Foreign in an Era of Great Power Competition

By Andrew S. Natsios

“Most especially in the conduct of foreign relations, that democratic governments appear to me to be decidedly inferior to governments carried out by different principles…But a democracy is unable to regulate the details of an important undertaking, to persevere in a design, and to work out its execution in the presence of serious obstacles. It cannot combine its measures with secrecy, and it will not await their consequences with patience. These are qualities which more especially belong to an individual or to an aristocracy.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)1

ver the past decade the international political system has evolved into a state of great power rivalry in which the is challenged for international leadership by a rising and a rapidly re-arming, revanchist Russia. A new militant nationalism is spreading across the globe; democracy appearsO to be in retreat as aggrieved populations turn to populist authoritarianism as a remedy. This rising political and strategic competition has now crossed over into the international development space. The international development order that emerged at the end of the Cold War is now unraveling. That order produced some of the greatest strides in human history: the widest expansion of democracy and human rights, the largest drop in poverty, the sharpest reduction in starvation and famine deaths, remarkable increases in life expectancy, literacy, and nutrition, and through the internet, the most access to information ever seen.2 Certainly much of this progress is attributable to globalization, investment, and economic growth; but foreign assistance has also played an important role.3 Despite this remarkable progress, many western donor governments recently have attempted to cut or consolidate their aid programs. In sharp contrast, China and Russia—the two presumed Great Power rivals to the United States—are expanding theirs. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 provides perhaps the best illustration of this new era of great power rivalry. Black Swan events—unanticipated and era-changing—drove much of 20th century history: World War I, the Great Influenza, World War II, and the rise and collapse of the Soviet Union, being the most notable exam- ples. The COVID-19 pandemic may surpass the tragic events of 9/11 as the defining Black Swan event of the early 21st century. It will be studied by Washington think tanks and academia for decades to come to comprehend fully

Andrew Natsios is an Executive Professor at the Bush School, Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, and is a former Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 101 NATSIOS how it unfolded and became exaggerated by the social send medical teams to Europe and other countries media. And how it drove much of the world’s popu- to provide advice and medical supplies based on lation to retreat to their homes, pushed countries into the Chinese experience with the virus. How this depression-level unemployment, collapsed stock mar- aid will be received by recipient countries remains kets around the world, paralyzed the global trading to be seen. The Chinese government’s propaganda system, bankrupted airlines, and panicked govern- machine used social media to spread preposterous ments into retreating behind national (and even stories that the U.S. military had brought the virus sub-national) borders. But it also showed the weak- to China, infuriating the White House. In retalia- nesses of international institutions such as the World tion, both President Trump and Secretary of State Health Organization which appeared powerless to Pompeo have tried to change the name of COVID- stop the spread of the disease and was largely ignored 19 to the China or Wuhan Virus. Both countries are in practice by the Chinese government during the racing to be the first to produce a vaccine to save the early stages of the pandemic. world from the disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has also led to the One of the outcomes of the pandemic in devel- worst relations between China and the western oping countries will be as much in the economic democracies since the Tiananmen Square crisis which damage as in human illness and deaths. Already, took years to recover. This time it will be even more exports from the global south to the north have dra- difficult for China because of Beijing’s early missteps matically declined as have remittances to the south which allowed the virus to get out of control, and from African and Latin American ethnic diasporas because COVID-19 has affected every country and living in the north. We may see cascading defaults in every person in every country, as lockdowns spread developing countries unable to pay their rising debt and mass unemployment rises across the world. obligations to China to pay for the Chinese Belt and The Trump Administration has avoided assuming Road infrastructure projects. Debt will have to be the traditional leadership role the United States has forgiven or refinanced, and China will have to be at taken in virtually every international crisis since the table since they hold this debt and they will have the 1940’s. While the U.S. has sent a modest $100 to participate in bailouts. million in assistance to developing countries, the Even before COVID-19 Washington policy- Administration included no funding in its proposal makers struggled to design a coherent new U.S. to Congress for its first supplemental budget. It was foreign aid strategy tied more intimately to U.S. the U.S. Congress which added $1.55 billion for the national interests to counter Russian and Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), efforts. Perhaps the current crisis will sharpen the State Department, and the United States Agency debate in the United States on the strategic use of for International Development (USAID) to assist foreign aid when there are direct national security developing countries. I have argued elsewhere that threats at stake. This article will review how the the best place to stop disease outbreaks mutating into U.S. foreign assistance program helped win the pandemics is at the source, not at the borders of the Cold War during an earlier period of great power United States. And it is the CDC international divi- rivalry, the weaknesses and strengths of current sion and USAID which have that capacity to intervene foreign aid programs of China and Russia, and at the source when they are allowed to do so.4 then using the lessons from the Cold War aid pro- has attempted to change the anti- gram, suggest a new realpolitik aid strategy for the China narrative on the pandemic by offering to United States.

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The includes 1/3 of world trade and GDP and over 60% of the world's population. (World Bank)

How Foreign Aid Helped Win the with more than 55 allies in its great power rivalry Cold War with the Soviet Union. The United States then Much of the academic literature and professional connected its economy with these allies through international development ideology argues against most favored nation and open trade agreements; the the use of foreign aid for national security purposes, U.S. military worked with their militaries through suggesting that this reduces success rates in devel- mutual defense treaties; the State Department ran opmental terms. They nearly all use the illustration programs to promote American culture; and USAID of President Mobutu of the Democratic Republic of used development programs to institutionalize the the Congo (called Zaire when he was in power) as liberal international order, build democratic capital- the poster child for the abuse of foreign policy-based ist societies, export American values and institutions, aid. While there certainly have been political aid provide human services, increase agricultural failures, there have been far more successes. I would production and economic growth, and stabilize argue the greatest USAID success stories during countries under pressure from the Communist bloc. the Cold War were those directly connected to One of the earliest and most famous of these U.S. national interests. These successes certainly aid programs was the Marshall Plan, announced benefited the United States but they also benefited on June 5, 1947 at by Secretary developing countries as they transitioned to become of State George C. Marshall in his commencement advanced developed countries. address, which sought to rebuild Europe from Between the end of WWII and the end of the the destruction of World War II. While Marshall Cold War the United States built a chain of alliances claimed “Our policy is directed not against any

