American politics, especially American foreign policy, is a highly controversial topic of study and subsequent discussion. Foreign aid, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the transfer of capital goods from one country to another,” is crucial to US foreign policy. But how can foreign aid, which represents only about 0.2% of gross national product and less than 1% of the federal budget, matter for something as crucial as foreign policy? You need to ask yourself some questions to shed light on this. First, how does the donor nation (for purposes of this paper, the United States and donor country/nation/donor will be used interchangeably) determine how much aid to donate? Secondly, who actually receives the aid? And third, how much aid do recipient nations receive? Looking back at history and modern times, the neediest nations are those that do not receive foreign aid (McKinlay and Little, 1977). Indeed, foreign aid can be described as an exchange for specific political concessions, which benefits the donor country. How the determination of which country receives foreign aid usually depends on the strategic importance for the donor country (as a modern example we use Egypt, which is among the top five countries receiving the most foreign aid from the United States Egypt is in a strategic position, close to Israel). The amount of aid actually given will depend on a number of factors, including the current situation in the donor country and any prevailing fears at the time (e.g. the spread of communism during the Cold War, terrorism, etc.). To determine the extent of aid, I will rely on selectorate theory, in particular the winning coalition, which is... middle of paper... probably, is done in an extremely strategic way, which not only helps promote better standards of life and policies, which makes beneficiary nations more accountable and transparent, but greatly increases national security by ensuring that countries adopt policies beneficial to the United States but also creates allies and in instances strengthens allies in turbulent regions. Foreign aid continues to be one of the most important elements of U.S. foreign policy, just as it was at the conclusion of World War II and as relevant as our concentrated efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, the next time someone dismisses foreign aid as something unnecessary and irrelevant to our benefit and foreign policy, consider that without it the United States would not have many allies and may not be anywhere near the superpower that I'm today..