1. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 § 899A, Pub. L. 114–328, 130 Stat. 2000 (2016).
2. NDAA for FY 2017 § 899A (a).
3. NDAA for FY 2008 § 886; NDAA for FY 2010 § 801; NDAA for FY 2015 § 1263; NDAA for FY 2017.
4. Defense Contingency Contracting Handbook: Version 5 (Washington: Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, April 2017), p. 94.
5. Most scholars assume that governments use their spending power to bolster national industries. See, for example, Fernando Branco, “Favoring Domestic Firms in Procurement Contracts,” Journal of International Economics 37, no. 1–2 (August 1994): 65–80; Stephanie J. Rickard and Daniel Y. Kono, “Think Globally, Buy Locally: International Agreements and Government Procurement,” Review of International Organizations 9, no. 3 (September 2014): 333–52; and Linda Weiss and Elizabeth Thurbon, “The Business of Buying American: Public Procurement as Trade Strategy,” Review of International Political Economy 13, no. 5 (December 2006): 701–24.
6. The federal procurement database holds records of all U.S. government contracts over $3,500 and contains information on every contract action associated with a given contract, including: contracting entity, contract action description, place of performance, dates, and the dollar value of obligations. For a complete description of data fields, see the Federal Procurement Data System—Next Generation, https://www.fpds.gov/fpdsng_cms/index.php/en/.
7. All figures are in constant 2005 U.S. dollars unless stated otherwise. Brian Blankenship and Renanah Miles Joyce, “Purchasing Power: US Overseas Defense Spending and Military Statecraft,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 64, no. 2–3 (February 1, 2020): 545–73.
8. “SIPRI Military Expenditure Database,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex, accessed October 9, 2019.
9. Ryan Henry, “Transforming the U.S. Global Defense Posture,” Naval War College Review 59, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 13–28; and Stacie L. Pettyjohn, U.S. Global Defense Posture, 1783–2011 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012), pp. 83–96.
10. Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Intelligence Agencies Prepare to Pull Back Officers from Africa,” New York Times, December 30, 2019.
11. The specific laws are Armed Forces, 10 U.S.C. § 2304 and Public Contracts, 41 U.S.C. § 3301. See FAR, 48 C.F.R., ch. 1, pt. 6, subpt. 6.1 (2019).
12. FAR, 48 C.F.R., ch. 1, pt. 6, subpt. 6.3 (2019).
13. Government Accountability Office, “Defense Contracting: DOD’s Use of Class Justifications for Sole-Source Contracts,” GAO-14–427R, April 16, 2014.
14. Daniel Wilson, “Fed. Circ. Revives Exelis’ $411M Air Force Base Contract,” Law360, July 11, 2016.
15. We expect that extending the data through the present will drive several African countries—particularly Djibouti—to the top of the list in light of the 2015 Djibouti and 2017 Africa-wide preferential procurement policies.
16. The “bona fide need” rule stipulates that any obligation must meet a valid requirement. See Center for Army Lessons Learned, Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, April 2009), p. 6.
17. Blankenship and Joyce, “US Overseas Defense Spending and Military Statecraft.”
18. Chae-Jin Lee and Hideo Sato, U.S. Policy toward Japan and Korea: A Changing Influence Relationship (New York: Praeger, 1982), p. 5; and Terrence J. Gough, U.S. Army Mobilization and Logistics in the Korean War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1987), p. 59.
19. Daniel H. Nexon and Thomas Wright, “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 2 (2007): 253–71.
20. Blankenship and Joyce, “US Overseas Defense Spending and Military Statecraft.”
21. NDAA for FY 2010 § 801.
22. Rachel E. Herald, “The Africa First Initiative and Local Procurement” (master’s thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2018), p. 2.
23. NDAA for FY 2015 § 1263; NDAA for FY 2017 § 899A; and Blankenship and Joyce, “US Overseas Defense Spending and Military Statecraft.”
24. Quoted in Center for Army Lessons Learned, Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System.
25. Raymond Odierno, “‘Iraqi First’ Program,” memorandum, Multi-National Force–Iraq, September 28, 2008.
26. Rob Taylor, “Army Procurement Switch Puts Boot into Afghan Dream,” Reuters, May 3, 2012.
27. Mark Martins, “No Small Change of Soldiering: The Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Army Lawyer (Washington: Department of the Army, February 2004), pp. 6–8.
