(Atlantic) James Kirchick - U.S. assistance to Israel demands far less in both blood and treasure than many other American defense relationships around the world. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the U.S. spends $36 billion annually on military capabilities in Europe, almost 10 times its annual assistance package to Israel, and American soldiers remain stationed across the continent. In Asia, the U.S. has 30,000 troops based in South Korea and 50,000 in Japan. Across the entire Pacific theater, 400,000 American soldiers and civilians are deployed. Not a single American soldier has ever died defending Israel, something that cannot be said about many of our allies. Israel is hardly the only American ally in the Middle East to receive military aid. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are beneficiaries as well. And most U.S. aid to Israel is funneled back to the American defense sector. U.S. military aid to Israel is not all that spectacular compared with U.S. defense arrangements with the dozens of countries it is obliged to defend. The writer is a visiting fellow at the Center on the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution.
2019-04-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive