// essays //
Fall 2007
The Softer Side of the War on Terror
Daniel Greenberg
In his 2003 State of the Union address that is famous for its threats of war against Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush proclaimed that "seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many." He was not speaking about his vision for a model democracy in the tyrannical Middle East. Instead, he was talking about Africa.
After an emotional description of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic, Bush proposed the Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, asking Congress to set aside $15 billion over the next five years to combat the pandemic in the most afflicted African nations. This was to develop into the Global HIV/AIDS Initiative (GHAI).
A year earlier, in March 2002, Bush had announced perhaps the largest and most progressive increase in U.S. foreign assistance in more than fifty years. He created the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which aimed to increase U.S. Official Development Assistance to the poorest nations, mainly African, by 50%, or an annual $5 billion, within three years.
The MCA and GHAI proposals both seem puzzling at first sight and indeed were unexpected coming from a conservative Republican whose party has historically been opposed to increases in foreign aid spending. With the end of the Cold War, former Republican president George H.W. Bush and many Republican senators (most notably Jesse Helms of North Carolina) declared that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had outlived its purpose and called for it to be eliminated and merged with the State Department.
As such, U.S. foreign aid had been in steady decline when Bush took office. From 1990 to 2001, the year prior to the announcement of the MCA, foreign aid spending dropped from 0.26% to 0.16% of GDP. This constitutes a 38% decrease in foreign aid spending in just one decade. It appears that with the end of the Cold War, the U.S.'s assessment of its national interest placed considerably less emphasis on foreign aid spending.
In the wake of 9/11 America's focus shifted to combating terrorism. African leaders expressed concern that U.S. priorities would shift further away from sub-Saharan problems and that aid would suffer significantly as a result. The exact opposite has happened. Before 2001, the only country in the region listed by USAID as one of the top fifteen recipients of aid was Ethiopia. Since the U.S.'s post-2001 strategy shift, though, contributions to Liberia, Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Zambia have made sub-Saharan Africa the world's most represented region on the list of top recipients. What explains this new U.S. emphasis on Africa? How can we reconcile Bush's seeming generosity with the seeming disregard for foreign aid of his predecessors?
To address this matter properly, it is necessary to review the historical impetus for foreign aid. U.S. foreign assistance policy traces its roots to the non-permanent Marshall Plan implemented directly after World War II to stabilize Europe. The plan's intentions were two-fold. First and foremost, it was intended to stop the potential spread of communism to Western Europe by remedying the vulnerabilities caused by poverty and political instability. Secondly, the plan aimed to preserve, develop, and integrate the European economies in order to maintain and increase trade with the U.S. From the plan's inception in 1947 to its termination in 1951, the U.S. pumped $13 billion into the European economy. Foreign aid spending soared from 2.88% of GDP in 1947 to a high of 3.06% in 1949 and then to 2.38% in 1951, the only years in which foreign aid spending was upward of 2% of GDP.
Arguably, the plan was primarily a tool of the national security agenda, crucial in the U.S. strategy in the Cold War. Poverty and weak political systems were seen as likely to accommodate ideologies dangerous to U.S. interests.
The next major step in U.S. foreign aid policy was the formation of USAID. In promoting support for the creation of USAID, President John F. Kennedy wrote:
To fail to meet those obligations now would be disastrous; and, in the long run, more expensive. For widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled. A program of assistance to the underdeveloped nations must continue because the Nation's interest and the cause of political freedom require it.
According to the official USAID website, development assistance helped to "combat both the perceived spread of ideological threats such as communism and the threat of instability arising from poverty." In 1961, foreign aid spending amounted to 1.03% of GDP, a significant decrease since the years of the Marshall Plan. From then onwards, foreign aid declined almost linearly, reaching a low of 0.16% of GDP in 2001.
This brings us to Bush's "New Compact for Development"—composed mainly of the MCA and GHAI initiatives—which was only the third major development in foreign aid policy since World War II.
The Bush administration explained its aid position in a policy paper entitled "Foreign Aid in the National Interest," writing that "more than ever, U.S. security is bound up with the outside world." This is because, the document continued, "when development and governance fail in a country, the consequences engulf entire regions and leap around the world. Terrorism, political violence... cascade across borders of weak states more destructively than ever before." Entrenched poverty creates a climate of alienation, to which people react with different forms of violence, sometimes directed "toward the world's successful countries, in terrorism." Such regions have proved to be recruiting grounds and safe havens for terrorists.
