The limits of US national identity: interests and values in US military aid
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221140087 |
| Author | Evan W Sandlin |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221140087
International Relations
2024, Vol. 38(4) 516 –540
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221140087
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The limits of US national
identity: interests and
values in US military aid
Evan W Sandlin
Center for Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern California
Abstract
According to policymakers, US national values shape US foreign aid policy. However, these
national values clash with material interests when policymakers are faced with the decision of
whether or not to grant US military aid to countries that do not adhere to US national values but
do serve US security and economic interests. To what extent are US national values resilient to
clashes with these material interests? This paper hypothesizes that national values are resilient
to clashes with interests to the extent to which these values are a salient feature of US national
identity. The findings indicate that more prominent values (democracy) are almost impervious
to countervailing interests while more tangential values (enterprise and human rights) exhibit
different effects on US military aid allocation depending on the security and economic importance
of the recipient state.
Keywords
democracy, foreign aid, foreign policy, human rights
Introduction
The United States has long justified its foreign policy on the basis of its national identity,
or as former President Obama would say, ‘Who we are’.1 This tendency is visible, even
in a ‘hard power’ tool such as US military assistance. The US has recently cut off,
reduced, or delayed military aid to Thailand, Mexico, and the Philippines for their under-
mining of democracy or abuses of their citizenry – practices in conflict with US national
identity.2
Despite these examples, other instances of US military assistance seem to contradict
the values embedded in US national identity. Many times, these instances seem to be
motivated by security and economic concerns based on geopolitical rivalries with Russia
Corresponding author:
Evan W Sandlin, Center for Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern California,
635 Downey Way, VPD, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Email: esandlin@usc.edu
1140087IRE0010.1177/00471178221140087International RelationsSandlin
research-article2022
Article
Sandlin 517
and China, as well as parochial issues like terrorism. For example, the US has allocated
large amounts of military aid to Uzbekistan, a country that, according to the US State
Department’s own reports, is a ‘nightmarish world of rampant corruption, organized
crime, forced labor in the cotton fields and torture’.3 While Uzbekistan is an affront to
US values, it is an asset to US interests. The country provides a transit point for US
troops and supplies and was a central location in the Bush Administration’s rendition
program. There are also economic reasons for supporting Uzbekistan, as the US seeks to
create a ‘New Silk Road’ through helping establish regional trade ties and acting as an
economic counterweight to Russia.4
Similarly, security and economic incentives exist to give large amounts of military aid
to the Philippines. The Philippines has been in democratic decline for years and is one of
the worst human rights abusers in the Indo-Pacific region.5 Yet, despite delaying a small
portion of economic aid in 2016, the Philippines is the largest recipient of US military
assistance in the Indo-Pacific, receiving over $1 billion in assistance from 2015 to 2021.6
The US commitment to supporting the Philippines with massive amounts of military aid
is no doubt due to its perceived national security and economic importance as tensions
with China increase.
While much of US military assistance is granted in accordance with values rooted in
US national identity, showering these repressive and non-democratic governments with
aid powerfully illustrates national identity’s limits and the reasons for them. With respect
to the US-Uzbek relationship, Secretary of State John Kerry noted, ‘the challenge for the
United States is to strike a balance between its short-term, war-fighting needs and long-
term interests in promoting a stable, prosperous, and democratic Central Asia’.7 Given
the increasing intensity of geopolitical conflicts with China and Russia, situations in
which ‘short term’ needs conflict with US values may continue to be more common and
visible in the coming decades.
Both US national values and US interests have generally been included into models
of US economic and military aid allocation. This literature has found evidence for the
influence of both. However, with few exceptions, these models treat values and interests
as independent determinants. This additive model ignores the fact that interests and val-
ues often clash (as is evident in the case of Uzbekistan and the Philippines), requiring
policymakers to choose. How do policymakers negotiate tradeoffs between interests and
values when allocating military aid? Are some of these values more resilient to conflicts
with material interests than others?
In contrast to the previous literature, I analyze the interaction between US interests and
US values in US military assistance and demonstrate that the influence of US values on
US military aid allocation is eroded when recipient states are of national security or eco-
nomic importance to the US. However, I also theorize that the nature of US national
identity is what determines the degree to which US national interests outweigh certain US
values. US values that have a stronger attachment to US national identity are less tem-
pered by interests than those values that have a weaker attachment to US national identity.
I test the degree to which distinct US national values are overshadowed by US interest
using a dataset of US military aid allocation. The results demonstrate that while US values
are overlooked when they compete with US interests in military aid allocation, the most
central US value, democracy, is more resilient to countervailing material interests.
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