The Perils of Being the World's Biggest Arms Trafficker

The United States sells arms to almost any country willing to pay for them, but many recipients are risky, unstable, undemocratic, and liable to misuse the weapons. Cato defense and foreign policy studies policy analyst Jordan Cohen explains why the U.S. government sells arms to risky countries, why it doesn't give the U.S. strategic leverage, the costs and consequences of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, the problem of cluster munitions, U.S. support for the Nigerian military (which recently executed a coup d'état), and how to reform U.S. arms sales policies. 

Show Notes

• Jordan Cohen bio
• Jordan Cohen and A. Trevor Thrall, “2022 Arms Sales Risk Index,” Cato Institute policy analysis no. 953, July 18, 2023.
• Jordan Cohen and Jonathan Ellis Allen, “When our Weapons Go Missing,” Reason, July 31, 2023.
• Barry R. Posen, “Ukraine’s Implausible Theories of Victory,” Foreign Affairs, July 8, 2023.
• Jordan Cohen and Jonathan Ellis Allen, “Cluster Munitions May Win a Battle but not Ukraine’s War,” Inkstick Media, July 13, 2023.
• Jordan Cohen and Jonathan Ellis Allen, “Did the Pentagon Just Make a $3 Billion Accounting Error – or Did It Do Something Even Worse?” Reason, May 19, 2023.
• Jordan Cohen, “Coups Are Just An Arms (Sale) Length Away: US Weapons Equip Niger’s Military,” Cato at Liberty, August 3, 2023.
• Jordan Cohen, “Deal or No Deal: Explaining Congressional Restrictions on Arms Transfers,” PhD diss (George Mason University, 2023).
• Jon Hoffman, Jordan Cohen, and Jonathan Ellis Allen, “Biden Steamrolls toward Disaster in the Middle East,” The Hill, August 2, 2023.

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