What Are U.S. Military Dollars Buying in Egypt? |
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Washington is in the middle of a rare and long-overdue debate about whether U.S. military aid actually serves U.S. interests. From Sen. Lindsey Graham to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, lawmakers have recently called—to varying degrees—for the end of U.S. aid to Israel, forcing a reckoning with how the United States uses military assistance as a foreign-policy tool.
But Israel is not the only relationship that deserves scrutiny. Egypt has received $1.3 billion in U.S. military financing every year—and has for nearly four decades—despite bribing a U.S. senator, imprisoning Americans, and ranking among the world’s worst human rights abusers.
Washington is in the middle of a rare and long-overdue debate about whether U.S. military aid actually serves U.S. interests. From Sen. Lindsey Graham to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, lawmakers have recently called—to varying degrees—for the end of U.S. aid to Israel, forcing a reckoning with how the United States uses military assistance as a foreign-policy tool.
But Israel is not the only relationship that deserves scrutiny. Egypt has received $1.3 billion in U.S. military financing every year—and has for nearly four decades—despite bribing a U.S. senator, imprisoning Americans, and ranking among the world’s worst human rights abusers.
If the U.S. Congress is finally asking the hard questions about what U.S. military dollars buy, then Egypt belongs in that conversation. At least since the 2013 military coup led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, U.S. military aid to Egypt has failed to deliver a meaningful return on investment, advance U.S. interests, or meet the principled and strategic standards embedded in U.S. laws. Instead, assistance to Egypt has become an exercise in inertia: requested, appropriated, and obligated with little consideration beyond tired bromides about promoting regional stability and supporting long-standing partnerships.
U.S. military aid to Egypt began in 1979 after the signing of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, not as a legally binding and formal part of the treaty, but as an informal understanding to sweeten the deal and overcome security concerns. Despite pushback, the Reagan administration signed an agreement in 1987 with Egypt’s powerful defense minister, Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala, to coproduce the M1A1 Abrams tank in Egypt. Every year since then, the U.S. president has requested and Congress has appropriated $1.3 billion in foreign military financing (FMF) for Egypt, making it one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history.
Proponents of the assistance have advanced several myths about U.S. aid to justify and sustain its continuation. They have argued that U.S. aid is necessary to maintain the peace agreement with Israel, keep Egypt from turning toward U.S. adversaries, and ensure U.S. access to Egyptian airspace and priority passage through the Suez Canal. Yet none of these arguments inherently require U.S. military equipment and training to maintain.
In fact, each argument cuts the other way. Egypt maintains peace with Israel........