By Rich Whitney
September 25, 2017
For decades, the
American people have been repeatedly told by their government and corporate-run
media that acts of war ordered by their president have been largely motivated
by the need to counter acts of aggression or oppression by "evil
dictators." We were told we had to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was
an evil dictator. We had to bomb Libya because Muammar Gaddafi was an evil
dictator, bent on unleashing a "bloodbath" on his own people. Today,
of course, we are told that we should support insurgents in Syria because
Bashar al-Assad is an evil dictator, and we must repeatedly rattle our sabers
at North Korea's Kim Jong-un and Russia's Vladimir Putin because they, too, are
evil dictators.
This is part of the
larger, usually unquestioned mainstream corporate media narrative that the US
leads the "Western democracies" in a global struggle to combat
terrorism and totalitarianism and promote democracy.
I set out to answer a
simple question: Is it true? Does the US government actually oppose
dictatorships and champion democracy around the world, as we are repeatedly
told?
The truth is not easy to
find, but federal sources do provide an answer: No. According to Freedom House's rating system of political rights around the world, there were 49 nations in the world, as of 2015, that can be fairly categorized as "dictatorships." As
of fiscal year 2015, the last year for which we have publicly available
data, the federal government of the United States had been providing
military assistance to 36 of them, courtesy of your tax dollars. The
United States currently supports over 73 percent of the world's
dictatorships!
Most politically aware
people know of some of the more highly publicized instances of this, such as
the tens of billions of dollars' worth of US military assistance provided to
the beheading capital of the world, the misogynistic monarchy of Saudi Arabia,
and the repressive military dictatorship now in power in Egypt. But apologists
for our nation's imperialistic foreign policy may try to rationalize such
support, arguing that Saudi Arabia and Egypt are exceptions to the rule. They
may argue that our broader national interests in the Middle East require
temporarily overlooking the oppressive nature of those particular states, in order
to serve a broader, pro-democratic endgame.
Such hogwash could be
critiqued on many counts, of course, beginning with its class-biased
presumptions about what constitutes US "national interests." But my
survey of US support for dictatorships around the world demonstrates that our
government's support for Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not exceptions to the rule
at all. They are the rule.
Sources and Methods
It was not easy to find
out how many of the world's dictatorships are being supported by the United States.
No one else seems to be compiling or maintaining a list, so I had to go at it
by myself. Here is how I came up with my answer.
Step 1: Determine how
many of the world's governments may be fairly characterized as dictatorships. A commonly accepted definition of a
"dictatorship" is a system of government in which one person or a
small group possesses absolute state power, thereby directing all national
policies and major acts -- leaving the people powerless to alter those
decisions or replace those in power by any method short of revolution or coup.
I examined a number of websites and organizations that claimed to maintain
lists of the world's dictatorships, but most of them were either dated, listed
only the world's "worst dictators" or had similar limitations, and/or
failed to describe their methodology. I ultimately was left with the
annual Freedom
in the World reports published
by Freedom House as the best source for providing a comprehensive list.
This was not entirely
satisfactory, as Freedom House has a decidedly pro-US-ruling-class bias. For
example, it categorizes Russia as a dictatorship. In the introduction to its 2017 Freedom In the World report, it opines that
"Russia, in stunning displays of hubris and hostility, interfered in the
political processes of the United States and other democracies, escalated its
military support for the Assad dictatorship in Syria, and solidified its
illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory." A more objective view would
note that claims of interference in the US election by the Russian government
have not been proven (unless one is inclined to take certain US intelligence
agencies at their word); that Russia was asked by the UN-recognized Syrian
government for assistance, in compliance with international law (unlike US acts
of aggression and support for insurrection there); and would at least acknowledge
that any Russian intervention in Ukraine occurred in the context of the United
States' brazen support for a coup in that nation.
Nonetheless, the Freedom
House reports appear to be the best (if not the only) comprehensive gauge of
political rights and freedoms covering every nation in the world. It utilizes a
team of about 130 in-house and external analysts and expert advisers from the
academic, think tank and human rights communities who purportedly use a broad
range of sources, including news articles, academic analyses, reports from
nongovernmental organizations and individual professional contacts. The
analysts' proposed scores are discussed and defended at annual review meetings,
organized by region and attended by Freedom House staff and a panel of expert
advisers. The final scores represent the consensus of the analysts, advisers
and staff, and are intended to be comparable from year to year and across
countries and regions. Freedom House concedes that, "although an element
of subjectivity is unavoidable in such an enterprise, the ratings process
emphasizes methodological consistency, intellectual rigor, and balanced and
unbiased judgments."
