The United States is Failing Yemen

Earlier this year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $585 million in humanitarian assistance for the war-torn nation of Yemen. The US was quick to celebrate its own generosity, asserting that it remains “one of the largest donors of humanitarian assistance to Yemen” in the world. US leaders also called on other nations to contribute more to the chronically underfunded international response. However, while America takes its victory lap, the people of Yemen will still have to shelter from barrages of US-provided missiles. The US government has quietly facilitated the Yemeni Civil War through “incoherent” policy that the US media and public have largely failed to notice. Meanwhile, the struggles of the Yemeni people caught in the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” are lost in the background. This article will examine the origins of Yemen’s current conflict, its impacts on civilians, and the many ways in which the United States is failing the desperate nation.

Origins of the Yemeni Civil War

The conflict in Yemen began in 2014 when Houthi rebels seized control of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. The Houthis are Shiites who have long been at odds with their nation’s Sunni government. Contrary to popular belief, however, the Yemeni Civil War was not caused by Sunni-Shiite antagonisms alone. Fuel price hikes and corruption in former President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government also caused tensions to rise throughout the early 2000s and 2010s. Massive protests erupted from these tensions when the Arab Spring reached Yemen in 2011. President Saleh was eventually ousted in 2012 and succeeded by his vice president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Hadi’s tumultuous presidency came to a brief pause in January 2015 when he resigned as president after rebels took Sana’a. The Houthis took advantage of his absence and seized control of the Yemeni government. However, while Hadi fled his palace and sought exile in Saudi Arabia, he rescinded his resignation a month later, declaring himself the rightful leader of Yemen.

Hadi has since been embroiled in various clashes with the Houthis. However, these two parties are not the only ones involved in the conflict. Saudi Arabia and a cohort of other Gulf nations sided with Hadi’s government and launched a campaign against the Houthi insurgents, with arms and logistical support from the United States. Iran, Saudi Arabia’s bitter enemy, has supplied the Houthis with weapons, deepening the divides between the two nations. Although separate from the civil war, there are also ongoing military operations in Yemen that target Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). 

Despite the occasional ceasefire, the conflict and chaos in Yemen only seem to be escalating, and innocent civilians are undoubtedly suffering the most. According to UNICEF, hunger and starvation are widespread, with 17.4 million people in need of food assistance—over half of Yemen’s population. This number is expected to balloon to 19 million by 2022. Further, nearly six million people have been displaced from their homes, most of them internally displaced in Yemen. Access to healthcare, clean drinking water, and sanitation services is scant at best. There are few areas of Yemen that are untouched by poverty and adversity.

Meanwhile, the Russo-Ukrainian War has compounded the suffering of the Yemeni people. “It’s another blow to Yemen, driving food and fuel prices further up,” said Abeer Etefa, a senior spokeswoman at the UN World Food Programme. Exports continue to fall as Ukraine grapples with its own conflict, sending shockwaves through the global food supply chain. The Middle East, Asia, and Africa have been hit the hardest, and the burden is the greatest in conflict-stricken nations. “Yemen depends entirely on food imports, with 31% of its wheat coming from Ukraine over the past three months.” Wheat has disappeared from Yemeni food markets, making it extremely difficult for families to meet their basic needs. At the same time, humanitarian donors are feeling the financial strain of providing aid to both nations, and given that the conflict in Yemen has stretched on for eight years, its assistance is dwindling rapidly.

The Yemeni people are clearly in dire need of help from the international community, and the responsibility for their situation lies with those who created it in the first place. As a contributor to the conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis, the United States must do more to provide meaningful help to Yemen.

Policy Problems 

The United States has allocated $4.5 billion to humanitarian assistance for Yemen since the conflict began. However, it has also sold more than $355 million worth of arms to Saudi Arabia—one of the main instigators of the Yemen conflict—and has signed off on $4.5 billion more in future sales. It appears that America wants the world to think that they care about Yemen while they quietly pour money into the war. Not only does this render the $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid a very poor investment, but it is endlessly destructive to the Yemeni people. The Biden administration made moves to rescind support for Saudi Arabia and prioritize peace, but foreign policy experts agree that these are now nothing more than “broken promises.” US policymakers have also consistently blamed the Houthi rebels for the Yemen conflict and crisis. While the Houthis undoubtedly have a large role, breaking the war down into this “false binary” fails to account for the massive role that Saudi Arabia plays in Yemen. The United States must sever its ties with Saudi Arabia and put down its arms if it truly wants to end the conflict.

Experts also point out numerous issues with the peace process that has been led by the United States for the last several years. Katie Kizer of Foreign Policy writes: “The peace process led by the United States and United Nations has remained where it has for years: pursuing a top-down ceasefire between the men with guns—a strategy that has already failed multiple times—instead of engaging Yemen’s vibrant civil society which is interested in peace.” This assertion is true, as the UN brokered a six-month truce in early 2022 that temporarily reduced hostilities, but negotiators were unable to renew it. It expired on October 2nd, leaving civilians uncertain about their future. The US should be focusing its efforts on the resilient Yemeni people and rebuilding the local and state institutions that have collapsed since the start of the war. However, the US government currently faces little pressure to change its ways, so the gaping holes in its foreign policy will persist until the rest of the world takes notice.

Media Mistakes

America has clung to stories about conflict in the Middle East for the last several decades. The public hung onto journalists’ every word about the invasion of Afghanistan throughout the 2000s and the conflict in Syria for the last decade. Both of these wars have one thing in common: one big, scary enemy. It seems clear to Americans that Al-Qaeda was the enemy in Afghanistan and ISIS was the enemy in Syria. This makes both wars classic cases of good vs. evil (as it is painted by US media, at least) and portrays the United States as the hero of the Middle East. The conflict in Yemen, on the other hand, is complicated. It is difficult to sort through the complex politics and culture of the region and find the heroes and villains. Since it does not make Americans feel like they are on the right side of history, it is not worth covering for many news organizations.

As easy as it may be to point the finger solely at the media, its audience is also partly to blame. The conflict in Yemen is largely contained to the Middle East, meaning spillover onto US soil is unlikely. Since the conflict has no tangible effects on American citizens, many are content to live in their blissful ignorance. Journalists will understandably not go out of their way to cover an event that their audience will not read about, so the lack of public interest perpetuates negligent reporting. However, in the interest of fairness to US media, it is important to note that the sheer complexity of Yemen’s situation can make reporting particularly difficult. “You don’t see photos of Yemeni refugees anywhere because a lot of them are actually inside of [Yemen],” says activist Sama’a Al-Hamdani. Most Yemeni refugees are internally displaced, meaning they are trapped in dangerous areas and unable to speak to journalists. Despite this, it should also be remembered that journalists were willing to fly into war zones with troops to cover Afghanistan, but they do not seem to display the same drive to cover the situation in Yemen. Once again, this is due to the lack of public concern.

The Lost Generation

Why should the United States care about Yemen? In the middle of all the bad arms deals, failed attempts at peace, and the massive humanitarian crisis are the Yemeni people. They are just as entitled to security and peace as the citizens of every other nation involved in the Yemen conflict. But the United States' contributions to the conflict that surrounds them are part of the reason that they now face the loss of an entire generation of children. If Yemeni children make it through the conflict and into their adult lives, they will be forever hindered by illiteracy and lack of education. Two years ago, then UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen Lisa Grande said, “If the war doesn’t end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen’s young children.” The war still rages two years later. The lack of tangible impacts on US soil does not merit citizens’ ignorance of this conflict, and the US government certainly cannot continue to fund it. The US owes the suffering Yemeni population so much more.

Burkina Faso and the Resurgence of Coups in West Africa

nytimes.com

Towards the end of January, the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR) announced that the government and national assembly had been dissolved, and they had removed democratically-elected Roch Marc Kaboré from his position as president of Burkina Faso. Kaboré was detained and replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, an overnight curfew was implemented, land and air borders were closed, and the constitution was suspended for one week. A coup d’état had struck.

While this is the most recent one, a trend has emerged in the past year and a half as Mali, Guinea, and Chad have faced military takeovers. There is a resurgence of coups in West Africa, and the contributing factors are not adequately being mitigated. With the presence of everything from violent extremism to poverty, democratic institutions are struggling to stay alive in the region, and there has been controversy regarding international response. Moreover, discussion of this subject has been full of generalizations and blanket policy suggestions. Examining the coup in Burkina Faso can provide a deeper understanding of the circumstances in West Africa and why it is important to acknowledge each country’s distinct identity, advancing the global conversation surrounding intervention and aid.

Growing Violence in West Africa

The buildup to the coup in Burkina Faso was multifaceted, but a major reason for the overthrow was the rising threat from violent extremists. As with the 2020 coup in Mali—the one often seen as the trigger for the other military takeovers—many civilians thought that their government had failed to protect them. Since 2016, over 230 terrorist attacks have taken place in Burkina Faso. Last November, 53 people were killed after a gendarmerie post was attacked, which was “the worst strike on Burkinabe security forces in years.” Just one month later, a civilian militia trained by the government to contain insurgents was ambushed, and at least 41 members were killed. According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, “violent events linked to militant Islamist groups” increased by 70 percent between 2020 and 2021 in the Sahel region, and the United Nations reported that almost 12,000 people were displaced within two weeks in December. There were at least 2,354 fatalities from the violence in 2021. 

Many believed that the government response was not enough, and the people of Burkina Faso made that clear. As gunfire erupted at Kaboré's residence and several of the country’s military barracks on the day of the coup, protests raged in the capital. The headquarters of Kaboré’s party was looted and set on fire, and people were tear gassed by police as hundreds marched through Ouagadougou. The events of this day showed what Damiba explicitly said in his first speech since taking power: the takeover was due to their former leader’s failure to stop attacks across the country. 

Repercussions Regarding Sanctions and Aid

A major player in how the world has responded to the coups is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). After the coups in Mali and Guinea, ECOWAS responded by closing member states’ borders and imposing economic sanctions. However, these sanctions were highly controversial, in part because the affected economies were already poor. If the goal of these sanctions is to promote stability in the region, the long-term consequences may backfire. As explained by the International Peace Institute, the sanctions may be “necessary” but “counterproductive,” and the people whose lives could be altered the most would be marginalized groups in rural areas, those displaced from the violence, and unemployed youth. A large portion of the protestors on the day of the coup in Burkina Faso were showing up in solidarity with the affected population in Mali. 

While the possibility of sanctions remains and ECOWAS has warned of them, Burkina Faso has only been removed from the bloc thus far, and the African Union (AU) also suspended the country pending the reinstatement of the constitution. Additionally, while sanctions have not been imposed, the United States has paused $450 million in aid to Burkina Faso. The United States has been the largest international donor to the country, but U.S. law requires the suspension of non-humanitarian aid to countries where a democratically-elected government has been taken over unconstitutionally, and there is still much uncertainty regarding Burkina Faso’s path forward. Although the constitution has been restored now and MPSR ensured “the continuity of the state pending the establishment of transitional bodies,” those transitional bodies are yet to be established. 

