BrianGarst.com

I stumbled across an info graphic comparing military expenditures versus that of foreign aid, making the argument that people drastically overestimate how much is spent on foreign aid. But before I get to that, here’s the infographic:

It’s hard to read at this size (full image here), but I think you can get the drift. The U.S. spends less than other nations on “aid” and more on the “military” (used interchangably with defense) both in real terms and as a percentage of GDP.

All of the information presented here is factual. But this is an excellent illustration of how facts, without correct understanding and context, can be misleading. For instance, the image explains that U.S. foreign aid spending includes “disaster relief, long term poverty reduction, hunger prevention, and human rights programs.” That’s all well and good, but our foreign aid spending also includes one very important category not mentioned: military spending. That’s right, much of what we spend on the military is actually foreign aid, as it is spent on the defense of other countries.

The reason France, the UK, Japan, and Germany, among others, can spend so much less on defense is because we are spending it for them. Those troops we keep in their countries aren’t defending our borders, they are defending theirs. Sure, we get some marginal benefits (sometimes), but they get to take what they would spend on defense and spend it on social welfare. We are subsidizing their welfare states with our defense spending. If that isn’t foreign aid then I don’t know what is.

I think many Americans asked how much we spend on foreign aid take this fact into account. They understand that, yes, defending countries for them is aiding them. Don’t get me wrong, even if the graphic was adjusted to account for military spending that is actually aid and not primarily defensive, it’s probably still true that the public grossly overestimates what we spend on foreign aid. It would also still be true that reducing foreign aid would have little fiscal impact compared to the growing entitlement problem. But there are other good reasons to rethink foreign aid, such as whether or not most of it is even effective. It’s also a good reason to rethink our allocation of military spending and  whether it is being put to good use, or in some cases could even be done without.

defense spending foreign aid government spending