Linked to this, the United States also expends considerable resources funding security assistance programmes for a large number of nations, as well as subsidising and facilitating the sale of large quantities of arms and equipment. In Figure 1, we display time series of such military aid combined with US arms sales beginning in 2000. We include both foreign military sales and direct commercial sales. The main difference between the two is that the latter are organised privately between US companies and foreign buyers, whereas the former is run through the Department of Defense and has linkages with the foreign military financing (FMF) where applicable. As we can see, all indicators demonstrate that there has been an increase in the amount of military aid and arms sales delivered to the rest of the world over this time period. Whereby the rather obvious spike occurring in 2013 is largely attributable to the Japanese having placed an unusually large order of arms from the United States in that year.26 As is apparent, our empirical data is quite clear: American involvement in intrastate warfare and domestic security regimes has been ubiquitous with both ‘retrenchment’ and ‘deep engagement’ scholarship often examining these forms of overseas missions in tangential ways (if at all). This omission in the grand strategic literature becomes theoretically more interesting when we consider the fact that interstate balances of power are often posited as the means by which US force posture can be recalibrated without having to worry too much about possible post-American regional security orders developing in ways that may be inimical to US national security interests. When we factor this intrastate element to grand strategic calculations, how can interstate balances of power prevent possible negative intrastate conflict dynamics from developing? This is arguably most problematic for ‘offshore balancers’ whose reliance on post-retrenchment pro-US ‘onshore balancers’ operates almost entirely at the interstate level. In essence then, new post-American regional balances of power, the mechanism that operationalises its capacity to choose retrenchment, operates entirely at the interstate level with at present little analysis of intrastate dynamics. Our call is not to necessarily give equal weighting to this interstate/intrastate dyad in American strategic calculations, but we have hoped to demonstrate that minimally, this substate dimension should find its way into grand strategic debates when weighing US options, not least because of its prevalence. As we covered earlier, ‘deep engagement’ advocates do tend to more directly integrate political–economic arguments into their analyses, but there is a tendency to omit evaluation of internal order making in favour of those mechanisms that address grander interstate developments.27 In terms of impact, and particularly resources, while there is a sound justification for the primacy accorded to interstate dynamics, this does not equate to largely ignoring intrastate developments. In this sense, the lack of engagement can only contribute to underspecify our understanding of the role of American power in generating desired international outcomes; particularly, as we have identified above, intrastate dynamics have played such a pervasive role in American statecraft. In the following section, we empirically underscore our broader theoretical arguments through examining the contributions that security assistance and stability operations have made to achieving US economic and strategic objectives. We focus the analysis on the funds and resources allocated to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. The remaining regions, particularly the broader Asia–Pacific and Europe, are omitted. Not only is Europe a central partner in the American-led liberal international economic order. But because of its wealth, general stability and close resemblance to the form of political economy deemed most amenable to US interests, it receives very little in the way of domestic security support. Likewise, in relation to support for intrastate order building, American interaction with the broader Asia–Pacific has also been rather limited, with the only major exception being Japan, a nation whose recent history and economic characteristics have been shaped in much the same way as those of Europe. Broader engagement with the region has been limited by a number of historical contingencies, not least a mixture of failed interventions and hostile political ideologies. Because of this, our sample can be reduced to the remaining three regions of the globe.
the United States also expends considerable resources funding security assistance programmes for a large number of nations, as well as subsidising and facilitating the sale of large quantities of arms and equipment We include both foreign military sales and direct commercial sales. the former is run through the Department of Defense and has linkages with the foreign military financing (FMF) where applicable. all indicators demonstrate that there has been an increase in the amount of military aid and arms sales delivered to the rest of the world over this time period. American involvement in intrastate warfare and domestic security regimes has been ubiquitous with both ‘retrenchment’ and ‘deep engagement’ scholarship often examining these forms of overseas missions in tangential ways This omission in the grand strategic literature more interesting when we consider the fact that interstate balances of power are often posited as the means by which US force posture can be recalibrated without having to worry too much about possible post-American regional orders in ways that may be inimical to US national security interest how can interstate balances of power prevent possible negative intrastate conflict dynamics from developing? This is arguably most problematic for ‘offshore balancers’ whose reliance on post-retrenchment pro-US ‘onshore balancers’ operates almost entirely at the interstate level. In essence then, new post-American regional balances of power, the mechanism that operationalises its capacity to choose retrenchment Our call is not to necessarily give equal weighting to this interstate/intrastate dyad in American strategic calculation , but we have hoped to demonstrate that minimally, this substate dimension should find its way into grand strategic debates when weighing US options, not least because of its prevalence In this sense, the lack of engagement can only contribute to underspecify our understanding of the role of American power in generating desired international outcomes; intrastate dynamics have played such a pervasive role in American statecraft we empirically underscore our broader theoretical arguments through examining the contributions that security assistance and stability operations have made to achieving US economic and strategic objectives. focus the analysis on the funds and resources allocated to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. But because of its wealth, general stability and close resemblance to the form of political economy deemed most amenable to US interests, it receives very little in the way of domestic security support. Broader engagement with the region has been limited by a number of historical contingencies, not least a mixture of failed interventions and hostile political ideologies. Because of this, our sample can be reduced to the remaining three regions of the globe.