In a more recent development, Burkina Faso may see a steep decline in aid due to the invasion of Ukraine. For example, the Norwegian Refugee Council spokesperson in West and Central Africa said, “Some donors have already indicated that they would proceed to a 70% cut of our funding to support operations in Ukraine…” Additionally, a regional advocate from Refugees International said that “Russia is one of the leading grain exporters in the world,” and more people in sub-Saharan Africa will be in need of emergency food assistance as the international community cuts ties with Russia. Finally, certain impacts of foreign aid on political stability as a whole are still debated, but time will tell whether the military government is able to successfully carry out their plans. 

However, a timeline has been given for the transition of power in Burkina Faso, and it was announced a week after the invasion of Ukraine. Damiba was officially inaugurated as president back in February and a team of 25 ministers stood by his side, but it took until March for other plans to be released. On March 3, an economist and professor named Albert Ouedraogo was announced to be the interim prime minister, and the plan as communicated by the military government is for Damiba and Ouedraogo to work towards political stability for the next three years before hosting elections. 

International Response to the Coup

Countries in other parts of the world have also reacted to the coup, including France. Although France has been less involved in Burkina Faso than it has in some neighboring countries, Burkina Faso is a former French colony, and France has about 5,000 soldiers in the region. For years, France has been trying to halt militant attacks from extremists by sending in troops and working with the groups in power, but after the events of January, the country is in a tough place. After the takeover of Burkina Faso, President Emmanuel Macron said, "I would remind you that our priority in the region is to fight against Islamist terrorism,” but it should be noted that Macron has an upcoming election to think about. While he has already been reducing the number of troops in the area, if France takes any drastic measures, those actions would reflect on him.

Russia is also worth discussing, for reasons beyond the invasion of Ukraine. In Mali, the junta has relied on security from the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization backed by the Russian government, and this group has been deployed in Libya and the Central African Republic as well. Reportedly, the leader of the coup in Burkina Faso was regularly in communication with the military leaders of Mali and Guinea, and twice, Damiba tried to convince Kaboré to use Russian paramilitaries. Kaboré refused, but with Damiba in power, the situation has shifted. 

Examining France and Russia’s current role in the region, counterterrorism and tension between the West and Russia were at the forefront of the conversation—but there is more at play. Some have said that “core political problems” are being ignored while foreign powers use West Africa to compete among themselves. In terms of Burkina Faso, the International Crisis Group surfaced the importance of addressing the social crisis in the north and the development deficit, as well as the pre-existing spread of corruption in the administration judicial system. Not every coup in the region can be solely blamed on violent extremism (although it is certainly a large factor in this situation) because the acceptance of democracy underlies the pattern.

The Need for Nuance

The chairman of ECOWAS and president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, called the coup in Mali “contagious” during the summit following Burkina Faso’s takeover. This implies that the coups are having a domino effect, or that they are modeled after each other. Notably, however, not every coup in West Africa stemmed from the violent extremists, but rather the interruption or prevention of democratic trajectories. Some, including Vice President of the US Institute of Peace’s Africa Center Joseph Sany, believe that conveying the idea of a coup contagion is problematic because it “absolves the world community” from assisting West African countries in creating democratic institutions. Fully attributing these coups to violent extremism could greatly affect the viability of international response.

On the other hand, Akufo-Addo did address the observed controversy over democracy, and he called for a collective response to the trend of coups in the region. Perhaps “contagious” is a fitting way to describe the pattern in West Africa, not because extremism is the overarching factor, but rather concerns about democracy. Panic generated from violence inevitably leads to critique of the present format and exploration of government systems, but while root causes are important to address, there does seem to be a connecting factor beyond violent extremism. 

Moving forward, those discussing coups in the West African region should be conscious of nuance while noting that there are major similarities. Talking as though each country is struggling for the same reason and attributing all of this to religious extremism interrupts how the international community responds to military takeovers in West Africa, and that way of thinking draws attention away from social issues, government/judicial corruption, poverty, and more. Particularly in terms of strategizing foreign aid, countries need to pay attention to both the situations of individual countries and the region as a whole.

Prosperous for Whom? Development as a Vehicle of Foreign Policy

In April 2019, the United States’ (U.S.) development finance institution (DFI), the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), signed a memorandum of understanding with the European DFIs and FinDev Canada. In it, they promised to provide viable “alternative[s] to unsustainable state-led models.” That same day, the Malaysian government revived the Chinese rail project with the state-owned China Communications Construction Company, fueling criticisms against China’s “debt-trap diplomacy.” 

Similarly, the U.S. recently unveiled a new strategy towards African countries with the announcement of “Prosper Africa,” an initiative designed to increase two-way trade and investment between the U.S. and Africa. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton remarked that the policy was a national security strategy to ensure that “all U.S aid on the continent will advance U.S. interests” and counter “the predatory practices pursued by China and Russia.” The U.S. has since downplayed such comments, instead focusing on the ‘mutual benefits’ the initiative advances, from expanding trade and investments to support the region’s information and communications technology sector. 

It might be a familiar sight to some: a humanitarian jostle where leaders praise each other for their compassion, foreign aid inflows increase, and politicians accuse each other of using aid for strategic gains. This might appear to be a description of the new geopolitical landscape, but the dynamics observed today are deeply rooted in Cold War development practices, when the Soviet Union (USSR) and the U.S. attempted to gain international prominence and influence countries with the usage of foreign aid. 

