical support and even in-country US military support. The goal of such assistance is to construct competent, inclusive, and apolitical security forces that are willing and able to support US policies and defend the recipient regime while upholding democratic norms

(Atkinson 2006; Shafer 1988, 92–95). Recent research, however, has noted that problems with military assistance programs arise when the priorities of recipient governments diverge significantly from those of the United States. Bapat (2011) and Boutton (2019b) argue that foreign aid can increase terrorism because, in

some cases, it creates perverse incentives for recipients to sustain their terrorism problem in order to receive aid. Other arguments by Byman (2006), Watts, Shapiro and Brown (2007), Biddle, MacDonald and Baker

(2018), and Ladwig (2017) point to systematic preference divergence between the United States and its partner countries as the primary obstacle to military aid effectiveness. Principal–agent dynamics, they argue, prevent the donor from imposing conditions on or monitoring the

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actions of the host regime, allowing the host to pursue its own interests. As a result, only large-footprint nation-building operations are likely to result in successful military aid programs. In line with recent research on military

aid, I agree that donor–recipient preference divergence is a major cause of military aid ineffectiveness. I argue that this preference divergence is rooted in the political survival needs of the recipient regime, and that the goals of US military aid programs often directly conflict with those of a paranoid regime. The most urgent priority of these types of regimes is insulating themselves from the threat of a coup; military assistance can be useful not only for consolidating power, but also for surviving the often violent aftermath. The following sections discuss coup-proofing and its often violent repercussions before elaborating on how external military aid can exacerbate this relationship.

Coup-proofing upholds personalist regimes, which creates bifurcated and less effective militaries.Andrew Boutton, School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida, 04-30-2019, “Military Aid, Regime Vulnerability and the Escalation of Political Violence,” British Journal of Political Science, https:// doi:10.1017/S000712341900022X

Secondly, scholars are in broad agreement that coup-proofing negatively impacts the quality of the security forces and their ability to manage violence in a number of ways. Pilster and Böhmelt (2011) and Talmadge

(2015) describe many of these in relation to conventional war, but they also apply to domestic security. First, the emphasis on political loyalty over merit in promotions necessarily degrades the competence and leadership of these units (Talmadge 2015). In fact, coup-fearing leaders will often marginalize the most competent officers and instead

reward incompetence in promotion. The most skilled commanders are also the ones most likely to develop an independent power base, and thus are the most capable of conspiring to threaten the regime. Such reshuffling also reduces morale among soldiers, who typically resent the installation of political loyalists in place of popular officers who rose through the ranks (Pilster and Böhmelt 2011). This can create the perception among the rank and file that their career prospects are blocked, and that political loyalty is the only path to advancement. Soldiers who do not respect their officers, or who feel the regime is politicizing the military and promotion process, have fewer reasons to defend that regime, and may even take up arms against it. Talmadge (2015) notes several other ways in which threatened regimes undermine their militaries’ operational effectiveness. These include limiting training exercises, centralization of command, frequent personnel rotation and compartmentalization of information to inhibit coordination.

Coup-fearing regimes often create bifurcated militaries in which certain units receive special treatment, while the remainder of the army is kept weak and under-resourced. Membership in the former is reserved for those who are ethnically or personally tied to the leader, or who have otherwise demonstrated political loyalty. These units are often headed by a relative or close ally of the leader, and are narrowly tasked with protecting the regime

from domestic political opponents – sometimes including other factions of the military. In many cases, these units are the ones that receive training and equipment from the United States (Kedo and Goodman 2015). The remaining rump of the military is left to wither on the vine, although Herbst (2004) notes that many African regimes will train regular

forces for external security duties such as peacekeeping, but break them up when they return home. This can intensify grievances and generate additional instability (Dwyer 2018).

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FMF FAQ’s List of African countries who received FMFMss Defence, 2019, "FMF," MSS Defence, https://www.mssdefence.com/news-2/fmf-foreign-military-financing-africa/

In 2017 the following African countries received U.S. Foreign MIlitary Financing – FMF: Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

What is FMF Used For?Mss Defence, 2019, "FMF," MSS Defence, https://www.mssdefence.com/news-2/fmf-foreign-military-financing-africa/

PurposeThe purpose of FMF is to provide means for stabilization, counter-terrorism, counternarcotics, coalition operations, interoperability and military relations. It enables eligible partner nations to purchase U.S. defense articles, services and training. The instrument is a source of financing and may be provided to a partner nation on either a grant (non-repayable) or direct loan basis.

Responsibility and managementThe Arms Export Control Act (AECA), authorizes the U.S. President to finance procurement of defense articles and services for foreign countries and international organizations. The State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs sets policy for the FMF program, while the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), within the Defense Department, manages it on a day-to-day basis.

ProcessFMF funds purchases are made through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which manages government-to-government sales. On a much less frequent basis, FMF also funds purchases made through the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program, which oversees sales between foreign governments and private U.S. companies. FMF does not provide cash grants to other countries; it generally pays for sales of specific goods or services through FMS or DCS. Security Assistance Organizations (SAOs), military personnel in U.S. embassies overseas, play a key role in managing FMF within recipient countries. Some FMF pays for SAO salaries and operational costs. Congress appropriates funds for FMF through the yearly Foreign Operations Appropriations Act.

FMF Funds must be given to Egypt and Israel before any other country receives its funding.J.R. Wilson, 4-21-2014, "DSCA: Foreign Military Financing," Defense Media Network, https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/dsca-foreign-military-financing/

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For Fiscal Year 2014, the total FMF appropriation was $5.919 billion. At $3.1 billion and $1.3 billion, Israel and Egypt are the leading recipients on the FMF budget. Other major FMF recipients are Jordan at $300 million, and a $530 million set-aside for overseas contingency operations (OCO).

However, FMF overall has taken a hit from ever-tighter U.S. budgets, especially sequestration, which Kidd Manville, Deputy for Strategic Planning and Integration in DSCA’s Strategic Planning Directorate, said reduced the funds available for FMF. The majority of FMF money is allocated to priorities in certain countries, such as Israel and Egypt. These priorities are met before the remainder can be applied to requests for other nations. And allocation of those remaining funds must account for requirements and priorities put forth by the State Department and DoD combatant commands.

1.3 Billion of FMF has been allocated to Egypt in FY 2019American Chamber Of Commerce In Egypt, 2019, "US Foreign Assistance To Egypt," AmCham, https://www.amcham.org.eg/information-resources/trade-resources/egypt-us-relations/us-foreign-assistance-to-egypt

Egypt is the second largest recipient of foreign assistance from the U.S. after Israel and received nearly USD 79 billion in bilateral foreign aid between 1946 and 2017. Egypt receives the bulk of foreign aid funds from two primary accounts: Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and Economic Support Funds (ESF). In addition, it receives smaller, less consistent sums for International Military Education and Training (IMET), for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) and for Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related Programs (NADR). The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the primary provider of U.S. bilateral foreign assistance, followed by the Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense. All U.S. foreign aid to Egypt is appropriated and authorized by Congress.

In August 2018, the U.S. government released USD 195 million in military aid to Egypt, which was suspended in 2017 over human rights concerns. The release was a resul/t of numerous steps Egypt took to strengthen bilateral relations and counterterrorism efforts.

The FY2019 Omnibus provides USD 1.42 billion in foreign assistance for Egypt. Of this, USD 1.3 billion was from FMF; USD 112.5 million was from ESF; USD 3 million was for NADR; USD 2.0 million for INCLE; and USD 1.8 million in IMET.

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