Investing in International Affairs Is A National Security Priority Posted by The Editors

This guest post is by Sara DuBois, Interim Communications Director at National Security Network.

As the budget debate moves forward, lawmakers in D.C. face tough choices about where to spend U.S. dollars.  The international affairs budget, which accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, has been a target of GOP spending proposals.  Some in the GOP, especially Republican House leaders like House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) have championed cuts to foreign aid (with exceptions for Israel). As serious national security experts from both sides of the aisle have pointed out, however, an approach that sacrifices foreign assistance is detrimental to our national security.

Today, in prepared testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Gen. David Petraeus warned that cuts to foreign assistance would threaten our strategic interests in Afghanistan:

I am concerned that levels of funding for our State Department and USAID partners will not sufficiently enable them to build on the hard-fought security achievements of our men and women in uniform. Inadequate resourcing of our civilian partners could, in fact, jeopardize accomplishment of the overall mission. I offer that assessment, noting that we have just completed a joint civil-military campaign plan between US Forces Afghanistan 11 and the US Embassy which emphasizes the critical integration of civilian and military efforts in an endeavor such as that in Afghanistan.

Petraeus’s testimony echoes the concerns of bipartisan security experts.  Senate Foreign Relations Committee has issued repeated cautions about cutting the international affairs budget. As SFRC Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) recently explained,

These cuts are not abstractions. These are people. Cutting these programs will do almost nothing to reign in our budget deficit, but it will cost thousands of lives. And by reducing our diplomatic capacity around the globe, we will increase the threats to our own country.

Similarly, Mark Green, former GOP Congressman and Ambassador to Tanzania under President George W. Bush, wrote yesterday that we can and must “be fiscally responsible and still make the critical investments we need in our International Affairs Budget.”

Earlier this year, Green joined fellow Republicans Jim Kolbe and Rob Mosbacher to proclaim in the conservative Daily Caller that foreign assistance pays “real dividends.” They explain,

The world has changed dramatically even in the last decade, becoming more interconnected and full of challenges that defy narrow solutions. Our foreign assistance is a projection of our responsible leadership in the world; it is more important than ever to our security and economic interests. We must take the politics out of this debate and get down to the facts.

[…]In releasing America’s first-ever foreign assistance policy last year, President Obama made economic growth the key goal of our outreach efforts and said that the time has come to be more selective about our assistance, because the U.S. cannot do everything, everywhere, particularly in places that do not share our values of free people and free markets. At the same time, Dr. Rajiv Shah, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has undertaken significant reforms to improve the agency by decreasing inefficiencies, increasing transparency, and in the process delivering millions of dollars in savings.

But perhaps the most important idea of all, shared by both the Bush and Obama administrations, is that the mission of U.S. foreign assistance is to put itself out of business by helping build vibrant private sectors and middle classes, thriving civil societies, and more efficient local governments that are accountable to citizens. This is the way to put the people we are trying to help in control of their own development.

Tremendous progress has been made in addressing the conditions of despair that lead to extremism, containing the spread of pandemic disease, and creating the kinds of economic opportunities that lead to greater global stability. In a world that is shrinking — with fewer borders and growing interdependencies, less isolation and greater shared challenges — more effective foreign assistance can lead to real dividends in terms of our security, our prosperity, and our leadership in the world. We hope that bipartisan policymakers will come together to strengthen U.S. foreign assistance and our global leadership. [emphasis mine]

Petraeus and other military leaders have joined civilians in pointing out that, whether it’s disaster relief or nuclear safety or police training, our civilian and military objectives are not easily separated.  Just as civilian and military leaders of all stripes have spoken out in support of the international affairs budget, experts of all stripes have pointed out that some of the sacrifices to balance our budget must come from Pentagon spending, which now represents more than half of all discretionary spending. Taking a meat ax to the U.S. international affairs budget would mean sacrificing long-term gains in American leadership, prosperity and security from Atlanta to Afghanistan to the Arab World. The assault on U.S. foreign assistance programs is not only unnecessary, it is not a choice we can afford to make. 

 

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perhaps the most important idea of all, shared by both the Bush and Obama administrations

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There is broad consensus that in today’s complex and interconnected world, we have to use both our civilian and military tools to keep our nation safe. As my former colleague Senator Lindsey Graham said recently, “We live in a dangerous world, and foreign aid is in our national security interests.”

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“””Tremendous progress has been made in addressing the conditions of despair that lead to extremism, containing the spread of pandemic disease, and creating the kinds of economic opportunities that lead to greater global stability””’

Extremism is not fed by despair but by anger. The terror attacks on the US was not done by dirt poor peasants but by people who lived in the west and who were not poor. Look at the underwear bomber, he is the son of a rich Nigerian banker. The Times Square bomber is the son of a Pakistani General. 9/11 was organized by a billionaires son, with the second in command a doctor and most of the 19 were Saudis, one of the richest countries in the world.

The desperate poor on the other hand are worrying about getting their next meal, not on attacking the US or our “Global Leadership“ whatever that means.

So all your “international affairs budget” is meaningless against the real reason for terrorism and as long as you think that it is then you will continue to fail.

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