Some argue that the Prosper Africa initiative may be promising for U.S. agencies attempting to escape the institutional silos surrounding trade and international development. However, beyond it being an oblique attempt to use Development* as a vehicle for foreign policy, it is an earnest and flawed response to surging competition within the region from actors such as China and the E.U. 

China’s Presence in Africa

Unlike Western constructions of modern development geographies, China has actually been present in the region since the 1950s, when it signed its first bilateral trade agreement with Algeria, Egypt, Guinea, Somalia, and Sudan. It wasn’t until the 2000s, however, that stronger alliances began to emerge: China’s growth created demand for natural resources and employment while a resource-rich Africa offered a plethora of commodities and a need for infrastructure. China has since become Africa’s largest trading partner in 2012, surpassing the U.S. and traditional European partners. Between 2000 and 2014, Chinese financiers provided $86.3 billion to African governments and state-owned enterprises, becoming the largest creditor in the region. This dynamic has led some to criticize China as a rogue donor enticing African nations into “dept-trap diplomacy.” 

In the face of stagnating U.S. involvement in Africa, Chinese investment has increased exponentially. As a McKinsey report on China-African relations found, China has catapulted itself to the regional stage, becoming the top partner for Africa in trade, investment stock and growth, infrastructure financing, and aid. China’s presence in the region has become even more pronounced since the unveiling of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an unprecedented policy initiative to connect China to Central Asia and Europe through infrastructure, trade, and investment links. 

Despite China insisting that its development partnerships are “mutually beneficial,” Chinese aid is often tied—China’s foreign aid often requires governments to use Chinese goods, services and labor for infrastructure projects—and has followed political motivations similar to that of the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War. As researchers Andreas Fuchs and Marina Rudyak find, Chinese foreign aid is often used as a political tool to advance domestic and foreign policy goals. Using data from 2000 to 2012, research lab AidData claim that if African countries in the United Nations voted with China an extra 10 percent of the time, they would on average get an 86 percent increase in official aid. In the context of “common development,” Chinese foreign aid can instead perhaps be best interpreted as an effort to establish a more favorable environment for China’s own development and support the country’s ascension as a global power. 

E.U. Presence in Africa

As the United States Trade Representatives (USTR) commented on in its 2019 National Trade Competitiveness report, E.U. agreements (EPAs) have been challenging the competitiveness of U.S. investment and trade with African countries. Importantly, as Brookings’ Witney Schneidman and Jay Ireland note, “the proliferation of the [EPAs] provide E.U. goods, services, and companies with tariff advantages with more than 40 African countries.” 

E.U.-Africa relations are at a crossroads; the Cotonou Agreement—a treaty between the E.U. and African, Caribbean, and Pacific groups—expires in 2020 and leaves a unique space for the E.U. and African nations to renegotiate their positions. Such an opportunity aligning with the renewed interest in investment and trade within Africa marks an important turning point to which the E.U. will likely attempt to ‘push’ out its competitors, such as the U.S. and China. 

U.S. Presence in Africa

Foreign aid programs emerged in response to the Cold War and were based on motives that were what scholar Keith Griffin calls “always more political than economic.” The USSR and the U.S. used international development assistance as a tool to encourage political alliances. In the middle of the U.S.’s competition with the USSR, countries would leverage their newfound power to benefit from ideologically driven foreign aid. While the USSR may have disappeared from the world stage, international development as a practice of perpetuating a nation’s objectives has not. 

The U.S. has suspiciously looked at China’s BRI and involvement in Africa as a thinly veiled attempt to expand China’s geopolitical presence. As the relationship between China and the U.S. is tinged with trade tensions and accusations that both are attaching political significance to their development assistance programs, it’s predictable that cooperation between the U.S. and China in the region will be limited. But China only highlights a waning U.S. presence in an increasingly important region. 

Since the 2000s, U.S. foreign aid has focused primarily on the health and education sectors while proving inconsequential in Chinese-dominated sectors. While previous endeavors, such as PEPFAR, had a substantial impact in the region, other dimensions of U.S.-African cooperation have diminished. For example, despite the U.S.’s enactment of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, commercial engagement with African nations resulted in only $39 billion in trade in 2017, while trade between China and Africa amounted to $148 billion. Because the U.S. is the continent’s largest investor, its trade presence should be substantial, but it has found itself unable—or unwilling—to fully leverage its financial presence. Parallel to this, the U.S.’s diplomatic presence has weakened, as European and Asian nations attempt to penetrate the continent with diplomacy, holding countless summits while President Trump has yet to set foot on a single African nation. 

While U.S. investment in Africa since 2017 has been on an upward trend, there has been long-term competitive issues for U.S. trade in Africa as nations such as Russia, China, and notably the European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), have begun to intensify.

Prosperous for Who?

By the end of the century, Africa will be home to 40 percent of the world’s population and provide 42 percent of the global working-age population. In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, Brahima Coulibaly testified that “as healthy and productive members of the global economy, the [African] workforce will significantly expand global economic opportunities” and is incredibly important to the success of all nations. 

The inauguration of the Prosper Africa initiative marks a significant policy shift intended to perpetuate neoliberal market mechanisms using development as a vehicle to do so. Such a strategy is additionally borrowing from Cold War policies to counter what the U.S. considers its global competitors. Attaching geopolitical significance to development initiatives while engaging in a larger global contest for power is a common tactic obscured by benevolent narratives of ‘development’ and ‘cooperation’ and one that must be either be deconstructed or rightfully ignored. 

