On October 13, 2021, Heidi Grant – the director of the Pentagon agency in charge of weapons sales – announced that she is resigning and is going to join Boeing as a VP of Business Development, presumedly due to her experience with weapons sales. This follows an internal debate within the Biden administration. Grant opposes the administration’s decision not to sell drones to the UAE and other Middle Eastern allies. This division fits within a large discussion about the role and safety of arms transfers in U.S. foreign policy. As policymakers are coming to agree, American weapons transfer policy needs to change as the risks and lack of strategic benefits are increasingly evident.

Recipients of U.S. military transfers have long used these weapons to abuse human rights and enter conflicts. Recent research examines how U.S. foreign aid recipients approach human rights violations after receiving military assistance. The paper’s central finding is that, regardless of the aid received, states located near great power rivals or active conflicts will continue to violate human rights. This is because they know that it is unlikely that there will be repercussions. For states that are not strategically important, though, visible human rights violations – such as mass killings – do decrease with U.S. foreign assistance. Still, in these cases, invisible human rights violations – such as disappearances – increase. This is a loophole that provides states a way to work around existing U.S. foreign assistance provision laws.

This finding points to two major problems with U.S. policy on military aid. First, despite rhetoric from weapon sales supporters, the idea that military transfers provide leverage is incorrect. Strategically important authoritarian states do not see behavior changes after receiving aid. But, even when states do change their behavior, they tend to be less strategically important and substitute visible human rights violations for invisible ones.

This leads into the second issue with current weapons sales policy: risk does not matter in the evaluation of weapons transfers. At Cato, we have confirmed this finding in both the Arms Sales Risk Index and research at Strategic Studies Quarterly. These U.S. weapons are funding the Taliban government, contributing to war crimes in Yemen, and leading to coups in Africa. In other words, instead of leverage, these weapons are financing events that will put U.S. civilians at risk in the future.

Policymakers inside the United States are coming to this realization. The House’s 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contains legislation restricting weapons transfers. If it becomes law, this will affect the President’s ability to sell weapons without restraint. In doing so, it will help avoid the human rights abuses, rising authoritarianism, and terrorist threats caused by long-standing U.S. arms sales policy.

For example, in the NDAA, one amendment strengthens end-use monitoring by adding reporting requirements to U.S. law surrounding special operations to fight terrorism. This will provide policymakers with greater ability to make aid contingent on human rights violations.

Beyond the NDAA, the House and Senate are set to debate legislation on the appropriate use of the President’s ability to unilaterally sell weapons. The legislation up for discussion requires Congress to approve of every sale before it can move forward. This will “flip the script” on the current process, where Congress votes against a sale, allowing the President to veto any serious opposition. If this legislation passes, absent the ability for an easy veto, the President will need to have stronger justification for sales and provide evidence that these weapons will not enable human rights violations.

Heidi Grant’s resignation from the Pentagon demonstrates issues facing U.S. policymakers on weapons sales. Washington faces harsh realities from increasing evidence that shows the U.S. gains no leverage from sales. In turn, improper risk evaluation complements this lack of strategic benefit. As a result, for the first time in decades, U.S. policymakers must make changes that serve to avoid these risks that have plagued American foreign policy.