*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Assistance Generally Bad: Increases Interstate Conflicts
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Assistance Generally Bad: Increases Interstate ConflictsAID FREES UP LOCAL RESOURCES TO BE USED FOR CONFLICT. Mary B. Anderson, president of the Collaborative for Development Action, 1999 Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace- or War p. 49 In some circumstances external aid can fill so great a proportion of civilian needs for food, shelter, safety, and health services that significant local resources are thereby freed up for the pursuit of war. This economic substitution effect of aid has a further political impact. When external aid agencies assume responsibility for civilian survival, warlords tend to define their responsibility and accountability only in terms of military control. Even if they started with a commitment to peacetime political leadership, as the international aid community takes over the tasks of feeding and providing health services and shelter for civilians these military-oriented leaders increasingly relinquish· responsibility for civilian welfare. They focus on military ends and, over time, define their roles solely in terms of physical control (and the violent attainment and maintenance of that control). As this occurs, warriors struggling for victory over space and people lose all interest and competence in civilian affairs and become increasingly ill prepared to assume broad, responsible leadership in a postwar period. AID LEGITIMIZES DECISIONS OF COMMANDERS – FINANCES WARS Mary B. Anderson, president of the Collaborative for Development Action, 1999 Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace- or War p. 50-51 Aid can reinforce the power of warriors to wage war by adding to their resource base through either theft or the substitution effect discussed earlier. Even more common and significant, however, is the fact that aid agencies, operating in areas controlled by factions, must often make "legitimate" payments to those in power in the form of taxes or fees for services (import-export licenses, hired guards for protection, loaned use of vehicles, and the like) . . When-they control a given geographic area, commanders have the right to expect that external aid agencies will comply with the rules and restrictions they impose in their area of command. They may tax aid goods, impose duties, establish currency exchange rates, and restrict delivery sites and times because they are acting in a role of governance. They can use that income to finance the war or to enrich themselves. They can use aid delivery sites to control where people can (or cannot) live and thus control their loyalties or force their removal from areas. Further, when aid agencies need the permission of armed factions to gain access to people with whom they must work, that situation reinforces factional power and legitimacy. Some aid staff working in southern Sudan report that Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS)-a system for negotiation established by aid agencies to ensure equal and unimpeded access to all civilian populations-has become a "legitimating" force in that region. Aspiring commanders have sometimes used negotiations with OLS to gain approval as legitimate wielders of power over certain populations or regions. ARMED SECURITY FOR AID WORKERS LEGITIMIZES MILITARIZATION Mary B. Anderson, president of the Collaborative for Development Action, 1999 Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace- or War p. 55-56 When aid agencies hire armed guards to protect their goods from theft and their workers from harm, the implicit message received by those in the war zone is that it is legitimate for arms to determine who gains access to food and medical supplies and that security and safety are derived from weapons. This, of course, is how warlords also understand arms. They believe that through might they have a right to control people's access to goods and to political participation. They believe that to be secure, one must have more firepower than anyone else. Aid agencies protest, "Our aims are worthy; when we employ guards, the weapons support good ends." Every warlord will make the same claim. --US Soft PowerNot Unique – Lots of Other Ways to Promote Soft PowerDEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE IS ONE OF MANY WAYS THAT THE US PROMOTES AND INFLUENCES DEMOCRACY E. Doyle Stevick, Education Professor- University of South Carolina, 2008, Advancing Democracy Through Education: US influence abroad and domestic practices, eds. E. Stevic & B. Levinson, p. xiii American influence on education for democracy around the world is complex, diverse, and conflicted. It encompasses U.S. government policy, government-funded programs that operate through recipient organizations, the independent work of foundation, nonprofits and individuals, and the broader influence of American culture and media around the world. It can be found in countries across the globe and throughout the diverse cultures of the United States itself. Aspects of American aid and policy are coercive, manifesting elements of imperialism and colonialism, with counterproductive and deleterious effects. Other efforts thoroughly manifest democratic values, and carry out projects driven by local priorities and needs in cross-national partnerships that come as close to equality as can be hoped under circumstances of great resource and power imbalances. Some influence is inadvertent – little more than the impressions about justice and law left behind by American courtroom dramas. This book explores the diversity of American roles in such cross-cultural engagement in education for democracy, both within the United States and around the world. INCREASING AID NOT NECESSARY FOR SOFT POWER – CAN USE OTHER FOREIGN POLICY INSTRUMENTS Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 42-3 While foreign assistance is increasingly important, it is only one tool in a larger toolkit that includes debt policies, volunteer services, trade and investment agreements, and military support for peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. Even without becoming the world’s most generous official donor relative to its income, the United States could wield greater influence per dollar aid spent than any other nation simply by deploying its influence in world trade and investment and debt and financial policies in a deliberate manner as a force multiplier. Ideally, decisions on each policy should be made with a view to ensuring the entire package is mutually reinforcing and more powerful than the sum of its parts.
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