The success of Prosper Africa is, as some suggest, dependent upon its ability to ‘unleash’ the potential of the region through its commercial policies and the project’s ability to increase the magnitude of commercial flows between the U.S. and African nations. 

In examining initiatives such as Prosper Africa, it becomes obvious that the ‘scramble’ for African nations has become a salient instance of a global jostle for power. Importantly, similar to the non-aligned countries during the Cold War, the rivalry may allow nations to leverage their importance to improve their own socio-economic and political status. This premise is one that has been attached to Development for decades: by appropriating or accepting narratives and beliefs of what exactly a ‘successful’ country entails—from its institutions to its economic practices—nations can obtain resources offered by development actors attempting to improve their global influence. However, the continued injection of geopolitical considerations into the development sphere will likely result in projects similar to those that emerged from the Cold War: of dubious value. 

Development projects such as Prosper Africa, the EPAs, and the BRI are poorly veiled attempts to use Development as a vehicle of foreign policy. Development in this manner evokes a static image of nations evolving from ‘unproductive’ to ‘productive’ entities be included within the global system and its economic markets. As such, there can be no recommendations that derive from the premise of Development as it currently stands—a mechanism to create or perpetuate hegemonic norms of how an economy, nation, or people should function. This is, of course, a reality impossible to ignore in the current state of international development. 

As such, in a Foreign Policy article, J. Peter Pham and others argue that for nations, “Chinese loans are neither inherently good nor bad—they will be whatever…nations choose to make of them.” Similar to how they did during the Cold War, nations can take advantage of the recent entries to the development ‘market’ to create a better environment for themselves. 

Instead of projects designed for African nations by non-African countries, leaders and nations across the continent should take advantage of their renewed importance. Though necessary to institute internal mechanisms to prevent crystallization of inequality and despotism as seen during the Cold War, countries in Africa should use the renewed global competition in Development contexts to strengthen their institutions, economies, and own global presence in a manner conducive to their self-defined development. 

*To note, “little d-development” refers to social, economic, and political change occurring ‘naturally’ within a capitalistic model. Conversely, “capital D-Development” implies intentional or deliberate economic, social, and political projects and subsequently change as engineered by nations and development actors.

Donald Trump’s Short-Sighted International Aid Cuts Line the Pockets of Beltway Bandits

As we see changes begin to take place in the operations of our government, it is impossible to stay silent as the nation is steered towards disaster, and such is the case in terms of international development. The United States is a global leader in foreign aid, and this is a role which cannot be taken lightly, nor should it be embroiled in short-term partisan conflicts when its ramifications extend far beyond our own borders. Donald Trump has suggested cuts of approximately 31% to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which while serving his narrative of saving tax payer dollars, is likely to only result in much greater costs for the nation in the future when we will be forced to spend extravagantly to erase the consequences of this misstep. The majority of Americans mistakenly believe that we spend immense portions of our national budget on foreign aid projects, with most believing we spend upwards of 20% of our budget on aid. Now living in Trump’s America, this widely-held fallacious belief could be some of the reason that USAID found itself on the chopping block. In reality, international aid constitutes less than 1% of national budget. Given its miniscule apportionment of funds compared to other national agencies, any cuts to USAID are more symbolic and politically motivated than actually functional in streamlining government expenditure. The proposed sweeping cuts to USAID would result in more than just a loss of staff and intellect within USAID, but also the entire elimination of the independent U.S. African Development Foundation, U.S. Trade and Development Agency, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and United States Institute of Peace. The work conducted by these agencies is not simply chafe that can be harmlessly eliminated, for they make a real impact on the lives of people all over the globe. Even outside of USAID, international aid in general is being called into question, with a 35% reduction in funding for the Treasury International Programs. Trump has suggested that the funds freed by spending cuts like those USAID may experience will go to help emphasize our already immense military might. This is counterintuitive if Trump wishes to achieve his stated goal of defeating ISIS, for without the civilian support that fills the gaps left by local government, a similar threat will emerge in the future. Thus, the power wielded by our aid spending cannot be relinquished so quickly.

The soft power that the United States exercises through our aid financing allows us to prevent future conflicts and maintain a role as a global leader. 120 different military generals wrote a letter telling the current administration that they must recognize the importance of this soft power, highlighting that even those who would hypothetically benefit from receiving extra funding cut from USAID mark international aid can attest to the importance of development work abroad as a component of national security. Former Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at USAID Mona Yacoubian helps elucidate how crucial development aid is to achieving our national security objectives, explaining that security rests on “…the three-legged stool of defense, diplomacy, and development. In this era of complicated security challenges, development, alongside diplomacy, must retain equal footing with defense.” Those in our armed forces also recognize that wars cannot be won with their bullets alone, for as General Joseph Votel, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, was quoted by Foreign Policy to testify to congress, “The military can help to create the necessary conditions; however, there must be concomitant progress in other complementary areas (e.g., reconstruction, humanitarian aid, stabilization, political reconciliation)…Support for these endeavors is vital to our success.” Indeed, once strategic military objectives have been achieved, USAID’s work is crucial to ensuring that a maintained military presence is not necessitated for years to come. In a time when many are already critical of our widespread military involvement abroad, any initiatives which can lessen the need for the deployment of U.S. troops abroad should not be considered ‘wasteful’ spending. The importance of international development aid is further supported by the widely-held belief that following U.S. military involvement in Iraq, the lack of adequate civilian support is what laid the foundation for the formation of the modern Islamic State. As explained succinctly in an article by Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson and former USAID administrator Raj Shah, “Vacuums of leadership are not generally filled by the good guys.” With significant evidence clearly to the contrary, one questions whether Donald Trump’s budget choices result from blind ignorance, or purposeful malice. When speaking about international development aid, Trump told the Washington Post that “I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’d be blown up. And we’d build another one, and it would get blown up. . . . And yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn.” This quote illustrates the clear lack of intelligent thought being put into our national security, for while education in Brooklyn is obviously a priority, it cannot supplant aid abroad, because we are not fighting radical extremist terrorism from Brooklyn. Aid works to fill gaps left after military goals have been achieved, building the positive relationships between the United States and civilians abroad that are so crucial to counteracting radical ideologies. If Donald Trump truly wanted to put ‘America first,’ then he would not cut USAID and aggrandize already egregious problems abroad that will only necessitate further spending in the future.

