USAID & the National Interest by Patrick Cronin, War on the Rocks
Many Americans are convinced that foreign aid fails to advance the national interest, while others are vexed that they might be aimed at doing precisely that. A prime example of the latter mindset is reflected in an article by Mark Varga that argues some nations are right to ban USAID. Varga appears to feign surprise that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) promotes democracy and civil society programs broadly congruent with U.S. interests. His outrage may be intended to attack programs that promote “regime change,” including a recent politically inspired social media campaign in Cuba.
As the former third-ranking official at USAID, I share Varga’s concern about the need to preserve, build and use America’s soft power. However, in focusing on the “digital Bay of Pigs” project to attack many U.S. foreign assistance programs, he picks a fight with a relatively weak institution, ignores the many successes of U.S. foreign aid, and fails to offer realistic and constructive policy recommendations…
Comments
I agree that many decent people work at USAID. Nevertheless, its operating model is corrupted as there is a revolving door between the implementing partners (beltway bandits) and 'the Agency' as it likes to call itself. My work with USAID was pretty sobering in my confronting the level of incompetence and waste, little of it actually fraudulent. So one witnessed profiteering by N.G.O.s while so many Afghans remained as poor and as unserved as ever.
There were a couple of situation-specific reasons underlying the poor performance in Afghanistan.
First, most of the best people (i.e., F.S.O.s) were desk-slaves in Kabul, Kandahar or Bagram while many of the surge babies in the field turned out to be cry-babies in their tin chateaux. USAID was not unique in being invaded by the lemons-as-lemmings grasping for other people's money in Afghanistan.
Second, there simply was too much money sloshing around AfghanLand as the Special I.G. points out: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4487674/corruption-inafghanistan-culture-….
The only reason why this currently wasteful model is not kicking up the controversy of the military-industrial complex is its small size. With the possible exception of an excess of staff officers, USAID's foreign aid (sic) program is actually far more wasteful than anything of the D.o.D.; little money ever gets to those who need it. The one very important exception is disaster relief supplies; even there, however, much of that reach comes from the U.S. military's logistical support (call it 'pro-bono' contingency ops).
As to the articles themselves, there are some good ideas. The think-tank for development could be jump-started through the U.S. Institute of Peace, lest the latter become just another hot-balloon bobbing around the capital's endless tea-sandwich circuit. Otherwise, USAID ought to be liquidated into the State Department and its development F.S.O.s variously assigned to the economics and public diplomacy divisions. The Cold War is over and an independent, apolitical (sic) aid function is no longer necessary.
In general I am a big fan of USAID and the people who I have met or worked with over the years associated with USAID. Good people who believe in the power of doing good. Unfortunately, no one line of operation can address a problem as complex as insurgency in of itself; and any line of operation, regardless of how well intended or executed can contribute to making an insurgency worse.
I discussed this back in 2010 after serving in RC-South during the Marjah campaign, and for a while up in the Embassy in Kabul.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-jones-insurgency-model
"Why is it that strong government, rule of law, and robust delivery of development and services are sometimes not enough to prevent or resolve insurgency? Quite simply it is because:
Security and Rule of Law without Justice is Tyranny;
Development without equity is Apartheid;
Governance without Legitimacy is Despotism; and
A populace experiencing any of the above without a voice is Hopeless"
I have refined this concept considerably over the past 4 years, but he core concept is still, IMO, sound. I don't think we get better with how we deal with our own insurgent energy at home, or help a partner with reducing insurgent energy abroad, until we get to a better understanding of the fundamental nature of insurgency in general.
Development will typically go to those areas that are secure enough to conduct development. Secure areas are typically those where the populations live who perceive themselves to be reasonably well-served by the existing system of governance that other segments of the population feel compelled to act out illegally and/or violently against. This quite naturally tends to reinforce negative perceptions of governance in two primary ways. One, in that those who have under the current system are getting more; and two, in that because the development is being brought by a foreigner, that it validates the belief the current regime is a failure (or so biased against them) demanding change.
Doing development in a manner that makes the host nation governance look more legitimate in the eyes of those who already accept their legitimacy is very hard. Doing development in a manner that makes the host nation governance look more legitmate in the eyes of those who already reject their legitimacy is damn near impossible.
But this is the not the fault of USAID or the good people who work there. As the latest Army/Marine Corps manual on insurgnecy and COIN implies by its (markedly improved) content - we still think of insurgency as something caused by the insurgent, and tend to view it in Clausewitzian warfare terms. Most insurgency is a response to how a population feels about how governance affects their lives, and is much more a civil emergency than it is warfare.
We are making progress, but military manuals rely too much on "war-think" and what militaries do. State believes too much in "democracy" and "rule of law"; and AID too much in "development." I believe we all need to focus more on "governance" and how we help any partner we work with to simply increase the % of their population who percieve they are well included in the current solution (or have legal means to bring a new one.)
Bob
Big budgets, little oversight in war zones
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/doing-well-by-doing-good-t…
Quote “It was a complete farce,” said Bennett, the former ambassador who ran one of the reconstruction teams in Baghdad for the Bush administration. “They were pouring money, literally pouring money into the program, and it was spilling all over the place. The money was going to the militias. The money was getting swept into their pockets, and it was going to buy weapons and ammunition to use against us.”
Army Col. Louis Fazekas, who supervised a combat team in Baghdad, said in a recent interview that he and other U.S. officials confronted David Soroko, a USAID official supervising the program in Baghdad.
“We said our money was going into the hands of the people who were killing our soldiers,” Fazekas recalled. “He flat out denied it and said, ‘We’re not going to change anything.’ ” End Quote