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<text>
<title>
U.S. Foreign Aid After the Cold War
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Foreign Service Journal, April 1991
Reslicing the Pie: Foreign Aid After the Cold War
</hdr>
<body>
<p>By David Callahan. Author of Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze
and the Cold War, David Callahan is now working on a book about
the future of U.S. national security policy.
</p>
<p> The end of the Cold War has brought hard times to
Washington's national security bureaucracies. Military spending
is in a nosedive and large cutbacks of the intelligence
establishment are considered inevitable. So far, however,
foreign aid--also very much a legacy of the Cold War--has
largely escaped the scrutiny of budget cutters. In FY 1993, the
Bush Administration proposes to spend $15.7 billion on bilateral
foreign assistance, a figure which includes all economic,
development, and military aid given directly to other countries.
This funding level, roughly the same amount spent in the
previous few years, will likely be approved by Congress.
</p>
<p> Foreign aid is among the most reviled of all U.S. government
endeavors, disliked by the American public and a favored
whipping boy for congressional orators. But it survives because
it has a constituency that counts--and endures. Despite the
end of the Cold War, despite the emergence of new isolationist
strains in American politics, and despite pressures to control
federal spending, foreign aid is still strongly supported by
key Washington leaders and by the foreign policy establishment
generally. A late 1990 Gallup poll of leaders in the public and
private sector, for example, found that 91 percent of those
polled supported foreign aid. It is also supported, at times
grudgingly, by many in the business world and mainstream media.
</p>
<p> It is not hard to see why. In the face of ominous global
trends--economic, political, and ecological--foreign aid
remains one of the few tools available to U.S. policymakers to
shape the world beyond America's borders. At the same time,
however, it is a tool which has yet to be refashioned for the
new era. Much of the current foreign aid budget is badly
misdirected, still geared toward a Cold War agenda on the one
hand and to sustaining de facto national entitlement programs
on the other. The present "rationale and structure of foreign
aid is outdated and needs to be changed," summed up Senator
Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate's Foreign Operations
subcommittee. A series of study groups has found fault with the
foreign aid program as administered by USAID, with the latest
attack coming from a presidential study commission that found
USAID's mission is unclear and recommended the agency be folded
into the State Department.
</p>
<p> Foreign aid spending accounts for only 1 percent of the
federal budget and is hardly an enticing target for budget
cutters. Still, it seems only a matter of time before foreign
aid comes under greater attack. A report last year by the
Congressional Research Service warned of the "dwindling"
constituency behind foreign aid. Pat Buchanan's presidential
candidacy, which has featured a strong anti-foreign aid
message, may be a portent of things to come. To maintain support
for foreign aid, both in Congress and among the public, the
Bush Administration must reconceptualize the purpose of U.S.
assistance in a changed world.
</p>
<p>New threats in a new era
</p>
<p> In significant ways, the global problems that confront U.S.
foreign policy officials today are far more serious and
perplexing than anything faced during the Cold War era.
</p>
<p>-- Over the next several decades the earth's population is
expected to nearly double, increasing to 8 to 10 billion
people. Simultaneously, the availability of arable land will
decrease by as much as 20 percent, according to the Committee
on Agricultural Sustainability for Developing Countries.
</p>
<p>-- Environmental degradation is mounting rapidly in many parts
of the world. Soil erosion, water scarcity, and forest
depletion threaten to hobble economic growth in the Third World,
which is now the destination of nearly 40 percent of American
exports. "The repercussion for the United States of inadequate
development in the Third World extend beyond the loss of markets
and investments," observed Robert Myers, an independent
scientist and consultant. "When economic growth slows or stops,
social strains emerge and political systems become destabilized.
All too often the result is civil turmoil and outright violence,
either within a country or with neighboring countries."
</p>
<p>-- In the former Communist bloc, the euphoria of 1989 is gone.
CIA Director Robert Gates told Congress in January that,
"Ethnic and territorial disputes in Eastern Europe have risen
to the surface and threaten political instability and civil war,
despite promising prospects for the development of democratic
institutions and market economies." In the 15 new nations that
comprise the former Soviet Union the situation is even more
fragile, said Gates, with a possibility of "large-scale civil
disorder."
</p>
<p>-- The AIDS epidemic is worsening quickly. According to recent
estimates by the World Health Organization, 10 to 12 million
adults are now infected with HIV and there are 1.4 million
cases of AIDS. By the year 2000, the WHO projects that there
will be 25-30 million HIV infected persons and 5-6 million AIDS
cases. In Africa especially, these numbers portend a social and
economic catastrophe of enormous magnitude.
</p>
<p> The interlocking problems which confront the world--and
particularly its developing regions--cannot be ignored by a
United States which may wish to turn inward. Growing global
interdependence means that, more and more, "even distant
disorder can have effects that hurt, influence, or disturb the
majority of people living within the United States," argued
Harvard political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. To deal with
emerging global perils, continued Nye, writing last year in the
Atlantic Monthly, "we will want to influence distant governments
on a variety of issues." Foreign aid is one of the few means
available for bolstering U.S. influence abroad and, ideally, for
shaping a better world.
</p>
<p>Skewed priorities
</p>
<p> Unfortunately, the U.S. foreign aid budget has yet to be
reconfigured for the post-Cold War era, and assistance dollars
are not being stretched more effectively to cope with emerging
global problems. In the administration's FY 1993 aid request,
for example, spending on security assistance dwarfs development
aid. Even with the Cold War's end, security assistance will
continue, under current plans, to be the single largest item in
the foreign aid budget for years to come.
</p>
<p> Also, despite widespread agreement that aid to Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union is absolutely critical, this year's
foreign aid request asks for nearly twice as much money to
assist Egypt--population 55 million--as it does to aid the
20 or so nations of the former Communist bloc, with 350 million
people. A modern day Marshall Plan for the East may not be
practical given America's fiscal constraints, but the United
States can and must do more. "Fragile new democracies face
daunting challenges," commented Secretary of State James Baker
in early 1989. "They need, and deserve, from us more than mere
words of encouragement." Baker's comments, made before the
revolution of late 1989, could not be more appropriate today,
when numerous new democracies are struggling to survive.
</p>
<p> The economic rationale for aiding the former Communist bloc
is equally compelling. "By failing to act, the United States may
be locked out of the most important new market and source of
raw materials of the 20th century," warned House Majority
Leader Richard Gephardt in early February, referring
specifically to the Soviet Union. In Eastern Europe, healthier
economic conditions make aid an even more promising investment.
</p>
<p> Not long after the collapse of Communist rule in Eastern
Europe, Senator Bob D