It is clear that Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to USAID serve a larger partisan agenda and scapegoat the already much maligned global poor for no purpose other than easily-condemnable political posturing. Trump has already set a precedent of targeting groups who have little ability to defend themselves, attacking refugees with his first failed and subsequent second revised executive orders on immigration. Trump’s expansion of the ‘Global Gag Rule’ cuts family planning programs abroad, which has real palpable impacts on the lives of people who have no avenue to voice their protest through, and will likely resultin the cutting of malaria and HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Obviously, the global public good is no longer the priority. Refugees find themselves in the sights of Trump’s partisan attacks, for cutting aid to them can allow Trump to parade himself as a price-savvy budget hawk while targeting those who are not afforded the opportunity to create any recourse for such misguided actions. Ill-thought-out actions such as this have drawn criticism from member of Trump’s own party, such as Senator Marco Rubio, who tweeted that “Foreign Aid is not charity. We must make sure it is well spent, but it is less than 1% of budget & critical to our national security.” The despicable targeting of the world’s poorest for political purposes has also drawn the criticism of more than 100 faith leaders from around the country. In a letter to congress, they cite the fact that today we have the most displaced persons living on the planet since the Second World War to decry Trump’s proposed budget cuts, for when the need is so clearly demonstrated we cannot possibly deviate from our mission to promote freedom and human rights if we want to still see ourselves as a ‘city on the hill’ for the rest of the world to follow. Trump’s attacks on USAID are reminiscent of those of Senator Jesse Helm in the 1970s, and they will have similar ramifications. Helm’s attacks increased the reliance of USAID on controversial and problematic private aid contractors, and Trump’s proposed cuts would serve to further increase reliance on the detrimental industry.

International private development contractors profit off of reapportioning segments of money intended to go to international aid and siphoning it directly into their already-overstuffed pockets. Companies whose goal is profit, opposed to a government agency whose goals are more altruistic, cannot possibly compete to achieve the same results in international development, for at the end of the day, their pockets will always come before the stomachs of the global poor. USAID already relies on these “beltway bandits” more than it should, with the top 10 for-profit aid contracting corporations receiving more than $5.8 billion in contracts from 2003-2007. USAID does not have the staff nor the funding to be able to manage all of its projects internally, forcing it to divert funds that could be better spent to aid contractors to be able to achieve some of its goals. Yet, the problem with aid contractors is that they work to achieve very narrow and specific goals, ignoring the larger dilemmas that necessitated the aid in the first place. Indeed, how can we expect companies who profit of the persistence of global problems to have any incentive to solve them? Under president Obama, USAID director Raj Shah worked to move the agency away from its reliance on private contractors, saying that “This agency is no longer satisfied with writing big checks to big contractors and calling it development.” Furthermore, these contractors often struggle to even meet the objectives they are given, building only 8 of 286 schools and 15 of 253 medical centers planned in Afghanistan. Indeed, reliance on aid contractors is significantly problematic for these contractors are monetarily incentivized to falsify their achieved results in order to continue to receive funding, with one group receiving more than $150 million tax-payer dollars for goals that they failed to achieve in reality. Often, especially when considering budget cuts, development contractors are portrayed as a viable option to cut the costs of international aid, for they can more precisely set and achieve specific development goals. Unfortunately, opposed to addressing issues that local populations elect as important to them, or any of the underlying dilemmas that caused the issues in the first place, aid contractors’ goal-setting leads to resources being siphoned to specific issues that are designated by the for-profit organizations as reachable. Indeed, industrial development corporations (IDCs), subsist diverting money intended for the worlds’ neediest into their own pockets, for they rely on subcontracting to accomplish their goals, and at each level more aid funding is lost to profit-motivated contractors rather than furthering any development initiatives. IDC executives take their hefty cut, and then after paying their workers the leftover development funding goes to the companies hired by the IDC, and from there the resulting pittance is paid to local workers to conduct the actual labor of development. This profit-motivated managerialism has colonial roots in the Dutch and British East India Companies, and serves no purpose but to further divide the targets of development from the funds allotted to them, based around the problematic notion that western oversight is necessary to conduct effective development. Trump’s budget cuts for USAID will only increase reliance on IDCs that are erroneously viewed as capable of accomplishing specific objectives more effectively. The belief that for-profit contractors will be able to effectively initiate growth is willfully ignorant, in the face of the ample evidence that they rob increasingly large portions of money from the developing world for projects whose success or lack thereof has no bearing on the paychecks of the IDCs’ CEOs.