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 103 NATSIOS country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, dangerous Cold War confrontations between the desperation and chaos,” he was being diplomatic, as United States and the Soviet Union. In December one of the purposes of the Marshall Plan was to stop 1961, one month after the creation of USAID, Cuban Stalin’s takeover of a devastated Europe and thus leader Fidel Castro announced to the world that he contain Soviet expansionism. had embraced Marxist-Leninism ideology and thus The successor U.S. government aid programs was allying Cuba with the Soviet Union. also served another more subtle purpose which was Perhaps the greatest success story of foreign aid to connect American institutions with those of U.S. during the Cold War next to the Marshall Plan was allies in the developing world through university the “Green Revolution.” Dr. Norman Borlaug, an linkage programs, NGO and civil society grants, American plant breeder from Kansas who taught at and scholarship programs to bring promising Texas A&M University (where the Borlaug Institute young leaders to earn degrees at American colleges continues to carry on his legacy) and his colleagues and universities. in India bred new varieties of corn, rice, and wheat While America exported civil society and which dramatically increased yields. These new democratic capitalism, the Soviet Union attempted seed varieties were then released into seed mar- to spread Marxist-Leninist ideology through its aid kets in India, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, the programs which built projects like the Aswan Dam Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, South in Egypt and brought developing country students Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. USAID imple- to the Soviet Union for their college degrees. But mented much of the program with Dr. Borlaug and Eastern Bloc countries could not match the resources local Ministries of Agriculture in the lead, while the of western aid programs. The Soviet Union’s total Rockefeller and Ford Foundations funded the actual Official Development Assistance (ODA) programs breeding of the seeds. were a mere 10 percent of total donor government In congressional testimony then-USAID aid during the Cold War. Marxist-Leninist ideology Administrator, William Gaud, reported that 50 was militantly hostile to the development of private percent USAID’s budget in the 1960’s was spent market economies, democracy and governance pro- implementing the Green Revolution in Asia. It was grams, civil society organizations, and independent Gaud who in a speech on March 8, 1968 coined the universities and colleges. term “Green Revolution” to describe the program. USAID’s foreign aid programs were products of Gaud said, “These and other developments in the the Cold War as an instrument to prevent develop- field of agriculture contain the makings of a new ing countries falling to . It was not until revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like 1961 that a single federal agency—USAID—was cre- that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution ated by President John F. Kennedy to institutionalize like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green the foreign aid program of the United States govern- Revolution.” One of the important lessons of the ment. The creation of USAID must be understood Green Revolution was that it did not unfold in in its historical context. In August 1961, a month a year or two; it took several decades to breed before the first Foreign Assistance Act was approved the seed, test it in each country, change agricul- by Congress, the Communist East German gov- tural policies in recipient countries to encourage ernment built the Berlin Wall to prevent further increased production, build rural roads to move escapes to the West. The Wall was constructed inputs and harvests, and train local agricultural in the middle of the Berlin crisis, one of the most technicians to institutionalize the programs. The

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Cold War aid programs of USAID had a time hori- USAID not only had great successes in the zon of 20 years at a minimum. sectors of development, it also had remarkable suc- In a National Academy of Science retrospec- cesses in Asia at the country level, particularly in tive report on the Green Revolution, Prabhu L. South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Pingali writes; and Indonesia. Between 1952 and 1980 the United States spent $18 billion (in 2009 dollars) in devel- The developing world witnessed an extraor- opment assistance to rebuild South Korea (ROK) dinary period of food crop productivity following the , with a civilian army growth over the past 50 years, despite of 10,000 USAID workers (mostly South Korean increasing land scarcity and rising land val- nationals) constructing roads, schools, and health ues. Although populations had more than clinics.8 During the Kennedy Administration, doubled, the production of cereal crops influenced by W.W. Rostow’s Modernization tripled during this period, with only a 30 Theory, USAID senior staff convinced ROK percent increase in land area cultivated… President Park Chung-Hee to pursue an export- Much of the success was caused by the based economic growth model which turned into combination of high rates of investment in one of the greatest economic miracles of the 20th crop research, infrastructure, and market century. In the 1950’s South Korea was one of the development and appropriate policy sup- poorest countries in the world, its economy devas- port that took place during the first Green tated by the Korean War with a third of its people Revolution (GR).5 suffering severe acute malnutrition (until U.S. The Green Revolution was a stunning success food aid arrived). It is now the 13th largest econ- as both a humanitarian program—because it ended omy in the world. The South Korean aid program famine in non-Communist Asia and dramatically proved once again the importance of a long time reduced chronic malnutrition—as well as a strategic horizon: it took twenty years to implement. one tied to U.S. foreign policy by containing commu- Similar programs were pursued in Taiwan nist expansionism. While China and the Soviet Union under Chiang-Kai-shek, as well as in Thailand, were busy funding and arming communist insurgen- Vietnam, and Indonesia where communist insur- cies in Asia (Laos, South Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, gencies were underway. Vietnam was a strategic a and Indonesia), was also implementing failure in Asia, but that was because it was being his radical agricultural revolution (1958-1962)—the carried out in the middle of a civil war (which is one Great Leap Forward—which led to the Great Chinese of several reasons the U.S. government’s more recent Famine that killed 45 million people—one of history’s aid programs in Iraq and Afghanistan were not as greatest catastrophes.6 So while the democratic capi- successful as they might have been had there been talist west was massively increasing food production peace and stability). Many of the studies of USAID in Asia, Mao was reducing it in China leading to the programs have focused on the strategic failure in mass starvation of his own people. South Vietnam, not the remarkable successes across The Green Revolution also set the stage for non-Communist Asia. industrialization as no country has industrialized While serving as USAID Administrator I without first modernizing its agricultural economy asked senior career officers what the most success- to produce large grain surpluses to feed their cities ful aid program was; they nearly universally said the and for export.7 Agency’s scholarship programs. For example, 3,000