In previous government-issued synopses of U.S. strategy, ‘Defense' and ‘Diplomacy' were the two pillars of U.S. national security. However, in 2002, following the events of 9/11, ‘Development' was added as the third ‘D' of the national defense strategy.
Bush was not saying that poverty causes terrorism. In fact, he dispelled this argument in the introduction to his 2002 National Security Strategy statement, in which he declared: "Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks." This unprecedented step represents a reluctant acceptance that poverty, while not a cause of terrorism, is a threat to national security. This explains the increase in aid as part and parcel of Bush's War on Terror, which famously includes a policy of democracy promotion. Just as he fears tyrannical governance as a cause of dangerous radicalism—and sees democratic states as less likely to breed radicalism—Bush sees the poverty of other states as a potential threat to U.S. national security.
The remaining unexplained element, it seems, is the focus on Africa. The public does not associate sub-Saharan Africa with terrorism, believing, and rightly so, that terrorism comes mainly from countries in the Middle East that provide radicals with tools and doctrines. Indeed, the U.S. focuses a major part of its efforts on the Middle East. Prior to 2001, Israel and Egypt, seen as allies of U.S. national security interests, were the top two recipients of U.S. aid, together accounting for 73% of the aid given to the top fifteen recipients. After 9/11, the recipient base broadened: while Israel and Egypt continue to be the two top recipients, frontline countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey received sharp increases in aid. But what explains Bush's Africa focus? Why, from 1994 to 2004, has the regional distribution of aid shifted in favor of Africa? The answer lies in an analysis of the complex political problems of certain African regions.
In 1993, eighteen U.S. soldiers lost their lives in Mogadishu, Somalia, in an event later attributed to, among others, Osama bin Laden, who at the time was conducting operations from Sudan. On August 7th, 1998, explosions in the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, twelve of whom were American citizens. These attacks were also attributed to Osama bin Laden, who had moved to Afghanistan in 1996. They represented a determination to strike U.S. interests anywhere in the world. As a Congressional Research Service report noted, "Africa has emerged as a safe-haven for a number of terrorist groups from the Middle East and extremist groups from Africa."
Somalia is considered the most dangerous threat to the region. Since 1991, the country has been without a central government and is controlled by regional factions and warlords. This has created a political climate hospitable to terrorist networks and activity, most notably Al-Ittihad, a fundamentalist Islamic group determined to create an Islamic state in Somalia. Somalia's 3,000 mile, unguarded coastline in close proximity with the Gulf of Aden and countries such as Saudi Arabia sparked fear. The failed state poses a threat to the stability of the entire region.
Sudan, considered a rogue state and known to support terrorist groups, poses a similar threat. Al-Qaeda's activities, the report believes, have spread not only to these two countries, but also to neighboring Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.
Ethiopia, though, provides an interesting example of a country that, while not wholly stable, could serve as a valuable bulwark against terrorism. Having fought Al-Ittihad for the past decade, Ethiopia is among those countries that may be "capable and suitable to join an effective partnership with the United States," as the Congressional Research Report put it in 2002. Kenya and Uganda, meanwhile, have had less success in countering the terrorist threat created by the Somali crisis.
Bush stated in his introduction to the ‘National Security Strategy' of 2002 that "America will help all nations that need our assistance in combating terror." Indeed, it has done so. In June 2003, Bush announced the $100 million East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACI) designed to equip U.S. allies in the region with counterterrorism capabilities. These include "military training for border and coastal security, a variety of programs to strengthen control of the movement of people and goods across borders, aviation security capacity-building" etc. Numerous other programs exist to help countries in the horn of Africa fight terrorism. For example, the Terrorist Finance Working Group is working closely with the Kenyan government in implementing anti-money-laundering systems, while other programs focus on immigration monitoring and control, general law enforcement training, and the like. It should come as no surprise, then, that Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have recently risen as three of the largest recipients of U.S. aid. The African countries mentioned in the reports on trends in global terrorism are the same African countries that appear on the list of the largest recipients of U.S. aid. Counter-terrorism efforts, then, seem to have trumped counter-poverty efforts as the focus of aid distribution.
