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Letter to the Candidates: End the Militarization of Foreign Aid
Thu, 03/13/2008 - 00:00
Dear Presidential Candidates,
THE MILITARIZATION OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE IS A GRAVE CONCERN FOR AMERICANS AS WELL AS THE WORLD’S MOST IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE.
As you focus on national security and foreign policy priorities during the run-up to November 2008, Refugees International requests that you consider a fundamental issue that has been neglected during the Presidential campaign – the increasing militarization of US foreign assistance, and the potential impact thereof on America’s long-term national security.
With an annual budget some 17 times that of the civilian instruments of foreign engagement and national power, the Pentagon has greatly increased and expanded its involvement into the realm of aid activities that have traditionally been implemented by civilian agencies and overseen by the Foreign Relations Committee. The numbers speak for themselves: the percentage of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) the Pentagon controls has exploded from 1998 to 2005, growing from 3.5% to nearly 22%, while USAID's percentage of ODA shrunk from 65% to 40%.
Globally, the military is filling a vacuum created by shrinking civilian capacity, and the result will be short-term solutions for the vexing and enduring challenges facing the world’s “bottom billion”. The militarization of aid in pursuit of national security objectives will not enhance US ability to achieve its foreign policy goals – including prevailing in the war against terrorism. Development theory and practice – as well as military logic – points towards long-term failure. The Department of Defense is itself seriously questioning the trend towards militarization of aid, with Secretary Gates calling for a major improvement in civilian capacity.
In a November 26, 2007 speech, Gates said, “The Department of Defense has taken on many of (the) burdens that might have been assumed by civilian agencies in the past. … [F]orced by circumstances, our brave men and women in uniform have stepped up to the task, with field artillerymen and tankers building schools and mentoring city councils – usually in a language they don’t speak. … But it is no replacement for the real thing – civilian involvement and expertise.” Last month, Gates again noted at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that long-term security challenges “require our government to operate with unity, agility, and creativity, and will require devoting considerably more resources to non-military instruments of national power.” This call demands urgent attention. While funding can be relatively quickly allocated, it will take years to address the civilian deficit in human resources.
Between 1998 and 2006, reductions in USAID direct-hire staff were accompanied by a sharp increase in foreign assistance spending, with the result that aid disbursement per staff member grew by 46 percent to $2 million. USAID has consequently had to reduce technical expertise in favor of general management skills. While the US spends more on international technical assistance than any other donor – almost half its ODA – the bulk of that funding goes to US consultants whose real expertise is often knowing how to adhere to complex US procurement and administrative procedures rather than having knowledge of context and developmental experience in the field.
In fact, the US has no coherent long-term foreign assistance strategy to alleviate global poverty. Instead of modernizing the Cold War era aid infrastructure, the US administration has responded to each new global challenge by creating new ad hoc institutional arrangements along side the old ones – like the PEPFAR, the PMI, the MCC, and the State/F Bureau. America’s foreign aid is now (mis)managed by an alphabet soup of no less than fifty separate units within the executive branch, pursuing fifty disparate and sometimes overlapping objectives ranging from narcotics eradication to biodiversity preservation. Poor coordination and lack of integration means that US agencies often work at cross purposes – something which is not lost on recipient countries that are already wary of the fact that the US ties more aid than any other donor. Of the more than $2.6 billion in aid that the US reported to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for 2005, less than $200 million was untied aid. If development aid is an important element of the US national security strategy, including “winning hearts and minds”, then tying aid to the purchase of American goods and services sends precisely the wrong message.
The desire of the Department of Defense for a “unity of effort” that uses all US government agencies as “force multipliers” in the war on terror is further changing how civilian agencies operate. This trend is seen in the current USAID strategic plan, which focuses on “counterterrorism; weapons of mass destruction and destabilizing conventional weapons; security cooperation and security sector reform; conflict prevention, mitigation, and response; and transnational crime.”