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 105 NATSIOS promising South Korean students were brought to One of the other major foreign assistance the United States to get advanced degrees during success stories, particularly in Asia, was USAID’s the 1950’s and 1960’s under the U.S. aid program.9 (voluntary) family planning program. In the coun- The same was true in Taiwan, Indonesia, India, tries in Asia where USAID implemented these South Vietnam, and Thailand. During the Cold War family planning programs fertility rates dropped USAID brought 18,000-20,000 students per year from significantly, which a number of econometric allied and neutral developing countries such as India studies show to have been a factor in the high to obtain undergraduate and graduate degrees at U.S. economic growth rates of the East Asia Tigers.12 universities. This trend began gradually to decline During my tenure as USAID Administrator after the Cold War to merely a few thousand. Many USAID initiated a similar program in Ethiopia graduates later became Presidents, Prime Ministers, with the Ministry of Health which led over a 12 Finance Ministers, civil society leaders, and major year period to a drop in fertility rates from six to business figures.10 The success of these scholarship four children on average per family. programs only became apparent as the graduates rose to positions of power in their home countries The Current U.S. Aid Program over several decades. Thus during the Cold War, the Nearly 100 percent of the U.S. foreign aid budget is United States educated country elites, a program that divided into inflexible sector and subsector ear- is now a shadow of what it once was.11 Its decline may marks which have little do with the preferences of be directly attributable to the Office of Management developing countries. For example, only about 10 to and Budget’s relentless demand for immediate and 20 percent of U.S. government foreign aid spending quantifiable results reported on an annual basis, is designed to increase economic growth (which which scholarship programs cannot provide. includes USAID agriculture programs). The health USAID also managed, over twenty-year account which makes up 33 percent of the entire aid cycles, university linkage programs in South budget of $34.2 billion for 2018 is designed to fight Korea, India, Indonesia, and other countries cou- diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, pling American universities with newly created Polio, early childhood diseases, and Neglected counterparts in these countries. In the 1950’s the Tropical Diseases (NTDs), family planning, rather Indian Government and USAID’s predecessor than increasing economic growth. About 25 percent agencies worked with the private Ford Foundation of U.S. foreign aid is spent on disaster assistance in to build and staff a chain of agricultural colleges crises (both natural and man-made) to keep people to institutionalize the Green Revolution. They also alive and reduce human suffering, and address created more than a dozen engineering schools crises in fragile and failed states. USAID’s envi- (called Technical Institutes) linked with a dozen ronmental programs are designed to slow or stop American engineering universities between the economic growth in environmentally sensitive early 1950’s and 1970’s, exchanging faculty, collab- areas, not accelerate it. Economic growth is in fact orating on research, and sharing curricula. These one of the few areas of aid spending for which there Indian institutions now provide graduates to staff is no earmark and thus it’s underfunding. But most the current-day high technology revolution, which people and governments in the developing world was led by Indian entrepreneurs many of whom want aid which accelerates economic growth, job had earned their PhDs at U.S. engineering schools creation, and education, and job training geared on USAID scholarships. towards marketplace demands.

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Thus, western aid programs, including those This is because the technocratic oversight agencies of the United States, have focused not on infra- of the U.S. government—OMB, GAO, the F Office structure and economic growth demanded by the at the State Department, the USAID Inspector developing world, but programs that are popular in General (IG), Special IG for Afghan reconstruction, the Congress and among the American people— and Congressional Oversight Committees—each health, education, environment, and humanitarian demand quarterly reports, annual project evalu- assistance—since indirectly or directly it is ations, measureable indicators, audits, and other Congress and the American people that provide the data to prove programs are working. The OMB, IG, funding. The World Bank over time has reduced and GAO technocrats have seized control of the loans for infrastructure under pressure from aid budget and insist that program accountability non-governmental organizations and western envi- is more important than the strategic consequences ronmental groups which oppose mega-development of the program. These new accountability systems and infrastructure programs. have had diminishing returns, are very expen- The international development space abhors sive, and in fact do little to improve program a vacuum; that has presented an opportunity for performance.13 Despite these weaknesses in the China to fill the vacuum with mega-construction U.S. foreign assistance ecosystem, major accom- projects such as highways, ports, bridges, dams, plishments have been achieved; in disaster relief soccer stadiums, and airports. China has no envi- as incidents of famine and starvation deaths have ronmental groups or civil society organizations to precipitously declined since the 1980’s despite protest or constrain their foreign aid programs as growing chaos across the globe, in health through do traditional democratic donors, and no auditors the HIV/AIDS and Malaria programs of the Bush or inspectors to second-guess every decision made Administration, in agriculture through the Feed by development professionals. China can build these the Future initiative of the Obama Administration, very visible projects very rapidly. In an era of great and through the locally-generated projects of the power competition, the demands of developing Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). countries must take priority over U.S. (and other A significant trend in the 21st century western donor) domestic interest groups if the United States aid ecosystem is the emergence of private founda- hopes to compete with China for influence in the tion and corporate funding of aid programs which developing world. has massively increased between 1970 and 2000: the Because the U.S. foreign assistance budget is so Gates Foundation being the most notable exam- heavily earmarked there is no flexibility to respond ple.14 In 1970, the U.S. government provided 70 to opportunities or specific requests and needs of percent of U.S. funds going to the developing world, recipient countries; every dollar is already committed. while private foreign direct investment provided After the end of the Cold War the sector earmarks the remaining 30 percent. By 2007, those trends demanded by advocacy groups, NGOs, and religious had reversed, according to the Hudson Institute’s institutions, rose to be 100 percent of the aid budget, 2007 Index of Global Philanthropy: official U.S. aid as the national security justification diminished. programs provided only 9 percent ($21.8 billion) of These groups assiduously protect the earmarks. the $235.2 billion flowing from the United States The current aid system has such high levels to developing countries; private sources sent the of accountability that this system generates an remaining 91 percent (that is, $213.4 billion). The enormous demand for paperwork and bureaucracy. data show that foundations, corporations, nonprofits,