Somalia itself is treated differently, as it has no central government with which to cooperate. Al-Ittihad, like many terrorist groups, has been providing humanitarian assistance to Somalis as a tool to garner political support. Because the U.S. has repressed Al-Ittihad, it has had to step in to provide the humanitarian assistance the terrorist group once provided. Consequently, aid to Somalia consists mainly of food and social services. It is similar in intent and effect to anti-money-laundering aid in that it is meant to weaken and marginalize Al-Ittihad's influence.
So far, the U.S. government sees its role as preventative. As Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold told the African Affairs Subcommittee before the announcement of The MCA, "It is much easier to prevent failure than cope with its consequences." With this in mind, the State Department has identified its role in working to "confront the conditions leading to nation-state failure in Africa." Hence, its plans to promote democracy and good-governance, to combat HIV/AIDS, to promote trade between the U.S. and Africa, and to end Africa's conflicts.
Unfortunately, these Bush Administration efforts have deviated from the core vision and have been fighting an effect of the poverty problem—the spread of radicalism—rather than addressing the poverty problem directly and deeply. Granted, a policy shift would require more resources and commitment; it would likely mean an increase in foreign aid spending from the current level of 0.15% to the 0.7% level that has been called for repeatedly, most notable by the U.N. in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Also, this new policy would yield fewer direct and observable results, as its success would be measured not by the terrorist networks that are defeated but by those that are never able to amass. But if Marshall, Kennedy, and Bush's assessments of the dangers that poverty poses to international security are correct, perhaps the more difficult approach will yield greater, more desirable results in the long term.
It is also troubling that the Bush administration's projects have fallen short of their targets. In 2007, five years into the MCA initiative, Congress approved only $2 billion, less than half of the projected target of $5 billion and two years after its due date. Likewise, the GHAI has fallen far short of its goals.
Short, medium, and long term goals and policies are needed to fight terrorism. It seems that, despite the reluctant acceptance that poverty is a threat to national security, the Bush administration, unlike the administrations that held power in the wake of World War II, has focused on the short-term. This reluctance has translated into a lack of commitment to address the root causes of instability that foster extremism. George Marshall realized the need to create a world with more friends and less capable enemies and built a plan around that vision. With the Cold War in the past, it seems that Americans are no longer willing to make that same commitment--a commitment which would require acceptable sacrifices, given the great potential rewards.
After an emotional description of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic, Bush proposed the Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, asking Congress to set aside $15 billion over the next five years to combat the pandemic in the most afflicted African nations. This was to develop into the Global HIV/AIDS Initiative (GHAI).
A year earlier, in March 2002, Bush had announced perhaps the largest and most progressive increase in U.S. foreign assistance in more than fifty years. He created the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which aimed to increase U.S. Official Development Assistance to the poorest nations, mainly African, by 50%, or an annual $5 billion, within three years.
The MCA and GHAI proposals both seem puzzling at first sight and indeed were unexpected coming from a conservative Republican whose party has historically been opposed to increases in foreign aid spending. With the end of the Cold War, former Republican president George H.W. Bush and many Republican senators (most notably Jesse Helms of North Carolina) declared that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had outlived its purpose and called for it to be eliminated and merged with the State Department.
As such, U.S. foreign aid had been in steady decline when Bush took office. From 1990 to 2001, the year prior to the announcement of the MCA, foreign aid spending dropped from 0.26% to 0.16% of GDP. This constitutes a 38% decrease in foreign aid spending in just one decade. It appears that with the end of the Cold War, the U.S.'s assessment of its national interest placed considerably less emphasis on foreign aid spending.
In the wake of 9/11 America's focus shifted to combating terrorism. African leaders expressed concern that U.S. priorities would shift further away from sub-Saharan problems and that aid would suffer significantly as a result. The exact opposite has happened. Before 2001, the only country in the region listed by USAID as one of the top fifteen recipients of aid was Ethiopia. Since the U.S.'s post-2001 strategy shift, though, contributions to Liberia, Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Zambia have made sub-Saharan Africa the world's most represented region on the list of top recipients. What explains this new U.S. emphasis on Africa? How can we reconcile Bush's seeming generosity with the seeming disregard for foreign aid of his predecessors?
