*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Fragmented Aid Policy Precludes Soft Power Advantages
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Fragmented Aid Policy Precludes Soft Power AdvantagesFRAGMENTED NATURE OF U.S. ASSISTANCE POLICY PRECLUDES GAINING SOFT POWER ADVANTAGES Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 41-2 At a time when the international community has identified policy coherence as a second core principle for aid effectiveness, the United States continues to stovepipe decisions on the key policy instruments affecting nations it seeks to support. More often than not, the United States underutilizes its weight in the soft power arena because coordination across different development policy instruments is ad hoc at best and frequently simply absent. Foreign assistance is but one of several increasingly important tools that implement U.S. policies toward developing countries; others include trade agreements and disputes, investment provisions, financial stabilization policies, debt relief, and economic sanctions. Indeed, for many middle-income countries with sizable poor populations and for countries such as China, where there are political strictures, foreign assistance has long since given way to trade and investment policies as America’s primary soft power levers.
Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 321 In the face of unprecedented new global challenges, the hard power assets of the United States – military, economic, and other means of persuasion and coercion – are stretched thin. It has become increasingly critical to leverage foreign aid and other soft power tools in order to grapple, with global poverty, pandemics, and other transnational threats. America’s fragmented, incoherent foreign assistance infrastructure has diminished the influence and overall effectiveness of these programs, however. While U.S. spending on foreign assistance has recently seen its greatest increase in forty years, the administration of that aid is dispersed between many agencies and branches of government in a manner that inhibits formulation and implementation of an effective strategy.
Strobe Talbott & John Hamre, Presidents Brookings Institute & CSIS, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. ix The urgent demands of post-conflict reconstruction and humanitarian disasters have led to a faster rate of expansion of foreign assistance dollars in the last six years than at any point since the onset of the cold war. Ambitious new international assistance programs have been launched, such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. The impact of such programs will not be commensurate with dollars expended as long as America’s soft power apparatus is deliberated by incoherence. U.S. foreign assistance is not guided by a coherent strategic framework but is instead allocated haphazardly to meet successive presidential and congressional imperatives. Within the U.S. government, fifty separate units deliver aid, with a dizzying array of over fifty objectives, ranging from narcotics eradication to refugee assistance. Different agencies pursue overlapping objectives with shockingly poor communication and even worse coordination between them. At best, the lack of integration means that the United States fails to take advantage of potential synergies; at worst, these disparate efforts work at cross-purposes. As a result the United States punches well below its weight class in the international arena – which should be unmatched measured in absolute aid dollars. UNIFIED FRAMEWORK KEY TO OBTAINING SOFT POWER BENEFITS FROM ASSISTANCE Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 323 U.S. foreign assistance should be governed by a unified framework that integrates the national security perspective of foreign assistance as a “soft power tool,” intended to achieve diplomatic and strategic ends, with that of a “development tool,” allocated according to policy effectiveness and human needs. Development returns are greatest and most durable in countries with transparent and accountable governments that are committed to sound economic policies, removing unnecessary impediments to commerce, and investing in the education and health of their citizens. Democracy Promotion Poor Way to Promote Soft PowerAID POLICY SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT OF DIPLOMACY Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 52-3 While greater appreciation of democratization, security, and development challenges may indeed be permeating the ranks of the career foreign service, that does not in itself alleviate the potential tension between the diplomatic and development functions of the U.S. government. First, the primary function of diplomacy is state-to-state relations whereas development and especially democratization often requires working around foreign governments and sometimes with groups opposed to them. Indeed, in many cases, diplomats benefit from being able to “blame” unwelcome aid decisions on an independent agency, while foreign aid officials can sometimes be more effective by not bearing direct responsibility for U.S. foreign policy. Second, U.S. relations with many developing nations are still characterized by a tension between short-term strategic objectives and the longer-term agenda of economic and political reform. Maintaining the integrity of independent diplomatic and development functions makes those tensions far easier to manage than blending the two. If there is one principle that applies above all others to the revitalization of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise, it is that the development mission—broadly construed to include security and good governance—must be elevated to coequal status with defense and diplomacy—not just in principle but also in practice. Indeed, a growing number in the Defense Department and strong advocates for the importance of sustaining core development capabilities in a civilian agency. The sense of mission – vital to America’s interests as well as to global peace and prosperity—must be restored and with it both the stature of the enterprise and the morale of the personnel engaged in it. 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