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 107 NATSIOS and other private philanthropic sources sent $37 agreements because of the fear of excessive debt billion to developing countries; ethnic diasporas commitments and the dire consequences of loan sent $79 billion in remittances (mostly from Latin defaults. In some cases countries have had to America); and corporations and individuals sent transfer control of their ports and other infra- $97.4 billion in private capital flows, mostly to Asia.15 structure, or their oil exports as happened in In recognition of this shift in funding sources Ecuador, when they cannot pay the debt service in 2001 USAID created the Global Development to Chinese lenders. This developing country debt Alliance (GDA) system of public-private part- to China will likely grow to crisis proportions in nerships to jointly fund development projects. the wake of the Great Corona Pandemic. The only Corporations, foundations, and NGOs ended up solution will be for China to forgive the debt with- providing 75 percent of the funding while USAID out penalty, as traditional donors did in the early provided 25 percent (plus its expertise in designing 2000’s led by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and and managing the development projects). Public- U.S. President George W. Bush, when debt burdens private partnerships make no sense in the Chinese to international banks were crushing developing or Russian aid landscape as their private sector is country budgets. This coming debt crisis may for the most part controlled by and subordinate to prove the end of the Belt and Road Initiative, or at state interests. And the Russian and Chinese private least its decline. sectors appear to have little interest in corporate Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice have social responsibility. argued that China’s building or managing ports and infrastructure follows the same pattern Great Aid with Chinese Characteristics Britain used to create the colonial empire which The creation and expansion of the China aid pro- dominated the industrial infrastructure of the gram did not begin with Donald Trump’s election world and covered a quarter of globe in the 19th cen- to the Presidency; it has been growing for some tury.17 In many ways the Chinese are not funding time along with China’s growing military power. their aid program with their own capital reserves, However, since Xi Jinping assumed office in March they are using them to leverage loans made to devel- 2013 China has moved aggressively to expand its for- oping countries which the recipients will eventually eign aid programs. have to repay. Thus the Chinese aid program is Over the past decade China has signed 99 extractive in nature whether in leasing land to grow year leases of hundreds of thousands of hectares of food for Chinese consumption, Chinese mining African agricultural land in Tanzania, Ethiopia, operations, oil and gas reserves, or as a destina- South , Sudan, and Madagascar among oth- tion for Chinese manufactured goods. Developing ers to produce food, as they worry about long-term country governments which have bought into this food security. The Belt and Road Initiative to build arrangement have received infrastructure in return. infrastructure links between the Chinese interior But this commonly understood picture of the China and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, aid program is incomplete. China is also exporting and Africa is grand in its scale and massive in its its model of development and its culture and insti- funding, but is experiencing growing headwinds tutions; mega-infrastructure projects, authoritarian from participant countries.16 Governments in politics, state based-economics, and mercantilist Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and ideology. It has reinforced this model through its Myanmar have been backing away from these scholarship programs.

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China has taken one of USAID’s greatest suc- trade dominance, but the Trump Administration cesses—its scholarship program—and replicated it, withdrew from the negotiations which caused the while the U.S. government has allowed its official collapse of the TPP (the same countries minus scholarship program to atrophy. It has become the United States then formed their own trading increasingly difficult for foreign students to get visas block). In both cases the United States ceded its to come to the U.S. These disappointed developing place in the development and trade space thus country students now have an alternative: China. unintentionally increasing Chinese influence. China is populating international organiza- “In 2015, a total of 397,635 international tions with its own technocrats in high positions students visited China from 202 coun- of power, and sending troops to UN Peacekeeping tries, 5.46 percent more than the preceding Operations (it is now one of the largest contrib- year. These students studied in 811 col- utors to UNDPO) even as the United States has leges, research institutes, and universities gradually reduced its presence in these same insti- in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and tutions. Some in the United States may see this as municipalities across China. The Chinese a positive trend because of burden sharing; but government awarded 40,600 scholarships to backing away from funding and staffing interna- international students with the remainder tional organizations is self-destructive as America being self-financed. About 184,799 interna- closes in on itself and becomes increasingly iso- tional students were admitted for academic lated in a world dominated by Chinese economic, degrees, an increase of 20,405 students com- cultural and diplomatic influence. pared to the previous year.”18 The Beijing leadership believes its authoritar- Thus, China has in place an extensive schol- ian mercantilist model of economic development arship program for students from developing is superior to traditional donor aid programs. countries to take degrees at Chinese universities, China funds its programs through concessional learn Mandarin, and take courses in loans at reduced interest rates to governments twice the size of the USAID program at the height and businesses around the globe through several of the Cold War. The question is whether these organizational mechanisms including state banks students will return home and attempt to transform which have an explicit mandate to support gov- their cultures and societies on the Chinese mercan- ernment priorities rather than pursuing purely tilist authoritarian rather than the American model commercial deals.19 The of democratic capitalism with a strong civil society? apparatus has a heavy hand in coordinating and China is also developing the institutional directing foreign investments that are consistent infrastructure to promulgate the Chinese version with its broad, geostrategic imperatives, an aid of development in the 21st century. In December environment quite different than that of private 2015 China created the Asian Infrastructure market economies such as the United States. Thus, Development Bank which now has 74 member the lines are blurred between the Chinese public countries as well as 26 prospective members but and private sectors in these deals. which the Obama Administration refused to The China foreign aid budget is reportedly join. The Obama Administration helped cre- between $5-7 billion dollars a year, and has several ate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) among attractive features for developing countries that might Asian countries to try to counter China’s growing be unattractive investments for traditional donors—at