28. See Multi-National Corps–Iraq (MNC–I), “Money as a Weapon System (MAAWS),” MNC–I CJ8 Standard Operating Procedures, January 26, 2009, https://info.publicintelligence.net/MAAWS%20Jan%2009.pdf.
29. Center for Army Lessons Learned, Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System, p. i.
30. Multi-National Force–Iraq, “Host Nation Business Advisor (HNBA) Brief” (PowerPoint presentation, Iraq, 2008).
31. Odierno, “‘Iraqi First Program.”
32. NDAA for FY 2008 § 886; David Petraeus, “COMISAF’s Counterinsurgency (COIN) Contracting Guidance,” memorandum, Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force, September 8, 2010, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/PETRAEUSGUIDELINES.pdf.
33. John R. Allen, “COMISAF’s Counterinsurgency (COIN) Contracting Guidance,” Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 18, 2011.
34. Blankenship and Joyce, “US Overseas Defense Spending and Military Statecraft.”
35. Eugene R. Wittkopf, “Foreign Aid and United Nations Votes: A Comparative Study,” American Political Science Review 67, no. 3 (September 1973): 868–88; Per Lundborg, “Foreign Aid and International Support as a Gift Exchange,” Economics and Politics 10, no. 2 (July 1998): 127–41; and T. Y. Wang, “U.S. Foreign Aid and UN Voting: An Analysis of Important Issues,” International Studies Quarterly 43, no. 1 (March 1999): 199–210.
36. Brian Lai, “Examining the Goals of US Foreign Assistance in the Post–Cold War Period, 1991–96,” Journal of Peace Research 40, no. 1 (January 2003): 103–28.
37. Keith Krause, “Military Statecraft: Power and Influence in Soviet and American Arms Transfer Relationships,” International Studies Quarterly 35, no. 3 (September 1991): 313–36.
38. Whether the Department of Defense uses spending in addition to or in lieu of other tools is an important question for future research.
39. Lundborg, “Foreign Aid and International Support as a Gift Exchange”; Wang, “U.S. Foreign Aid and UN Voting”; Brian Lai and Daniel S. Morey, “Impact of Regime Type on the Influence of U.S. Foreign Aid,” Foreign Policy Analysis 2, no. 4 (October 2006): 385–404; Axel Dreher, Peter Nunnenkamp, and Rainer Thiele, “Does US Aid Buy UN General Assembly Votes? A Disaggregated Analysis,” Public Choice 136, no. 1/2 (July 2008): 139–64; and Alberto Alesina and David Dollar, “Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?,” Journal of Economic Growth 5, no. 1 (March 2000): 33–63.
40. Thad Dunning, “Conditioning the Effects of Aid: Cold War Politics, Donor Credibility, and Democracy in Africa,” International Organization 58, no. 2 (April 2004): 409–23; Patricia L. Sullivan, Brock F. Tessman, and Xiaojun Li, “US Military Aid and Recipient State Cooperation,” Foreign Policy Analysis 7, no. 3 (July 2011): 275–94; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Foreign Aid and Policy Concessions,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 2 (April 2007): 251–84; and Bruce Bueno de Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Competition and Collaboration in Aid-for-Policy Deals,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (September 2016): 413–27.
41. Jakob Svensson, “Foreign Aid and Rent-Seeking,” Journal of International Economics 51, no. 2 (August 2000): 437–61; Joseph Wright, “Aid Effectiveness and the Politics of Personalism,” Comparative Political Studies 43, no. 6 (June 2010): 735–62; and Oeindrila Dube and Suresh Naidu, “Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of US Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia,” Journal of Politics 77, no. 1 (January 2015): 249–67.
42. Stephen Biddle, “Afghanistan’s Legacy: Emerging Lessons of an Ongoing War,” Washington Quarterly 37 no. 2 (2014): 73–86.
43. Jesse Dillon Savage and Jonathan D. Caverley, “When Human Capital Threatens the Capitol: Foreign Aid in the Form of Military Training and Coups,” Journal of Peace Research 54, no. 4 (July 2017): 542–57; Keren Yarhi-Milo, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper, “To Arm or to Ally? The Patron’s Dilemma and the Strategic Logic of Arms Transfers and Alliances,” International Security 41, no. 2 (Fall 2016): 90–139; and A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, “Risky Business: The Role of Arms Sales in U.S. Foreign Policy,” Cato Policy Analysis no. 836, March 13, 2018.
44. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, “Foreign Aid and Policy Concessions”; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “A Political Economy of Aid,” International Organization 63, no. 2 (April 2009): 309–40.
45. Andrew Boutton, “Of Terrorism and Revenue: Why Foreign Aid Exacerbates Terrorism in Personalist Regimes,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 36, no. 4 (July 2019): 359–84.
46. Thrall and Dorminey, “Risky Business.”
47. Errol Anthony Henderson, “Military Spending and Poverty,” Journal of Politics 60, no. 2 (May 1998): 503–20; UK Heo and Robert J. Eger III, “Paying for Security: The Security-Prosperity Dilemma in the United States,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 5 (October 2005): 792–817; and Giorgio d’Agostino, J. Paul Dunne, and Luca Pieroni, “Does Military Spending Matter for Long-Run Growth?,” Defence and Peace Economics 28, no. 4 (2017): 429–36.
48. Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Transforming Wartime Contracting: Controlling Costs, Reducing Risks (Arlington, VA: Commission on Wartime Contracting, August 2011), p. 99.
49. Blankenship and Joyce, “Purchasing Power.”
50. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Private Sector Development and Economic Growth: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, April 2018).
51. Rob Taylor, “Army Procurement Switch Puts Boot into Afghan Dream,” Reuters, May 3, 2012.
52. Moshe Schwartz, Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan: Analysis and Issues for Congress (Washington: Congressional Research Service, November 14, 2011), p. 7.
53. Daniel Wilson, “Fed. Circ. Revives Exelis’ $411M Air Force Base Contract,” Law360, July 11, 2016.
54. Copenhagen Arctic Greenland Contractors v. United States Exelis Services, U.S. Fed. Cir. 2016, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-federal-circuit/1742419.html.
55. Erik Matzen, “Denmark Spurned Chinese Offer for Greenland Base over Security: Sources,” Reuters, April 6, 2017.
56. Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Signs New Lease to Keep Strategic Military Installation in the Horn of Africa,” New York Times, May 5, 2014.
57. John F. Tierney et al., Mystery at Manas: Strategic Blind Spots in the Department of Defense’s Fuel Contracts in Kyrgyzstan (Washington: Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, December 2010); and Jim Nichol, Central Asia: Regional Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests (Washington: Congressional Research Service, March 2014), pp. 61–62.
58. Tierney et al., Mystery at Manas, p. 2.
59. Schwartz, Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan, p. 6.
60. Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Transforming Wartime Contracting, p. 73.
61. Aram Roston, “How the US Funds the Taliban,” The Nation, November 11, 2009.
62. Schwartz, Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan, p. 10.
63. See Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Contracting with the Enemy: DOD Has Limited Assurance that Contractors with Links to Enemy Groups Are Identified and Their Contracts Terminated, SIGAR Audit 13–6 (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, April 2013).
64. Coordination has improved; notably, the U.S. Army created the Army Contracting Command and nested Expeditionary Contracting Command (ECC) in 2008—but disestablished the ECC in 2017.
65. Renanah Miles Joyce and Brian Blankenship, “Market for Access: Competition, Need, and the Prospects for Power Projection,” (unpublished manuscript, July 11, 2018).
66. Sam Parker and Gabrielle Chefitz, “Debtbook Diplomacy: China’s Strategic Leveraging of its Newfound Economic Influence and the Consequences for U.S. Foreign Policy,” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Policy Analysis Exercise paper, Harvard Kennedy School, May 2018, https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/Debtbook%20Diplomacy%20PDF.pdf; and John Hurley, Scott Morris, and Gailyn Portelance, “Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective,” Center for Global Development Policy Paper no. 121, March 4, 2018, pp. 1–37.
67. International Monetary Fund, “Total External Debt for Djibouti (DJIDGDPGDPPT),” FRED Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DJIDGDPGDPPT.
68. Shortly after, Djibouti partnered with a Chinese-linked firm to expand the port facilities. See Congressional Research Service, “China’s Engagement in Djibouti,” In Focus, September 4, 2019.
69. Patrick Martin, “Could China Squeeze the U.S. Out of its Only Permanent Military Base in Africa?,” Washington Post, December 14, 2018; and Maria Abi-Habib, “How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port,” New York Times, June 25, 2018.