To address this matter properly, it is necessary to review the historical impetus for foreign aid. U.S. foreign assistance policy traces its roots to the non-permanent Marshall Plan implemented directly after World War II to stabilize Europe. The plan's intentions were two-fold. First and foremost, it was intended to stop the potential spread of communism to Western Europe by remedying the vulnerabilities caused by poverty and political instability. Secondly, the plan aimed to preserve, develop, and integrate the European economies in order to maintain and increase trade with the U.S. From the plan's inception in 1947 to its termination in 1951, the U.S. pumped $13 billion into the European economy. Foreign aid spending soared from 2.88% of GDP in 1947 to a high of 3.06% in 1949 and then to 2.38% in 1951, the only years in which foreign aid spending was upward of 2% of GDP.
Arguably, the plan was primarily a tool of the national security agenda, crucial in the U.S. strategy in the Cold War. Poverty and weak political systems were seen as likely to accommodate ideologies dangerous to U.S. interests.
The next major step in U.S. foreign aid policy was the formation of USAID. In promoting support for the creation of USAID, President John F. Kennedy wrote:
To fail to meet those obligations now would be disastrous; and, in the long run, more expensive. For widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled. A program of assistance to the underdeveloped nations must continue because the Nation's interest and the cause of political freedom require it.
According to the official USAID website, development assistance helped to "combat both the perceived spread of ideological threats such as communism and the threat of instability arising from poverty." In 1961, foreign aid spending amounted to 1.03% of GDP, a significant decrease since the years of the Marshall Plan. From then onwards, foreign aid declined almost linearly, reaching a low of 0.16% of GDP in 2001.
This brings us to Bush's "New Compact for Development"—composed mainly of the MCA and GHAI initiatives—which was only the third major development in foreign aid policy since World War II.
The Bush administration explained its aid position in a policy paper entitled "Foreign Aid in the National Interest," writing that "more than ever, U.S. security is bound up with the outside world." This is because, the document continued, "when development and governance fail in a country, the consequences engulf entire regions and leap around the world. Terrorism, political violence... cascade across borders of weak states more destructively than ever before." Entrenched poverty creates a climate of alienation, to which people react with different forms of violence, sometimes directed "toward the world's successful countries, in terrorism." Such regions have proved to be recruiting grounds and safe havens for terrorists.
In previous government-issued synopses of U.S. strategy, ‘Defense' and ‘Diplomacy' were the two pillars of U.S. national security. However, in 2002, following the events of 9/11, ‘Development' was added as the third ‘D' of the national defense strategy.
Bush was not saying that poverty causes terrorism. In fact, he dispelled this argument in the introduction to his 2002 National Security Strategy statement, in which he declared: "Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks." This unprecedented step represents a reluctant acceptance that poverty, while not a cause of terrorism, is a threat to national security. This explains the increase in aid as part and parcel of Bush's War on Terror, which famously includes a policy of democracy promotion. Just as he fears tyrannical governance as a cause of dangerous radicalism—and sees democratic states as less likely to breed radicalism—Bush sees the poverty of other states as a potential threat to U.S. national security.
The remaining unexplained element, it seems, is the focus on Africa. The public does not associate sub-Saharan Africa with terrorism, believing, and rightly so, that terrorism comes mainly from countries in the Middle East that provide radicals with tools and doctrines. Indeed, the U.S. focuses a major part of its efforts on the Middle East. Prior to 2001, Israel and Egypt, seen as allies of U.S. national security interests, were the top two recipients of U.S. aid, together accounting for 73% of the aid given to the top fifteen recipients. After 9/11, the recipient base broadened: while Israel and Egypt continue to be the two top recipients, frontline countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey received sharp increases in aid. But what explains Bush's Africa focus? Why, from 1994 to 2004, has the regional distribution of aid shifted in favor of Africa? The answer lies in an analysis of the complex political problems of certain African regions.
In 1993, eighteen U.S. soldiers lost their lives in Mogadishu, Somalia, in an event later attributed to, among others, Osama bin Laden, who at the time was conducting operations from Sudan. On August 7th, 1998, explosions in the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, twelve of whom were American citizens. These attacks were also attributed to Osama bin Laden, who had moved to Afghanistan in 1996. They represented a determination to strike U.S. interests anywhere in the world. As a Congressional Research Service report noted, "Africa has emerged as a safe-haven for a number of terrorist groups from the Middle East and extremist groups from Africa."
