Martin Luther King once called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” That formulation may be controversial, but no one denies that the US is by far the world’s biggest arms dealer, with a 42 percent share of the global arms export market.
Since the Cold War, Congress has passed various laws to govern the sale and financing of American weapons and humanitarian aid to foreign states. These laws, which have changed with the wars and conflicts of the intervening decades—and with the balance of powers in and between the Congress and the White House—impose limitations and notice requirements on certain kinds of transfers.
Since October, arms transfers have become one point of tactical conflict over the US’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza—by those hoping to end that support and those looking to extend it. This week, months after the Biden administration declared Israel’s still ongoing invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, to be a “red line” for the US, Congress was notified of a new $20 billion arms sale to Israel. Meanwhile, Palestine solidarity activists have demanded that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President, endorse an end to such transfers altogether to compel Israel to end the war. In response, the Harris campaign clarified that Harris “did not support an arms embargo on Israel,” a statement which constitutes “one of her first firm policy positions.”
To understand the mechanics of the US role in supplying weapons and military equipment to foreign governments, Phenomenal World contributing editor Tim Barker and writer Dylan Saba spoke with Sarah Harrison, an attorney formerly employed by the Department of Defense’s Office of General Council. Among other roles, Harrison specialized in DoD humanitarian assistance, foreign disaster relief, the Leahy law, Women, Peace, and Security issues, and African affairs. She is currently a Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group.
An interview with Sarah Harrison
DYLAN SABA: What happens when the US makes an arms transfer? What is the chain of decision making across the President, the Congress, the Defense Department, through to the delivery of weapons?
SARAH HARRISON: There are two legal categories that determine the course of an arms transfer, which depends on the type of purchase: whether a country is purchasing equipment from a private company versus equipment from the US government. The latter is classified as foreign military sales, or FMS. The former is a direct commercial sale, or DCS.
For foreign military sales, a country can purchase arms or defense articles (broadly, military-type equipment) using its own money or through foreign military financing, the acronym for which is FMF. FMF, generally speaking, is US-granted security assistance….
https://phenomenalworld.org/interviews/sarah-harrison/
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After the truth-shower 