The US now provides over half of its global aid to 10 countries alone, in contrast to 5 percent it allocates among the world’s 10 poorest countries. The current administration’s engagement with weak and failing states is motivated almost entirely by national security concerns. Development is severely compromised when short-term security objectives are prioritized over longer-term poverty reduction goals. It becomes very difficult to hold US aid agencies accountable for poverty reduction results – and recipients of US development funding know that they can rely on a continuing flow of assistance regardless of development outcomes, as long as they remain aligned with US diplomatic or military objectives. Refugees International there opposes the Pentagon’s request for Congress to authorize the "Building Global Partnerships Act", which would make permanent in Title 10 a pilot program established under Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006 and would allow the DOD to spend up to $750 million a year on training and weapons for militaries of its choosing. The proposed legislation would allow the Defense Department to ignore historic provisions within the Foreign Assistance Act that prevent assistance from going to countries that commit gross human rights violations, experience a military coup, engage in nuclear proliferation, or condone human trafficking, child soldiers, or religious intolerance.
By harnessing vital emergency and development assistance as a counter-insurgency weapon, the US is denying the pressing needs of countries and peoples who are not perceived to be harboring or breeding an immediate terrorist threat – and unwittingly raising the risks of creating long-term instability. Several high-level task forces and commissions have reported on different aspects of US aid effectiveness in recent years. All have emphasized the urgent need to modernize the aid infrastructure and for greater US engagement on development. All called for elevating development on a par with diplomacy and defense – and not for subordinating it to defense.
Refugees International supports these conclusions. We are also deeply concerned that a continued militarization of US aid as a strategy for prevailing in the war on terrorism will produce perverse results from a counter-terrorism perspective. Recipients of aid question the motives behind US policy. They can distinguish short-term public relations-oriented aid from long-term development approaches. Instead of winning hearts and minds, militarized US aid will end up fueling cynicism and hostility toward America, and alienating our allies – as evidenced by the cool African reception of AFRICOM and the warming of African relations with China.
We really appreciate the enormous efforts you have made in the Senate in support of responsible US foreign policy, and wish you strength and the best of luck for the remainder of your Presidential campaign. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss further with you or your staff the pressing issues touched upon in this letter, should you so request.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Bacon
President, Refugees International
THE MILITARIZATION OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE IS A GRAVE CONCERN FOR AMERICANS AS WELL AS THE WORLD’S MOST IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE.
As you focus on national security and foreign policy priorities during the run-up to November 2008, Refugees International requests that you consider a fundamental issue that has been neglected during the Presidential campaign – the increasing militarization of US foreign assistance, and the potential impact thereof on America’s long-term national security.
With an annual budget some 17 times that of the civilian instruments of foreign engagement and national power, the Pentagon has greatly increased and expanded its involvement into the realm of aid activities that have traditionally been implemented by civilian agencies and overseen by the Foreign Relations Committee. The numbers speak for themselves: the percentage of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) the Pentagon controls has exploded from 1998 to 2005, growing from 3.5% to nearly 22%, while USAID's percentage of ODA shrunk from 65% to 40%.
Globally, the military is filling a vacuum created by shrinking civilian capacity, and the result will be short-term solutions for the vexing and enduring challenges facing the world’s “bottom billion”. The militarization of aid in pursuit of national security objectives will not enhance US ability to achieve its foreign policy goals – including prevailing in the war against terrorism. Development theory and practice – as well as military logic – points towards long-term failure. The Department of Defense is itself seriously questioning the trend towards militarization of aid, with Secretary Gates calling for a major improvement in civilian capacity.
In a November 26, 2007 speech, Gates said, “The Department of Defense has taken on many of (the) burdens that might have been assumed by civilian agencies in the past. … [F]orced by circumstances, our brave men and women in uniform have stepped up to the task, with field artillerymen and tankers building schools and mentoring city councils – usually in a language they don’t speak. … But it is no replacement for the real thing – civilian involvement and expertise.” Last month, Gates again noted at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that long-term security challenges “require our government to operate with unity, agility, and creativity, and will require devoting considerably more resources to non-military instruments of national power.” This call demands urgent attention. While funding can be relatively quickly allocated, it will take years to address the civilian deficit in human resources.
