Foreign Aid for National Security
Foreign aid often serves charitable purposes, but that’s not why Congress funds it. Instead, foreign aid furthers America’s own national security.
A Hypothetical Interview: Part 1
The Trump Administration has cut most foreign aid, and wants what remains to be more closely aligned with U.S. strategic interests. What’s wrong with that?
The Trump Administration made a mistake, acting out of profound ignorance of what foreign aid is all about. The foreign aid that was cut was already aligned with U.S. strategic interests.
Well, the Trump Administration says it wasn’t. Tell me how they’re wrong.
Let’s start with this: The Trump Administration hasn’t yet defined the U.S. strategic interest. If the Trump Administration can’t tell you what is or is not in the U.S. strategic interest, how can it begin to know that foreign aid was the right thing to cut?
So you’re saying that the Trump Administration doesn’t have a strategic plan for national security? It’s a document, right?
Yes, in fact, I suggest you ask them for a copy, or if they say it’s classified (and it shouldn’t be), then ask someone with security clearance to have a look. Members of Congress should have access. If it’s classified, then they might not be able to share it with you, but they can at least confirm that it exists. It should be a rather large document, if it exists at all with this administration.
Doesn’t Project 2025 define that strategy?
Are we now letting a think tank define our country’s national security strategy? That sounds rather … unconstitutional.
Besides, didn’t the president disavow Project 2025? It seems he wants to have it both ways, right?
No, Project 2025 does not define America’s national security strategy. It rather appears that the Trump Administration does not have a national security strategy. Therefore it cannot say that foreign aid is not in the interest of that strategy. If and when the Trump Administration defines its national security strategy, then we can return to critique it on its own merits.
If you were to write such a document, how would you define what is in America’s strategic interest?
We say that an interest is strategic if it is a necessary part of a plan. It’s a U.S. strategic interest if it’s part of a plan that benefits the United States.
The Constitution requires that our government provide for our common defense. That’s the “benefit” to the United States that we’re talking about here: our common defense. So the question we must consider is whether foreign aid enhances our common defense, and is thus in our strategic interest. If it does, it should not have been cut.
Under the Biden Administration, the United States national security strategy said this:
We also will build new ways to work with allies and partners on development and the expansion of human dignity because we recognize they are integral to the security and prosperity of all Americans. Infectious diseases, terrorism, violent extremism, irregular migration, and other threats often emerge or accelerate due to deeper development challenges, and once they do, they do not recognize national borders.
Infectious diseases — a threat to United States national security.
Terrorism — a threat to United States national security.
Violent extremism — a threat.
Irregular migration — a threat.
The Biden Administration’s answer to these threats was to build new ways to work with allies and partners on development. Why? Because countering these threats, by building a more prosperous community of nations, through development of a country’s social and economic institutions, is integral to our national security.
So, is the Trump Administration simply saying that foreign aid is no longer part of America’s national security strategy?
They’re saying foreign aid should never have been part of that strategy. However, they’ve made two mistakes.
First, they’re wrong on the facts. A strategy without foreign aid actually makes America’s security weaker.
Under the Biden Administration, foreign aid addressed problems likely to impact the United States itself — infectious diseases, terrorism, violent extremism, irregular migration — all caused at least in part by deeper development challenges. The Trump Administration eliminated the aid. In its place, they’re adding a few feet to their wall on the southern border. People who know nothing about the southern border think that wall is a good idea. People who live down there, mostly, know better.
Second mistake: The president failed to gain Congress’s approval for this new strategy, or even to tell Congress what the strategy is. In fairness, a majority in this Congress hasn’t exactly been demanding the president provide a strategy, so I suppose it’s not surprising he hasn’t given them one.
If the Trump Administration ever publishes a national security strategy, we can be sure it won’t contain much if anything about foreign aid. We can be doubly sure it will contain nothing about development aid, arguably the most important kind of aid for America’s long-term national security.
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Stay tuned for:
Part 2: Each type of foreign aid has a unique role to play in America’s national security.
Part 3: Development aid is the most critical type of foreign aid for America’s long-term national security.