Foreign Aid and National Security

There’s an interesting new site that everyone should check out (just a touch of self promotion here).  It’s an online community called Next America, run by CSIS, that facilitates foreign policy debates on some of the hot topics in this election.  Each week they feature a debate between two contributors with varying opinions on a given topic.  This week’s debate is on whether development assistance should be a tool for promoting national security.  Here’s my opinion piece arguing that development is and should be a tool for national security, but check out the other article plus the ongoing debate through comments here:

One of the major foreign policy developments of the 20th century was the advent of foreign assistance as a major endeavor of the developed world. Unlike other instruments of foreign policy, including diplomacy, military force, and strategic alliances, all of which are explicitly designed to further a country’s national interest, development aid is normally characterized as a moral obligation to help the poor and feed the hungry in the developing world. Despite this perception by policymakers and the public alike, development assistance is and should continue to be an important tool for promoting U.S. national security interests.

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