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 109 NATSIOS least on the surface. First, China generally ignores the a Great Power. The problem is that China’s aid man- performance of its aid recipients (unless they default agers appear either to have no interest in institution on loan payments), human rights abuses, corruption, building or do not know how to develop local capac- return on investment, or program accountability. ity. Given the deep structural weaknesses in China’s Some of China’s aid programs are concentrated in own institutions, this is perhaps understandable. rogue or failed states such as North Korea, Venezuela, American aid programs focus heavily on institu- Cuba, Libya, and Sudan (until 2019 when a new civil- tion and capacity building which is something they ian government took office). According to a Brooking should continue, particularly as this is a failing of Institution study Chinese aid programs are concen- the China development model. trated in the most corrupt governments in the world Fourth, negotiations on aid programs between and the aid is spent disproportionately in the home China and host governments are conducted in secret areas of the heads of state.20 and without the intrusive “meddling” or oversight Second, China’s aid programs focus on “mon- of other donors, international institutions, local ument development,” which is to say highly visible parliaments, or civil society. Thus, they display little infrastructure projects—highways, ports, dams, transparency in their aid allocation, programming, airports, and soccer stadiums—which are popular, at contracting, or implementation systems. least initially, until they start deteriorating because of In 2016 China established its own bilateral the absence of operations and maintenance capacity. independent aid agency, now called the China Much Chinese aid is in the form of construction International Development Cooperation Agency, or projects built by imported Chinese workers, a prac- CIDCA, and transferred its existing aid programs tice which is very unpopular in developing countries from the Ministry of Commerce where they had that want their own workers trained and employed. been housed since the inception of the foreign aid This has led to speculation that the real motive of all program. This development is most interesting as China’s aid programs, including the Belt and Road many western governments now are centralizing Initiative, is the need to export surplus male labor control of their aid agencies in their foreign min- (unemployed and unmarried men) which Party istries, while China is making its aid agency more leaders fear could be a destabilizing force in future independent. The size and extent of China’s aid years. This is a strategic weakness of the China aid programs and financing are supposed to be a state program which the United States should exploit by secret, but it is known that the largest recipient of hiring, empowering, and training (which is the basis Chinese aid programs is China’s “Great Power” for most bilateral western aid programs) as many ally and neighbor, the Russian Republic, which was people from recipient countries as possible because granted a loan on concessional terms to construct a China’s aid programs cannot and will not do that. gas pipeline from Siberia to China.21 Third, while infrastructure and construction projects are completed rapidly they are built without Russian Aid Program concern for environmental impact, and do not pro- Putting the Chinese and Russians in the same cat- tect the health and safety of construction workers egory as Great Power rivals of the United States in who often work two shifts per day, seven days per terms of foreign aid is misleading. Russia’s foreign aid week. The speed of construction and visibility of program displays none of the size, strategic vision, or these mega-infrastructure projects makes them dra- coherence of China’s program. Russia does not have matic and visible evidence of China’s emergence as the foreign currency reserves, the surplus male labor

110 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 4 FOREIGN AID IN AN ERA OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION pool, the economic need for natural resources from There is considerable evidence that Russia is developing countries (Russia is naturally endowed on driving refugee and displaced populations from its own soil with a third of the mineral and fossil fuel Syria towards Europe in order to destabilize the resources of the entire planet), nor the industrial pro- European Union. In Senate testimony in March duction to export (their exports other than fossil fuels, 2016 the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO consist of weapons systems and more recently, grain). reported that, “Together, Russia and the Assad Nevertheless, Russia’s international development Regime are deliberately weaponizing migration in assistance has grown 300 percent since 2010 according an attempt to overwhelm European structures and to a study done by Aid Data.22 It topped $1.16 billion in break European resolve.” 2015, but fell to $1.02 billion in 2016. While Russia’s aid program has been help- Russia’s foreign interventions have actually ful in funding international health programs, the systematically undermined and even reversed devel- benefits are undone by spreading misinforma- opment progress. According to an in-depth New tion about vaccines through the internet.24 While York Times investigative report published October this disinformation may have been directed at 18, 2019, the Russian Air Force systematically European and American audiences, it is also being bombed hospitals in Syria and made the humanitar- read in developing countries and has fueled a ian emergency more severe, a counter-developmental recently rising tide of anti-vaccine propaganda in tactic if there ever was one.23 Africa which is creating hostility to vaccination

Recipients of Soviet Aid (1954 – 1984)

Map showing recipients of Soviet aid, 1954 – 1984. (AidData, Gerda Asmus, Andreas Fuchs, Angelika Müller, and Soren Patterson. Data from CIA and OECD-DAC)

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Recipients of Russian Aid (2011 – 2015)

Map showing recipients of Russian aid, 2011 – 2015. (AidData, Gerda Asmus, Andreas Fuchs, Angelika Müller, and Soren Patterson. Data from CIA and OECD-DAC) campaigns. It could even hinder the future dis- proven very fragile. This has proven especially tribution of vaccines to combat the Great Corona notable in the case of pharmaceuticals.26 The global Pandemic. These contemporary Russian tactics COVID-19 Pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities would have embarrassed the Cold War Soviet which the new, more protectionist era the world elites that cooperated with western democracies seems headed toward may accelerate. on the highly successful efforts beginning in the Below are some of the elements of a new aid 1960’s to eradicate smallpox (and also polio, less strategy to protect U.S. national interests during this successfully). Some estimate that 300 million peo- environment characterized by both growing nation- ple died from smallpox in the twentieth century alism and Great Power competition. before it was finally eradicated in 1977 through this remarkable cooperation.25 A Realist Mission for Foreign Assistance The Obama Administration rewrote the more Strategic Principles for U.S. Foreign traditional realist USAID mission to focus on Assistance in a Time of Great Power eradicating extreme poverty as its central objec- Rivalry tive. In practice this led to plans to phase out The era of globalization may be coming to an end. programs in middle-income countries. This was a Corporate supply chains that have focused exclu- mistake as those countries can fall backwards and sively on efficiency and cost over reliability have regress in the development process (as Venezuela

