Mellman: Playing numbers games with foreign aid

Numbers can be seductive (though perhaps only a pollster or mathematician could think of them that way). 

Long considered the language of science, numbers appeal to those interested in truth.  

They’re also familiar. We make numbers-based decisions daily — which gas station to buy from, which team has won, which stock to invest in, which can of tuna to purchase.  

Despite their ubiquity and precision, numbers don’t interpret themselves. Whether we’re talking polls or prices, context and other data matter.  

I recently encountered the disparate tales that numbers can tell reading two publications from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). 

One, entitled “How Much Aid Has the U.S. Sent to Ukraine?” concludes Ukraine “towers over other recipients of US aid,” and reports “Ukraine has become far and away the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid.” 

Another CFR publication, “U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts,” claims, in part, “Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid…The United States has also provided large foreign aid packages to other Middle Eastern countries … but Israel stands apart.” 

These seemingly contradictory assessments are based in numbers and technically correct, but neither employs a particularly sensible mode of examination. Though written by the same authors, the two publications collect and analyze the data in starkly different ways. 

In discussing Ukraine aid, CFR considers only the year 2022, in which Ukraine received $75.4 billion. That same year, Israel received $3.3 billion compared to $1.6 billion for Jordan, $1.4 each for Afghanistan and Ethiopia, $1.3 for Egypt and $1 billion for Yemen.  

In 2022, U.S. aid to Ukraine did “tower” over the rest. 

In their Israel publication, by contrast, all the aid from 1946 to 2023 was added together, generating a total of $300 billion for Israel, compared to over $150 billion each for Egypt and Afghanistan (all in constant 2022 dollars).  

By this accounting, Ukraine didn’t even make the top 10, falling somewhere behind Turkey and France. 

What next caught my eye was Vietnam at under $150 billion.  

According to Congressional Research Service calculations, the Vietnam War cost the U.S. $686 billion, while the Iraq War cost $784 billion. 

Why were those costs absent from the calculations? 

Where was the $320 billion we spent on the Korean War — more in those three years than all the aid given to Israel in its 75-year modern existence. Where were the billions we spend each year equipping and maintaining our troops in South Korea? 

Estimates of U.S. spending to defend our NATO allies range from $38 billion to $100 billion a year. Where was that money?   

Well, for their Israel publication, CFR only counted money given through the foreign aid budget, not dollars given through the Defense Department.  

In contrast, its Ukraine publication counted all the government dollars given by the U.S. though all departments.   

When I asked why all the funds weren’t counted in the Israel paper, a CFR spokesperson answered, “they generally don’t constitute direct U.S. aid to foreign governments, as U.S. foreign aid/assistance is commonly understood.” 

I think American taxpayers, as well as Ukrainian, South Korean, NATO and other leaders would be surprised to learn that our support for these countries through the Defense Department does not “constitute direct U.S. aid to foreign governments.” 

During the Korean War we directly aided South Korea’s government by preventing it from being overrun and displaced by North Korean and Chinese troops.  

That’s pretty direct aid to the government under any reasonable construction. The same applies to Vietnam, NATO, etc. In fact, the weapons and troops we send are very direct aid to recipient governments. 

Ok. I hear the moans. “Pretty deep in the weeds.” 

True. But in the service of recognizing an important reality: A number seemingly backing-up a headline does not necessarily equal truth.  

You can accurately argue that in 2022 we spent more helping Ukraine than any other country. You can correctly assert that we’ve given more of our foreign aid budget to Israel than to any other country. 

But the truth is that our spending to help Ukrainians and Israelis defend themselves is a drop in the bucket compared to what we’ve spent in treasure, let alone blood, assisting other nations over the decades.  

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for over 20 years, as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, a member of the Association’s Hall of Fame, and is president of Democratic Majority for Israel.