70. This is also a serious problem when it comes to U.S. security cooperation and assistance to other countries. See Beth Grill et al., Follow the Money: Promoting Greater Transparency in Department of Defense Security Cooperation Reporting (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2017).
71. See for example, “DOD Financial Management—High Risk Issue,” U.S. Government Accountability Office.
72. Schwartz, Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan, p. 5.
73. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Afghan First Initiative Has Placed Work with Afghan Companies, but Is Affected by Inconsistent Contract Solicitation and Vetting, and Employment Data Is Limited (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, January 2012).
74. SIGAR, Afghan First Initiative, p. 13.
75. SIGAR, p. i.
76. Schwartz, Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan, p. 11.
77. Herald, “Africa First Initiative and Local Procurement,” p. 43.
78. Jim McElhatton and Quin Hillyer, “Exclusive: Feds Take Jobs from Disabled Americans, Send Them to Central Asia,” Washington Times, October 9, 2014.
79. Bradley C. Parks, John Custer, and Soren Patterson, “Want to Reform Aid? Double Down on Impact Evaluations,” AidData, February 7, 2017; and U.S. Agency for International Development, Evaluation Utilization at USAID (Washington: February 2016), https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1870/evaluation-utilization-usaid.
80. Arianna Legovini, Vincenzo Di Maro, and Caio Piza, “Impact Evaluation Helps Deliver Development Projects,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 7157, January 1, 2015.
81. NDAA for FY 2017 § 1205.
82. Herald, “Africa First Initiative and Local Procurement,” p. 41.
83. Pettyjohn, U.S. Global Defense Posture.
84. On blowback in arms sales, see Thrall and Dorminey, “Risky Business,” pp. 16–17.
85. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Contracting Data Analysis: Assessment of Government-wide Trends (Washington: GAO, March 2017), pp. 3–4; and FAR, 48 C.F.R., ch. 1, pt. 6, subpt. 6.3 (2019).
86. William J. Norris, Chinese Economic Statecraft: Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, March 2016).
87. Stephen Biddle, “Building Security Forces & Stabilizing Nations: The Problem of Agency,” Daedalus 146, no. 4 (October 2017): 126–38; Walter C. Ladwig III, The Forgotten Front: Patron-Client Relationships in Counterinsurgency (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017); and Barbara Elias, “The Big Problem of Small Allies: New Data and Theory on Defiant Local Counterinsurgency Partners in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Security Studies 27, no. 2 (2018): 233–62.
88. Alexander Cooley, Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); and Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon, “‘The Empire Will Compensate You’: The Structural Dynamics of the U.S. Overseas Basing Network,” Perspectives on Politics 11, no. 4 (December 2013): 1034–50.
89. Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, October 7, 1997).
90. Biddle, “Building Security Forces & Stabilizing Nations.”
91. On defense free-riding, see: Carla Martinez Machain and T. Clifton Morgan, “The Effect of US Troop Deployment on Host States’ Foreign Policy,” Armed Forces & Society 39, no. 1 (January 2013): 102–23; David A. Lake, “Escape from the State of Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in World Politics,” International Security 32, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 47–79; David A. Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009); and Jo Jakobsen and Tor G. Jakobsen, “Tripwires and Free-Riders: Do Forward-Deployed U.S. Troops Reduce the Willingness of Host-Country Citizens to Fight for Their Country?,” Contemporary Security Policy 40, no. 2 (2019): 135–64; on coup-proofing, see Hillel Frisch, “Explaining Third World Security Structures,” Journal of Strategic Studies 25, no. 3 (2002): 161–90; David E. Cunningham, “Preventing Civil War: How the Potential for International Intervention Can Deter Conflict Onset,” World Politics 68, no. 2 (April 2016): 307–40; Caitlin Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015); and Andrew Boutton, “Coup-Proofing in the Shadow of Intervention: Alliances, Moral Hazard, and Violence in Authoritarian Regimes,” International Studies Quarterly 63, no. 1 (March 2019): 43–57; on troop deployments and financial crises, see Michaël Aklin and Andreas Kern, “Moral Hazard and Financial Crises: Evidence from American Troop Deployments,” International Studies Quarterly 63, no. 1 (March 2019): 15–29.
92. Though, see this study of the effect of reconstruction spending on violence in Iraq: Eli Berman, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Joseph H. Felter, “Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq,” Journal of Political Economy 119, no. 4 (August 2011): 766–819.