U.S. foreign military sales recently hit an all-time high due to Russia's war in Ukraine.
Fiscal year 2023, which ends Oct. 1, recorded $80.9 billion in U.S. government arms transfers, foreign defense services and security cooperation. This is an increase of more than 55% from $51.9 billion in 2022. In some cases, U.S. weapons manufacturers make direct commercial sales to other countries. It increased from $153.6 billion to $157.5 billion compared to the previous fiscal year. (The U.S. government approves both types of sales but is directly involved in negotiations only for the former, making this a stronger indicator of U.S. foreign policy priorities.)
U.S. officials have revealed plans to starve Russia's arms export industry to encourage allies in Europe and around the world to buy American weapons instead.
“We know that this is contributing to Russia’s strategic failure on the battlefield because its defense industry is being denied the resources it gets from exports,” Mira Resnick, director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Regional Security and Arms Transfers, told POLITICO. said.
Military transfers also serve the purpose of signaling the Biden administration's commitment to European partners. Some European allies are buying American weapons in preparation for a feared large-scale war against Russia in Europe. The European Union approved $50 billion in funding for Ukraine on Thursday.
Russia's recent large-scale investments in its military and weapons industry have added to these fears. And Europe fears it will not be able to rely solely on the United States for protection. U.S. aid to Ukraine has run out, and a deal to secure additional funding in return for border security measures has stalled in the Senate under former President Donald Trump. Interference.
But the increase in U.S. arms sales is not necessarily evidence that Biden's foreign policy has been successful, said Elias Youssif, a research analyst for conventional defense programs at the Stimson Center.
“This actually reflects a certain level of instability in Europe and anxiety about the war in Ukraine,” he said. “I’m not sure whether accelerating military transfers is really a cure.”
All of these foreign military transfers undergo a detailed agency review process that evaluates whether they benefit the legitimate self-defense rights of partner nations, and most major sales require congressional approval, except in emergencies.
These transactions are often completed over several years. The $80.9 billion figure includes deals actually implemented last fiscal year, but the United States has also announced several major deals with European allies that may not yet be included in that total. For example, Ukraine's neighbor Poland has signed a series of deals: More than $45 billion, according to congressional disclosures.
It is questionable whether such transactions will actually be implemented in the future. Since Poland's annual military budget is only $16 billion and it also made large purchases from South Korea last year, “they will either have to significantly increase their military budget, spread the payments over several years, or scale back their ambitions.” “said William. Hartung is a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Poland made the largest commitment last fiscal year, while the United States signed sales deals worth about $11.4 billion with Germany and $6.3 billion with the Czech Republic, and also with other European countries, including smaller deals with Norway and Bulgaria. A sales contract has been signed.
Such a large-scale deal would help reduce Europe's dependence on Russian weapons. But they should also raise concerns about how well the United States is reassuring its allies and what it is doing to reduce demand for these weapons in the first place, Yousif said. In that sense, the increase in military power transfers reflects Europe's uncertainty about America's commitment to its allies in an unstable world and America's blatant attempts to appease it.
Impact of war in Gaza on arms sales
Israel's war in Gaza was not a factor in sales growth in 2023 because the war began after the end of the fiscal year. Most of what is currently being transferred to Israel is part of sales notified to Congress over the past few years, but implementation of these orders has accelerated since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Yousif said. This means that those sales have already been counted toward the previous year's total. But there are also some new sales. Biden bypassed Congress twice to sell emergency weapons to Israel in December, totaling more than $250 million.
Like the war in Ukraine, Israel's war in Gaza could become a key driver of future arms transfers as regional tensions rise and U.S. allies work to ensure their troops are adequately supplied for a potential conflict. The arms deal could also be part of a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. This is an agreement that the United States went to great lengths to broker before war broke out.
“Next year could be the ‘Year of the Middle East’ as regional tensions sparked by the Gaza war and the Biden administration’s desire to persuade Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords could spur massive new sales,” Hartung said. said.
Arms transfers to Israel are expected to continue, regardless of what happens with other partners in the Middle East. Despite the fact that continued sales to Israel “violate the spirit and letter of U.S. law as well as the policies of the Biden administration,” Hartung said, despite the fact that they make a mockery of the administration’s claims of supporting a rules-based international order.
Some foreign affairs experts have argued that existing U.S. laws to protect human rights, including the “Leahy Law,” should have long restricted the flow of such aid to Israel due to the high death toll during the conflict. Unlike Ukraine, which has used controversial weapons such as cluster bombs and landmines to limit U.S. aid, the law has not been properly enforced against Israel, they say.
But the Biden administration has insisted it is complying with the law and is on track to make 2024 another strong year for arms sales.