It is despicable that CEOs of aid contractors are content to eat luxuriously off money intended for those living on pennies a day, and Donald Trump’s proposed cuts will only further exaggerate the private-aid industrial complex. As USAID experiences further and further cuts, their staff will wane, allowing even less oversight of the aid contracting business which has shown itself to need oversight to prevent gross monetary fraud. Increased reliance on private development contractors does not just have ramifications for civilians abroad, for as Donald Trump sacrifices our nation’s soft power for political objectives, our own citizens will be forced to foot the bill of the inevitable cleanup efforts of the future.

Authoritarianism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is Aid to Blame?

When examining the effects of bilateral or NGO aid in Africa, Ethiopia is perhaps one of the most interesting cases. The East-African state was never formally colonized, yet aid enabled the same outcomes as it did in previously colonized states. The causal or correlational (depending on the author) link between colonization and authoritarianism is a well-established theory of African politics. However, Ethiopia’s un-colonized history presents a new avenue to analyze authoritarian durability in African regimes. Given Ethiopian politics’ unique past but unfortunately common illiberal present, it is not so much the direct legacy of colonialism that continues to enable dictatorial rule, but rather the characteristics of the colony and colonizer relationship, and their contemporary manifestation in the form of aid that purports these regimes. This type of relationship is necessary to keep in mind when considering why aid flows from the United States to so many different countries. Is it purely altruistic? Or does bilateral aid hold a more harsh practical interest in mind? Tracing the flows of aid from the United States to Ethiopia demonstrates that the latter should be considered over the former.

Theoretical Background: Selectorate Theory

Selectorate Theory is a theory of politics that attempts to ascertain a scientific way of comprehending political relations, insofar as it classifies groups of actors and defines how they interact. The theory is best applied to authoritarian regimes, which, when they are durable and resistant to political change, possess a great understanding of how dictatorial politics function. Individuals living in these systems are organized into three categories: Essentials, Influentials, and Interchangeables. Essentials, such as generals or those who possess a large persuasive or coercive capability, are those whose support is absolutely integral for the leader; influentials, or, individuals in the governing bureaucracy or party members, are those who posses the ability to influence politics but are not necessarily the most important actors; and interchangeables constitute the general population, whose enthusiastic support may not be required at all for tenable rule. For illiberal regimes, it is most important to purchase the loyalties of those in the essential class. In order to obtain the loyalties of the essentials in the long-term, a constant source of money is required. One sensible way to maintain sources of money is to receive aid from foreign governments.

Aid given to developing states typically fails to meet its supposed goal because of the way illiberal regimes organize their population. The demands of authoritarian rule mean that aid is typically earmarked for embezzlement rather than for altruism. Donor states cognizantly play the role of patron in this dynamic, and thus bilateral aid should be viewed through the neo-colonialist lens, in that the inter-state relationship adopts colonial notions without the traditional colonizer-colony dynamic. In the same way that the European colonizers installed illiberal regimes to maintain control over their colonies, foreign aid is utilized by donor states to secure certain policies deemed favorable. This relationship inhibits democratization at the expense of supporting dictatorial regimes, and should thus be viewed as a colonial endeavor under the paradigm of colonialism.

Selectorate Theory, however, is not the only method for comprehending authoritarian regime durability in sub-Saharan Africa. Mamdani contests that either the tribal identities or anti-imperialist leaders facilitate democratic breakdown in Africa, while Ekeh suggests that the legacies of colonialism created two “publics”, wherein a civic and primordial public prevent state unity and breed illiberal rule. Although the theories posited by Ekeh and Mamdani may explain how different states initially developed authoritarianism, they fail to explain the durability of these regimes and why they continue to avoid democratization. Furthermore, Ethiopia, which had never been colonized, also failed to democratize. Given the common discourse on African politics’ failings to provide a general theory for the propensity and durability authoritarian politics in the region, Selectorate Theory’s call for a more scientific mode of analysis, that is, viewing African politics based on the mechanisms of authoritarian governance rather than through the guise of culture or other political currents, presents a possibility to understand why the un-colonized Ethiopia is as undemocratic as the former African colonies.

Haile Selassie: The Durable Dictator

Ethiopia’s case can be understood in much the same way as that of myriad other states, the corrupting influence of power. Ethiopian rulers viewed that the path toward development lay in the emulation of other successful states who themselves had utilized power to develop. The Ethiopian polity, or political class, viewed Europe’s ability to colonize Africa as a direct product of their military and economic power, and intended to follow suit. Thus, the acquisition and preservation of power defined the parameters of Ethiopian politics. Power, however, was predicated on the ability to secure the allegiances of the Essentials.

Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie, ruled from 1930 until 1974, with only a brief interruption due to Italy’s attempted invasion. The Selassie regime was the last in a long line of emperors. Recognizing that a dictator’s true power rested in the hands of the Essentials, crucial aid supposedly destined for those suffering in the drought and famine of 1972 was re-appropriated for the Ethiopian government unless aid organizations paid a tax called for by vague regulations. When confronted, Selassie invented an excuse, claiming that it was in “accordance with the laws of nature” for drought and famine to strike, and that governmental action was unnecessary.. These were not the ravings of a selfish dictator, but rather the shrewd navigation of illiberal politics.

Selassie understood that he needed to continue to reward his essential backers, the high-level bureaucrats and military personnel of his regime. Ethiopia, however, was not a wealthy country, and thus Selassie viewed incoming aid as an opportunity to gain funding to continue to allocate resources to his supporters. Rather than allocating aid or letting proper aid utilization occur untaxed, Selassie saw this disaster as an opportunity to reaffirm his relationship over his essential backers. Selassie’s response to the drought and subsequent famine demonstrates one part of why bilateral aid tends to fail: illiberal regimes need to maintain their support structures, and aid is an easy way for a poor country to secure the necessary funding to do so.