112 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 4 FOREIGN AID IN AN ERA OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION has proven). More importantly, middle-income hospitals, without any infrastructure, technical countries—many of which still have significant training, or institution building. These hospital populations suffering from poverty and underde- buildings will be of little help in combatting the dev- velopment—may be of critical strategic importance astation of any pandemic. to the United States. A better approach would be to The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 should teach determine American interests in a country based hard realists who are dismissive of development on their strategic importance which will not likely assistance and “humanitarian programs,” if senior change from one year to another. The basis of any policymakers ignore such crises they can alter world alliance system with the United States should not be history, and not in a good way. While the behavior of tactical or transactional, but strategic and long-term governments, both great and small, during the crisis as was the case during the Cold War. has reinforced the structural realist argument that The mission of USAID should be rewritten to the nation state remains the fundamental organizing focus on supporting our allies, friends, and coun- principle of the international system, the progress tries of strategic importance, whether they are of the virus has shown that foreign policies of great middle- or low-income, linking American society and small powers are principally driven by internal and institutions with those of developing coun- political pressures from their own citizens to protect tries. The U.S. foreign assistance program should them from external threats such as diseases, pres- emphasize those elements that it is uniquely suited sures which have little to do with balance of power to provide, for which there is a local demand, and theories of statecraft. that neither Russian nor Chinese aid programs can offer. Supporting the development of civil society, Avoid Transactional and Tactical Foreign democracy, human rights, and free market capital- Assistance ism, economic growth, agriculture, and health and President Trump has used foreign assistance in education are some of those elements. negotiations with countries to achieve other out- comes: That is, as a tool of diplomacy to induce Maintain the High Moral Ground. non-developmental outcomes. For the most part this Many U.S. aid efforts, such as the HIV/AIDS, has been with punitive rather than positive incen- Malaria, Polio eradication, and Neglected Tropical tives. These transactional uses of aid have little to do Disease programs, save lives, reduce human suffer- with development and have been counterproductive ing, and stabilize societies traumatized by epidemic historically. During the Cold War, the least defensi- disease outbreaks. Some hard realists argue these ble and most infamous use of foreign aid subsidized programs should be abandoned making funding predatory, corrupt, and tyrannical regimes (which available for more strategically important pro- claimed to be anti-Communist) with no interest in grams. This overlooks the fact that the United States any kind of development. is admired and revered in developing countries President Trump’s suspension of the aid pro- because of these health programs (among other grams in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador as reasons) and their effect on the average person. And punishment for insufficient cooperation in stopping now with the COVID-19 pandemic, these health migration to the United States is a case in point. These programs appear even more strategic than they were aid programs were designed to address the drivers earlier. The Chinese health programs in Africa and of migration, and the empirical evidence shows that other regions have focused principally on building they were beginning to work. By suspending these

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 113 NATSIOS aid programs the pressure for people to migrate to the failures of U.S. policy. This is a problem in all United States has increased, not diminished. democracies, but particularly in the United States. The challenge in a period of great power com- Successful development programs which result in petition will be determining which countries are transformational change require long time hori- U.S. allies, which are adversaries, and which are zons of 10-20 years to take root, grow, and become neither. Using votes in the UN Security Council or self-sustaining. They must take an incremental the General Assembly to determine who is friend rather than revolutionary approach.28 From the ear- or foe is unwise, as some countries which are allies liest foreign aid programs, some policymakers have inevitably will disagree with the United States on been disappointed when transformational changes certain issues. President Trump and former U.S. have not taken place overnight. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley were angered Only fourteen months after its creation USAID when U.S. aid beneficiaries voted in favor of a resolu- was widely believed to be failing because it had not tion criticizing the U.S. Embassy move in Israel from yet transformed Latin America. Daniel Bell, who Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and proposed making aid con- was sent to fix USAID as its second Administrator, ditional on countries voting with us. What was not in his retirement interview raised the issues of time said is that the two countries which wrote and spon- horizon and demonstrable results several times. sored the resolution—Jordan and Egypt—are among “The President, I know personally came to feel that America’s two closest allies in the Arab world. Given the Alliance for Progress did not move nearly as domestic public opinion in their own countries they quickly as he had hoped it would.”29 would have risked political hostility at home had they Bell reported, “I’m sure they (Kennedy’s advi- voted against the resolution. More importantly for sors) became aware during the Kennedy years of the American foreign policy, Israel relies on the stabil- inherent difficulties with which the U.S. was trying ity of its two neighbors for its own security. Cutting to deal in less developed countries--the very stubborn aid to Jordan and Egypt because of their UN votes obstacles to change…to the rapid achievement of eco- would have endangered Israel’s security.27 The United nomic and social progress.”30 The fact that President States should not use foreign aid to buy votes in any Kennedy and his advisors expected Latin America to forum, although aid can be used as an inducement “achieve rapid economic and social progress” four- in negotiations as it was by President Carter who teen months after USAID was established shows how promised generous aid packages to Israel and Egypt detached they were from the realities of development if they signed the Camp David Accords which ended theory and practice (and of social change). the state of war between the two countries and stabi- The 20 year time horizon for aid programs lized the Middle East. The larger conceptual problem during the Cold War has gradually been abandoned with using aid as a transactional tool in negotiations in the post-Cold War era as the technocrats from is that programs cannot be turned off and on like a OMB took control of aid funding and insisted on light switch to satisfy short term political imperatives ever shorter program horizons: to ten years, then without damaging the programs viability. five, and today to one year as OMB demands annual reports showing measureable progress without Realign Aid Strategy to a 10-20 Year Time which programs are terminated. A realist foreign Horizon. aid strategy for a period of Great Power Competition The relentless demand for instant results from must return to the longer time horizons of the Cold development programs has been among the greatest War, or it will fail.