One can remain
skeptical, but a key consideration is that Freedom House's pronounced pro-US
bias is actually a plus for purposes of this project. If its team of experts
tilts toward a pro-US-government perspective, this means that it would indulge
every presumption in favor of not categorizing nations
supported by the United States as dictatorships. In other words, if even
Freedom House categorizes a government backed by the United States as a
dictatorship, one can be fairly confident that its assessment, in that
instance, is accurate.
For purposes of the
present assessment, I used Freedom House's 2016 Freedom
in the World report, even though its 2017 report is now available. I did so
because the 2016 report reflects its assessment of political rights and civil
liberties as they existed in 2015, which would roughly correspond with the
military assistance and arms sales data that I had available for federal fiscal
year 2015 (October 1, 2014 - September 30, 2015) and calendar year 2015. (I
will work on a new report when such data for fiscal year 2016 becomes
available.)
Freedom House uses a
scoring system to gauge a nation's "political rights" and "civil
liberties," in order to rate each country as "free,"
"partly free" or "not free," with a range of scores for
each category. It describes its scoring system as follows: "A country or territory is assigned two
ratings (7 to 1) -- one for political rights and one for civil liberties --
based on its total scores for the political rights and civil liberties
questions. Each rating of 1 through 7, with 1 representing the greatest degree
of freedom and 7 the smallest degree of freedom, corresponds to a specific
range of total scores."
For purposes of deciding
whether a nation could be categorized as a "dictatorship," however, I
focused only on the "political rights" scores, classifying nations
with a political rights score of 6 or 7 as a dictatorship. This does not mean that
civil liberties are unimportant, of course, but the objective here is to assess
the degree of absolutism of the political leadership, not freedom of
expression, press, etc. Of course, in the overwhelming majority of cases,
nations with low political rights scores also have low civil liberties scores.
However, a political rights score of 6 or 7 corresponds most closely with our
definition of dictatorship, based on Freedom House's characterization:
6 -- Countries and
territories with a rating of 6 have very restricted political rights. They are
ruled by one-party or military dictatorships, religious hierarchies, or
autocrats. They may allow a few political rights, such as some representation
or autonomy for minority groups, and a few are traditional monarchies that
tolerate political discussion and accept public petitions.
7 -- Countries and
territories with a rating of 7 have few or no political rights because of
severe government oppression, sometimes in combination with civil war. They may
also lack an authoritative and functioning central government and suffer from
extreme violence or rule by regional warlords.
While it may be
debatable whether it is appropriate to consider a country with no "functioning
central government" as a dictatorship, I would submit that the label is
appropriate if that nation is ruled de facto by warlords or
rival armies or militias. In effect, that simply means that it is ruled by two
or more dictators instead of one.
By Freedom House's
measure, then, there were 49 nation-states that could be fairly characterized
as dictatorships in 2015, as follows:
Afghanistan, Algeria,
Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Brunei, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon,
Central African Republic, Chad, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo
(Congo-Kinshasa), Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Cuba, Djibouti,
Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Iran, Jordan,
Kazakhstan, Laos, Libya, Mauritania, Myanmar, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Russia,
Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria,
Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan,
Vietnam and Yemen.
It should be noted that
Freedom House included in its ratings several other entities with a political
rights score of 6 or 7 whose status as an independent state was itself
disputed: Crimea, the Gaza Strip, Pakistani Kashmir, South Ossetia, Tibet,
Transnistria, the West Bank and Western Sahara. My count of 49 dictatorships in
the world in 2015 excludes these subordinated or disputed state territories.
Step 2: Determine which
of the world's dictatorships received US-funded military or weapons training,
military arms financing or authorized sales of military weapons from the United
States in 2015.
For this step, I relied
on four sources, the first two of which took considerable digging to locate:
A. "Foreign Military Training in Fiscal Years 2015 and 2016 Volume I
and Volume II (Country Training Activities)," US Department of Defense and US
Department of State Joint Report to Congress.
