This is from Lightfighter and puts it in one perspective (I broke it into more paragraphs, so if it reads bad it's on me):
Our security assistance relationship with every country that we cooperate with is unique. You simply can't put Ukraine (re: the current impeachment situation) in the same sentence with Saudi Arabia when discussing security assistance funds. You can't really even discuss, say, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the same light because we have different relationships with each country. Petroleum-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain pay handsomely for the military equipment and training they receive with their own cash.
There is a broad combination of direct U.S. military training, contracted training directly with vendors (like Boeing), and even third country training (our allies training them on U.S. equipment, and U.S. personnel training them on foreign equipment) that goes into many of these relationships. A country might be buying equipment directly from the U.S. government while simultaneously buying more copies of the same equipment directly from the manufacturer. The manufacturer might be providing training with their sales package, while the U.S. government is simply providing equipment.
A partner country may be buying U.S. equipment with U.S. security assistance funds that we gave them, but supplementing it with some of their own money because our assistance funds don't quite cover the bill for what they need (want). In terms of training, a commercial vendor simply can't provide the same level / quality of training that foreign students can receive by studying and training alongside U.S. and other foreign students.
One of the goals of our U.S. military personnel and diplomats who are involved in security assistance relationships is to promote U.S. business / industry overseas - to encourage foreign countries to spend money on U.S. products to contribute to our economy. Our security assistance funding agreements require that foreign partners spend money that we give them on U.S. products, for that very reason.
So, if we give Country X $100 million in tax payer-provided security assistance funds, they are obligated to invest that money back into the U.S. economy by buying U.S.-made equipment. There are exceptions to that, of course, if something is only available from a foreign manufacturer, but in those cases, we will usually still require them to buy Product Y through a U.S. vendor who imports that foreign equipment on their behalf.
Obviously, we also provide money that partner countries put directly towards feeding and housing their own people, but they wouldn't be able to partner with us, use our equipment, and conduct joint exercises and/or operations with us without maintaining their own military that way. And, yes, some of the money is misused, makes its way into someone's personal bank account, etc, but we make every effort to prevent that and hold people / countries accountable when it happens.
Foreign military students do not take seats away from U.S. students, as a general rule. The U.S. military sends as many people to training as we can afford - both in terms of money and from a personnel management standpoint (taking those individuals away from the line / fleet for the length of their training). The current Army War College class has about 300 U.S. students (from all services) and about 75 international students. The U.S. military could not afford to release another 75 U.S. O-5s and O-6s to attend the course because of both the cost and the duty positions that would be unfilled while those 75 additional officers attended school.
I would almost guarantee that the aviation course that this attacker was attending is maxed out in terms of the number of U.S. students that we can afford to send.
Foreign students that attend U.S. training are funded in a couple ways. Many (but probably less than half) are paid for by their own countries - housing, per diem, travel, etc. - because their countries can afford it and see the value in receiving high-quality U.S. training / education. A large number of them are paid for through the U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, which allocates assistance funds to partner countries for the express purpose of sending their military personnel to U.S. schools. We see this as an investment in future relationships with those students and their countries.
Looking at the Army War College again as an example, nearly all of the international students who attend the school are the lone representative from their country for that academic year. That means out of all the colonels in their military (whether that total is 10 or 100), they were selected as the best candidate, or maybe top 2 or 3, out of all their peers. A large percentage of them go on to hold very high level positions in their countries, including the Chief of Staff or equivalent of their military service. Some of them will continue on to become senior political leaders after their military careers. We see those as extremely valuable contacts that we can turn to in a crisis, or even in just our day-to-day interactions with that foreign country.
Looking at our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN Mark Milley, as an example, he is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College. You can bet that his staff has a list of what foreign military leaders also attended that school, and who he personally knew from his class, so he can call them up and renew that personal connection. It's common for senior U.S. military leaders to run into people they know from school while partnering with other countries overseas, and that creates an instant connection and sense of trust. We see that as a worthwhile investment in our future security relationships.
I just finished listening to the audiobook version of
The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder, by Peter Zeihan, and I just started his follow-on book,
The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America. Both of these books describe how
the U.S. shaped the global order after World War II, in large part by using our military power to secure free trade among all of our allies around the world. I'm oversimplifying, but U.S. military dominance helped ensure that the dollar became the global currency and our economy became the largest and strongest in the world, by far. In many cases, we provided security in parts of the world that didn't directly benefit us, but it helped our allies maintain access to the resources they needed and thereby continued to strengthen our own economy through their trade relationships with us.
The premise of Zeihan's books is that that world order is changing, and the U.S. will no longer have as strong an interest in continuing to play that role, but for the time being, we continue to put effort into maintaining relationships, and order, around the world because it benefits the collective security and economic environment that we share with our allies. Again, oversimplifying things, but as an example, if we break off our relationship with the Saudis, we lose influence over how they interact with Turkey, and Turkey's involvement in Syria. A loss of influence in the Turkey / Syria conflict leads to greater European concerns over what role Turkey is going to play in NATO and the European community, our European allies' economies begin to falter, and the cascading effect begins to impact our own economy at home.
OK, I think that was long-winded enough, and barely scratches the surface, but... it's complicated.
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Originally Posted by 26 Inf
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