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Correct Structural, Regulatory, and Statutory from both an international development and Weaknesses in Aid Programs. foreign policy perspective the country directors The quantitative measurements school of pub- responsible for the foreign assistance programs lic management has dominated OMB and some should be influential with, if not the chief develop- Congressional Committees since the early 1990s ment adviser to, the President or Prime Minister resulting in greater centralization of decisionmaking and the cabinet members of the countries which are over aid programs. During the Cold War, USAID the recipients of U.S. aid. To do that USAID Mission was by far the most decentralized aid agency in the Directors must have broad discretion to respond to world and the most effective. The historical record local needs rather than the needs of Washington suggests that aid programs particularly in unstable command and control agencies. environments are more successful when decisions are made locally. Retired USAID career officers told Timing and Location of USAID Missions me that the Green Revolution looked different in should be Based on U.S. National Interests each country, even though the common denomina- Rather than Graduation Criteria. tor was the improved seed varieties. Since the 1990’s every President, OMB, and We now have rigorous empirical evidence Congressional oversight committee, has been to support this decentralization imperative. In obsessed with “country graduation” from aid pro- Navigation by Judgment: Organizational Autonomy grams, particularly for middle-income countries. and Country Context in the Delivery of Foreign Aid, For example, over the past 30 years this pressure led Daniel Honig has examined the organizational to USAID closing its offices in Panama, Bulgaria, features of international development organiza- Romania, Chad, Mauritania, and Niger. The latter tions (aid agencies) over 14,000 aid projects. 31 Honig three had to be promptly re-opened up due to the reports that “navigation by measurement” may terrorist threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic improve organizational performance when work- Maghreb. Many more country programs were ing in predictable environments and when the tasks scaled back in size. During my tenure as USAID are observable in nature—road building, vaccine Administrator, under the same pressures, plans distribution, etc. However, when the environment were made (though never implemented) to leave is unpredictable and projects focus on less observ- Morocco, Yemen, Brazil, Guyana, and South Africa. able tasks—such as governance reforms or health As it were, the strategic imperatives that followed the system improvement—”navigation by judgment” terrorist attacks of 9/11 resulted in opening 10 new (which requires a highly decentralized manage- missions and abandoning none, thus overruling the ment model) may prove to be the superior strategy imperatives of graduation criteria. for improving organizational performance. USAID This constant refrain of closing missions has program management should be decentralized as it been self-defeating and results from a misun- was during the Cold War. derstanding of U.S. national interests. Countries James Q. Wilson reached a similar conclusion: should only graduate or close USAID Missions if “In general, authority should be placed at the lowest the risk to vital U.S. national interests has been per- level at which all essential elements of informa- manently and decisively mitigated or eliminated, tion are available.”32 This is particularly true in aid not because they have become middle-income programming far removed culturally and geo- countries. For example, the United States should graphically from Washington. Most importantly have robust aid missions in Egypt and Panama

PRISM 8, NO. 4 FEATURES | 115 NATSIOS regardless of their per capita income because they of the Cold War. During this period of Great Power host the most important canals in the world and are competition the heavily earmarked sector budgets of critically important to American commerce and a the U.S. government should give way to the relative stable world economic order. geostrategic interests. Africa will be the battleground in the Great Power rivalry of the 21st century because Recognize the Shifting Geographic focus of of its vast mineral and hydrocarbon wealth, its massive Great Power Competition from Europe to the open land for food production (Africa has 60 percent Developing World of the earth’s arable land and by 2060 will have a larger The focus of Departments of State and Defense population than China), its high projected economic planning under both the Obama and Trump growth rates in this century, and the popularity Administrations has been to pivot to Asia. Chinese of America among its people and its leaders.33 The strategic interests are not limited to Asia; they are geography of the U.S. foreign aid budget has already global and extend to the entire developing world. shifted to Africa because of the investments made by China recognized the importance of the global south President G.W. Bush and later by President Obama. some time ago and has invested its resources accord- These investments should be nurtured and cultivated, ingly. Geography should drive the foreign assistance not cut short by myopic thinking in Washington. budget, and the geographical center of gravity is in But the United States also has vital interests that the South. Nor should sector earmarks drive the must be supported by aid programs in Central and USAID budget which has been the case since the end South America. These interests include reducing mass

Chinese train in about 20 km north of Yangbaijan. (Jan Reurink)

116 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 4 FOREIGN AID IN AN ERA OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION migration, countering narcotics trafficking, rein- Chinese is not an easy language to learn for stu- forcing the salutary evolving regional trade regimes, dents from most developing countries leading combatting criminal cartels, and opposing ongoing some Chinese universities to offer their courses in Marxist subversion supported by Cuba and Venezuela. English. While China’s science-based universities The United States should use its foreign assis- are rising in the international rankings, American tance to strategically reengage in Eastern Europe, the schools are still the leaders. A realist foreign aid Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast program to compete with China and Russia should Asia to counter Russian and Chinese influence there shift to a much more aggressive effort to connect as well. Most of these countries want a robust U.S. American institutions of higher learning through aid presence to counter threats from their north- either scholarships or linkage programs, as this ern Great Power neighbors. Russian pressure on the plays to America’s strengths. Caucasus, the Balkans and Eastern Europe should Rising middle-income countries with large encourage increased aid budgets not closing aid populations such as Brazil, India, and Mexico missions. Growing Chinese influence in Central Asia (among others) that have become regional powers is not a justification for abandoning those countries, often want a different relationship with the United but rather justifies robust aid programs in the region. States, and do not wish to be aid recipient countries any longer. Long term university linkages programs Great Power Cooperation in Development is would likely be welcomed by these countries and Possible make developmental sense as well. While Great Power competition may dominate This strategic approach to Great Power compe- world politics in coming years or decades, our aid tition in development assistance will protect the vital programs should deliberately seek out some areas interests of the United States and its allies and part- of development cooperation with China and Russia ners, address international threats to U.S. national where national interest allows. Before the COVID- security, and reduce areas of potential conflict with 19 pandemic of 2020, I would have argued that the China and Russia that could lead to military con- best candidate for such cooperation might be in frontation. But foreign aid must be used strategically international health (particularly now given how and deal with the world as it is, devoid of the utopia- traumatic the Pandemic has been to the world nism, naiveté, and unrealistic expectations that have order). Unfortunately, likely due to so many pro- at times characterized it in the past. found strategic implications of the Pandemic, great We do not know how long this new interna- power competition set in instead. tional order will last—the Cold War lasted 40 years and the Post-Cold War period lasted 30 years—but Rebuild a large-scale, Developmentally Sound irreversible demographic trends leading to the Academic Exchange Program Including depopulation of both China and Russia (even more Scholarships and Institutional Linkages with so of their working age population) will certainly the Global South limit their ambitions and the threat they represent. In most developing countries American colleges Until demography becomes destiny Washington and universities remain the most respected and policymakers should use all the tools—particularly desirable degree institutions for aspiring profes- foreign assistance—to manage prudently the U.S. sionals. English remains the language of education relationship with China and Russia in the develop- and commerce throughout the world. Mandarin ing world. PRISM