Somalia is considered the most dangerous threat to the region. Since 1991, the country has been without a central government and is controlled by regional factions and warlords. This has created a political climate hospitable to terrorist networks and activity, most notably Al-Ittihad, a fundamentalist Islamic group determined to create an Islamic state in Somalia. Somalia's 3,000 mile, unguarded coastline in close proximity with the Gulf of Aden and countries such as Saudi Arabia sparked fear. The failed state poses a threat to the stability of the entire region.
Sudan, considered a rogue state and known to support terrorist groups, poses a similar threat. Al-Qaeda's activities, the report believes, have spread not only to these two countries, but also to neighboring Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.
Ethiopia, though, provides an interesting example of a country that, while not wholly stable, could serve as a valuable bulwark against terrorism. Having fought Al-Ittihad for the past decade, Ethiopia is among those countries that may be "capable and suitable to join an effective partnership with the United States," as the Congressional Research Report put it in 2002. Kenya and Uganda, meanwhile, have had less success in countering the terrorist threat created by the Somali crisis.
Bush stated in his introduction to the ‘National Security Strategy' of 2002 that "America will help all nations that need our assistance in combating terror." Indeed, it has done so. In June 2003, Bush announced the $100 million East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACI) designed to equip U.S. allies in the region with counterterrorism capabilities. These include "military training for border and coastal security, a variety of programs to strengthen control of the movement of people and goods across borders, aviation security capacity-building" etc. Numerous other programs exist to help countries in the horn of Africa fight terrorism. For example, the Terrorist Finance Working Group is working closely with the Kenyan government in implementing anti-money-laundering systems, while other programs focus on immigration monitoring and control, general law enforcement training, and the like. It should come as no surprise, then, that Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have recently risen as three of the largest recipients of U.S. aid. The African countries mentioned in the reports on trends in global terrorism are the same African countries that appear on the list of the largest recipients of U.S. aid. Counter-terrorism efforts, then, seem to have trumped counter-poverty efforts as the focus of aid distribution.
Somalia itself is treated differently, as it has no central government with which to cooperate. Al-Ittihad, like many terrorist groups, has been providing humanitarian assistance to Somalis as a tool to garner political support. Because the U.S. has repressed Al-Ittihad, it has had to step in to provide the humanitarian assistance the terrorist group once provided. Consequently, aid to Somalia consists mainly of food and social services. It is similar in intent and effect to anti-money-laundering aid in that it is meant to weaken and marginalize Al-Ittihad's influence.
So far, the U.S. government sees its role as preventative. As Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold told the African Affairs Subcommittee before the announcement of The MCA, "It is much easier to prevent failure than cope with its consequences." With this in mind, the State Department has identified its role in working to "confront the conditions leading to nation-state failure in Africa." Hence, its plans to promote democracy and good-governance, to combat HIV/AIDS, to promote trade between the U.S. and Africa, and to end Africa's conflicts.
Unfortunately, these Bush Administration efforts have deviated from the core vision and have been fighting an effect of the poverty problem—the spread of radicalism—rather than addressing the poverty problem directly and deeply. Granted, a policy shift would require more resources and commitment; it would likely mean an increase in foreign aid spending from the current level of 0.15% to the 0.7% level that has been called for repeatedly, most notable by the U.N. in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Also, this new policy would yield fewer direct and observable results, as its success would be measured not by the terrorist networks that are defeated but by those that are never able to amass. But if Marshall, Kennedy, and Bush's assessments of the dangers that poverty poses to international security are correct, perhaps the more difficult approach will yield greater, more desirable results in the long term.
It is also troubling that the Bush administration's projects have fallen short of their targets. In 2007, five years into the MCA initiative, Congress approved only $2 billion, less than half of the projected target of $5 billion and two years after its due date. Likewise, the GHAI has fallen far short of its goals.
Short, medium, and long term goals and policies are needed to fight terrorism. It seems that, despite the reluctant acceptance that poverty is a threat to national security, the Bush administration, unlike the administrations that held power in the wake of World War II, has focused on the short-term. This reluctance has translated into a lack of commitment to address the root causes of instability that foster extremism. George Marshall realized the need to create a world with more friends and less capable enemies and built a plan around that vision. With the Cold War in the past, it seems that Americans are no longer willing to make that same commitment--a commitment which would require acceptable sacrifices, given the great potential rewards.
//Daniel Greenberg is a sophomore in Columbia College majoring in Economics and Political Science. Originally from South Africa, he is on the editorial board of Consilience, the undergraduate journal of sustainable development.