This is the most recent
annual report, required by section 656 of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of
1961, as amended (22 U.S.C. § 2416), and section 652 of the Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2008 (P.L. 110-161), which requires "a report on all
military training provided to foreign military personnel by the Department of
Defense and the Department of State during the previous fiscal year and all
such training proposed for the current fiscal year," excluding NATO
countries, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
This report provides
data on US expenditures for military training programs under the Foreign
Military Sales (FMS) program, Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants, the
International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, the Section 2282
Global Train and Equip (GT&E) program, the Aviation Leadership Program to
provide pilot training (ALP), and the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) drawdown
program, which authorizes the president to direct the drawdown of defense
articles, services and training if an "unforeseen emergency exists that
requires immediate military assistance to a foreign country" that cannot
be met by other means. Such expenditures are listed by recipient country, in
some detail. For purposes of this study, I include expenditures under these
programs as US-funded military training.
The report also provides
data on US expenditures for narcotics and law enforcement, global peace
operations, centers for security studies, drug interdiction and counter-drug
activities, mine removal assistance, disaster response, non-lethal
anti-terrorism training and other programs that I did not count
as military assistance or training for purposes of this survey. It is certainly
more than possible that US assistance under these programs could play a role in
providing de facto military assistance to recipient countries,
but I err on the side of caution.
The report describes the
IMET program as including civilian participants, and including training on
"elements of U.S. democracy such as the judicial system, legislative
oversight, free speech, equality issues, and commitment to human rights."
One could conceivably criticize my inclusion of IMET training, therefore, on
the ground that it actually trains foreign civilians and soldiers in
democratic, anti-dictatorial values. However, the IMET program is presumably
called "military" training and education for a reason. It trains
students in "increased understanding of security issues and the means to
address them," and provides "training that augments the capabilities
of participant nations' military forces to support combined operations and
interoperability with U.S. forces." Accordingly, I think it is fair to
count IMET as a form of military assistance, while acknowledging that it
arguably might, at times, play a pro-democracy role.
B. US Department of
State, "Congressional Budget Justification FOREIGN ASSISTANCE SUMMARY
TABLES, Fiscal Year 2017."
Table 3a of this
publication provides the actual fiscal year allocations for foreign assistance
programs, by country and by account, including the two programs that interest
us here, Foreign Military Financing and IMET. In that regard, it is somewhat
duplicative of the previous source, but I reviewed it as a check.
C. Department of Defense
Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), Financial Policy And Analysis Business
Operations, "Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales And
Other Security Cooperation Historical Facts As of September 30, 2015."
This source provides the
total dollar value of military articles and services sold to foreign
governments for FY 2015, including the value of agreements for future
deliveries and the value of actual deliveries, which I have provided in the
table below. It also includes other data on foreign military financing (credit
or grants) extended to foreign governments and provides yet another source on
IMET training.
D. Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), "Transfer of major conventional weapons: sorted by recipient.
Deals with deliveries or orders made for year range 2015 to 2016."
SIPRI provides an
interactive tool by which the user can generate a list of major weapons
transfers by supplier, all or some recipients, and the year. Although it only
counts "major" conventional weapons transfers, I reviewed it as an
additional check on the accuracy of the chart. It essentially affirmed the
accuracy of the DSCA report but there were some possible anomalies. For
example, the DSCA reports only $8,000 worth of military sales to Uganda in FY
2015 but SIPRI reports the transfer of 10 RG-33 armored vehicles, two
Cessna-208 Caravan light transport planes, and 15 Cougar armored vehicles in
2015. The discrepancy may be due to the three-month difference between fiscal
year 2015 and calendar year 2105, different methods of dating the transfer,
differences in valuation or some unknown factor.
Step 3: Generate the
Chart
The first column in the
chart below lists the 49 countries classified by Freedom House as
dictatorial in nature. The second column shows those nations that received some
US military training in FY 2015, relying primarily on source B, but also
checking source C. The third column shows those nations that received an
agreement for future military sales or transfers from the United States in FY
2015, with the dollar value of the military articles listed, based on source C,
but also checking source D. The fourth column shows those nations that received
an actual delivery of military articles from the United States in FY 2015, with
the dollar value of the military articles listed, based on source C, but also
checking source D.
I plan on providing
similar reports on US support for dictatorships around the world on an annual
basis. I will begin work on a report covering Fiscal Year 2016 as soon as the
relevant data becomes available.
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