Between 1998 and 2006, reductions in USAID direct-hire staff were accompanied by a sharp increase in foreign assistance spending, with the result that aid disbursement per staff member grew by 46 percent to $2 million. USAID has consequently had to reduce technical expertise in favor of general management skills. While the US spends more on international technical assistance than any other donor – almost half its ODA – the bulk of that funding goes to US consultants whose real expertise is often knowing how to adhere to complex US procurement and administrative procedures rather than having knowledge of context and developmental experience in the field.
In fact, the US has no coherent long-term foreign assistance strategy to alleviate global poverty. Instead of modernizing the Cold War era aid infrastructure, the US administration has responded to each new global challenge by creating new ad hoc institutional arrangements along side the old ones – like the PEPFAR, the PMI, the MCC, and the State/F Bureau. America’s foreign aid is now (mis)managed by an alphabet soup of no less than fifty separate units within the executive branch, pursuing fifty disparate and sometimes overlapping objectives ranging from narcotics eradication to biodiversity preservation. Poor coordination and lack of integration means that US agencies often work at cross purposes – something which is not lost on recipient countries that are already wary of the fact that the US ties more aid than any other donor. Of the more than $2.6 billion in aid that the US reported to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for 2005, less than $200 million was untied aid. If development aid is an important element of the US national security strategy, including “winning hearts and minds”, then tying aid to the purchase of American goods and services sends precisely the wrong message.
The desire of the Department of Defense for a “unity of effort” that uses all US government agencies as “force multipliers” in the war on terror is further changing how civilian agencies operate. This trend is seen in the current USAID strategic plan, which focuses on “counterterrorism; weapons of mass destruction and destabilizing conventional weapons; security cooperation and security sector reform; conflict prevention, mitigation, and response; and transnational crime.”
The US now provides over half of its global aid to 10 countries alone, in contrast to 5 percent it allocates among the world’s 10 poorest countries. The current administration’s engagement with weak and failing states is motivated almost entirely by national security concerns. Development is severely compromised when short-term security objectives are prioritized over longer-term poverty reduction goals. It becomes very difficult to hold US aid agencies accountable for poverty reduction results – and recipients of US development funding know that they can rely on a continuing flow of assistance regardless of development outcomes, as long as they remain aligned with US diplomatic or military objectives. Refugees International there opposes the Pentagon’s request for Congress to authorize the "Building Global Partnerships Act", which would make permanent in Title 10 a pilot program established under Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006 and would allow the DOD to spend up to $750 million a year on training and weapons for militaries of its choosing. The proposed legislation would allow the Defense Department to ignore historic provisions within the Foreign Assistance Act that prevent assistance from going to countries that commit gross human rights violations, experience a military coup, engage in nuclear proliferation, or condone human trafficking, child soldiers, or religious intolerance.
By harnessing vital emergency and development assistance as a counter-insurgency weapon, the US is denying the pressing needs of countries and peoples who are not perceived to be harboring or breeding an immediate terrorist threat – and unwittingly raising the risks of creating long-term instability. Several high-level task forces and commissions have reported on different aspects of US aid effectiveness in recent years. All have emphasized the urgent need to modernize the aid infrastructure and for greater US engagement on development. All called for elevating development on a par with diplomacy and defense – and not for subordinating it to defense.
Refugees International supports these conclusions. We are also deeply concerned that a continued militarization of US aid as a strategy for prevailing in the war on terrorism will produce perverse results from a counter-terrorism perspective. Recipients of aid question the motives behind US policy. They can distinguish short-term public relations-oriented aid from long-term development approaches. Instead of winning hearts and minds, militarized US aid will end up fueling cynicism and hostility toward America, and alienating our allies – as evidenced by the cool African reception of AFRICOM and the warming of African relations with China.
We really appreciate the enormous efforts you have made in the Senate in support of responsible US foreign policy, and wish you strength and the best of luck for the remainder of your Presidential campaign. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss further with you or your staff the pressing issues touched upon in this letter, should you so request.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Bacon
President, Refugees International
Refugees International (RI) advocates for lifesaving assistance and protection for displaced people and promotes solutions to displacement crises.
We are an independent organization, and do not accept any government or UN funding.
We are an independent organization, and do not accept any government or UN funding.