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12 Notes Michael Pillsbury wrote a book in the 1990’s which he unfortunately did not complete called The Hidden 1 Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. Vol. Successes of USAID based on declassified CIA cables 1. (New York: Schocken Books. 1961). 272-273. Volume describing these development programs. It is a fascinating 1 was originally published in 1835 and volume 2 later in read. 1840. 13 See Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter- 2 For a full description of this progress see Hans bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Rosling. Factfulness (New York: Flatiron Books. 2018). Development, July 1, 2010. 3 See Steven Radelet. The Great Surge: The Ascent of 14 Andrew Natsios, Stanford Social Innovation the Developing World (New York: Simon and Schuster. Review, “Public-Private Alliances Transform Aid,” Fall 2015). 2009. 4 For the full argument see Andrew Natsios, OpEd 15 Ibid. “American foreign aid programs best defense against 16 U.S. Department of Agriculture, China’s Foreign Corona Virus.” Washington Times, March 11, 2020. Agriculture Investments, by Elizabeth Gooch and Fred 5 Prabhu L. Pingali. “Green revolution: impacts, Gale. Economic Information Bulletin Number 192, limits, and the path ahead.” Proceedings of the National Washington, DC: Economic Research Service, 2018. Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88572/ 109,31 (2012): 12302-8. doi:10.1073/pnas.0912953109. eib-192.pdf?v=43213 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ 17 Condoleezza Rice and Philip Zelikow, To Build a PMC3411969/ Better World (New York, NY: Twelve. 2019). 423. 6 Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of 18 Rashid Latief and Lin Lefen, “Analysis of Chinese China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe 1958-62. (London: Government Scholarship for International Students Using Bloomsbury Publishing. 2010), 298. See also Jasper Becker Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP),” Sustainability, 21 account of the famine in Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret June 2018. Famine (New York: Holt Publishing, 1998.) 19 For a full description of concessional loans 7 and Singapore, which had no agricul- and banking system role in Chinese aid programs see tural land, are the two exceptions to this principle. William Norris’s fine book, Chinese Economic Statecraft: 8 USAID employed 6,000 aid workers in Taiwan in Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control the 1950’s and 1960’s. During the Iraq For 65,000-70,000 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2016). workers employed, most of them Iraqis. 20 Fang Wan, “How ‘unconditional’ is China’s for- 9 See USAID, Case Study, South Korea: From Aid eign aid?” DW, May 5, 2018, https://www.dw.com/en/ Recipient to Donor. Available on the USAID website. how-unconditional-is-chinas-foreign-aid/a-43499703. 10 The State Department also manages the famous 21 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Russia Is the Biggest Fulbright Scholarship program which provides total 8,000 Recipient of Chinese Foreign Aid,” Foreign Policy, grants per year of which 4,000 are to foreign students October 11, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/11/ studying in the U.S. These 4000 foreign students come russia-is-the-biggest-recipient-of-chinese-foreign-aid- from 140 countries many of which are not developing north-korea/. countries. Private and Public Universities in the U.S. also 22 Gerda Asmus, Andreas Fuchs, and Angelika provide scholarships to students from developing coun- Müller, “Russia’s foreign aid re-emerges,”Aid- tries. The USAID scholarship program was designed to Data, April 9, 2018, https://www.aiddata.org/blog/ fill knowledge and skills gaps within the student’s home russias-foreign-aid-re-emerges. countries, and in some cases to educate professionals from 23 Evan Hill and Christiaan Triebert, “12 Hours. 4 particularly important ministries or other local institu- Syrian Hospitals Bombed. One Culprit: Russia.,” New tions, rather than a one off program to help individual York Times, October, 13, 2019, https://www.nytimes. students regardless of where they come from. See https:// com/2019/10/13/world/middleeast/russia-bombing-syr- eca.state.gov/fulbright/frequently-asked-questions ian-hospitals.html.; Christiaan Triebert, Evan Hill, 11 For a full understanding of the argument see Mark Malachy Browne, Whitney Hurst and Dmitriy Khavin, Moyar’s fine book Aid for Elites: Building Partner Nations “How Times Reporters Proved Russia Bombed Syrian and Ending Poverty through Human Capital (Cambridge, Hospitals,” New York Times, October, 13, 2019, https:// UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016). www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/reader-center/russia-syr- ia-hospitals-investigation.html.

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24 David A. Broniatowski, Amelia M. Jamison, SiHua Qi, Lulwah AlKulaib, Tao Chen, Adrian Benton, Sandra C. Quinn, and Mark Dredze, 2018: Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate. American Journal of Public Health 108, 1378-1384. https://doi.org/10.2105/ AJPH.2018.304567. 25 For a full description of this effort see WHO’s pub- lication, Smallpox: Eradicating an ancient scourge. https:// www.who.int/about/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_ smallpox.pdf; and Elena Conis, Political Ills: Smallpox, polio, and political and scientific haggling behind two med- ical triumphs, Science History Institute, July 3, 2016. 26 See The Conversation, “The Silent threat of Coronavirus: America’s Dependence on Chinese Pharmaseuticals”, Christine Crudo Blackburn, Andrew Natsios, Gerald W. Parker, and Leslie Ruyle, Feb. 10, 2020. 27 For an excellent review of the arguments against using UN votes as a standard for allocating aid see Najibullah Gulabzoi. Why U.S. Foreign Aid Should Not Be Conditioned on United Nations General Assembly Voting Patterns, SAIS, January 10, 2019. https://www.saisreview. org/2019/01/10/us-foreign-aid-unga-voting/?fbclid=I- wAR3PKA_B0XXpk76skVzJi_heSvAXnewygY8qU- PhUmnammAPNmH0bXRdKVVM 28 For an analysis of the USAID experience in long time horizon development to achieve development successful in education see The Power of Persistence: Education Reform and Aid Effectiveness. Case Studies in Long-term Education Reform, Academy for Educational Development, November 2010. 29 Exit Interview as USAID Administrator Daniel Bell, 114. 30 Exit Interview as USAID Administrator, 113-114. 31 Daniel Honig. 2014. “Navigating by Judgment: Organizational Autonomy in Delivering Foreign Aid.” Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Accessed April 15, 2017. http://wp.peio.me/wp-content/ uploads/PEIO8/Honig%2026.1.2015.pdf. 32 James Q. Wilson. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1991). 33 Amadou Sy, “What do we know about the Chinese land grab in Africa?” Brookings, November 5, 2015. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ africa-in-focus/2015/11/05/what-do-we-know-about-the- chinese-land-grab-in-africa/.

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