Neo-Colonialism and Bilateral Aid

The flows of aid between the United States and Ethiopia, as well as the Soviet Union and Ethiopia, highlight the neo-colonial characteristics of bilateral aid. Bilateral aid, or, aid from one country given directly to another, is allocated to “deliver policies” that donor states want and the recipient regime needs. Throughout World War II and the Cold War, the United States allocated aid to various governments in order to secure anti-communist positions. Pro-American dictators could afford to maintain the loyalty of their Essentials, while the United States prevented new communist states from materializing.

In 1943, at the height of the American Lend-Lease program, in which the United States provided aid to states combating Axis powers during World War II, conversations between Selassie and Roosevelt grew increasingly more common, as Roosevelt sought an African ally and Selassie solicited aid with which he could re-allocate to his Essentials. In addition to aid under the Lend-Lease program, a 1951 trade agreement between the United States and Ethiopia guaranteed economic benefits in exchange for “amity”. In essence, aid from the United States provided the Selassie regime with funding to maintain its network of essential backers in exchange for a pro-American stance.

The Selassie regime fell, however, due to mismanagement of the political field as a result of record levels of inflation that left the already poor country poorer. Recall that Ethiopian politics was based on the accumulation of power. Power generally manifested as military support, and thus the military constituted most of Selassie’s essential backers. Ethiopia’s patron in the United States did not provide enough resources for Selassie to reaffirm his authority, and when Selassie failed to reassure the military during the inflationary crisis of 1974, low to mid level military bureaucrats and enlisted men deposed him in a revolution. The United States’ failure to supply their client state with enough funding to maintain the status quo facilitated The Derg’s ascendance.

After the Selassie era, the new regime, called The Derg, or, Committee, was a military Junta with a communist ideology. Selassie’s pro-American leanings ensured him consistent access to bilateral aid because he was willing to implement policies amenable to American interests. The Derg, on the other hand, marked a switch in Ethiopia to communism, the United States’ ideological antithesis. One of the Derg’s worst policies was the forced land nationalization. This policy abolished tenancy and nationalized all land at the same time, leaving peasants to enforce the new project. This policy caused massive famines, and was in fact a complete disaster. While these scenarios were playing out, aid from the United States sharply fell. The United States no longer felt that they had an ally in Ethiopia, and thus bilateral aid between the two countries during The Derg’s tenure became almost nonexistent. The Derg’s ultimate downfall came about as a result of the Soviet Union’s retreat from funding proxies and the refrain from ideological foreign policy under Soviet leader Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glasnost reforms. Without support from The Derg’s communist patron in the Soviet Union, Ethiopia’s dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam could no longer afford to maintain his own network of Essential backers, and was forced into exile in Zimbabwe.

Following The Derg’s downfall, Ethiopia still has not democratized. Currently, Freedomhouse, a well known aggregator of democracy, states that Ethiopia’s score on political rights is a 7, its freedom rating is a 6.5, and its civil liberties ranking is a 6, where , a 7 is the least democratic while a 1 is the most. To reiterate, maintenance of a small coalition regime, in which the Essential backers need to be kept content, requires a significant amount of money. After the fall of The Derg, Ethiopia adopted nominal democratic reforms, but never really pursued them or fully institutionalized democratic norms. To explain Ethiopia’s failure to democratize post-Derg, we must look to the flows of bilateral aid.

The United States continues to provide Ethiopia with substantial amounts of monetary aid as well as other forms, such as food and technological aid . In exchange for these contributions, Ethiopia provides the United States with intelligence on Somalia. Viewing Ethiopia as an integral ally in the Global War on Terror, the United States is content with providing assistance in exchange for anti-terrorist policies and intelligence sharing. Just as Ethiopia was a pawn for the United States against communism, a pawn for the Soviet Union against capitalism, it is now a useful “ally” for the United States (again) against terrorism. In exchange for these policies, Ethiopia receives aid, enabling the states illiberality and impeding democratization through purporting the current regime.

Conclusion

While colonialism derailed the tracks countless countries were following, it should not be viewed as the sole reason for authoritarianism in the developing world. The case of Ethiopia demonstrates that authoritarian durability is not a direct result of formal colonialism. Instead, a scientific view of the mechanisms of authoritarianism and the organization of individuals living in these systems provides us with a much better explanation. It is the need to secure the loyalties of essential backers that purports authoritarianism in sub-Saharan Africa. Colonialism explains why states that may initially have democratized failed to do so, but it does not explain why states in the developing world that had gone un-colonized, such as Ethiopia, failed the democratic project as well. The machinations of colonialism are indeed at play, but it is the subtleness of neo-colonial bilateral aid agreements, and how they enable authoritarian leaders to maintain their rule in exchange for policy concessions that explains the continual failure of robust democratization to take hold in sub-Saharan Africa.

Who Does Foreign Aid…Aid?

In the midst of terrorist attacks and domestic economic debates, foreign aid and its implementation has not been a prioritized talking point in America’s election this upcoming November.  However politicians on both sides of the aisle have stated the importance of foreign aid throughout recent history. In April, even rock star Bono appealed to the senate, encouraging senators to increase foreign aid expenditure. So is foreign aid really that important? If so, why has it been minimally discussed in debates for the presidential bid this year?

In the broadest sense of the phrase, foreign aid is defined as “assistance (as economic aid) provided by one nation to another”.  Throughout history is has allowed the United States to have a stake in the political decisions of other countries, curb global epidemics, create wealth in other countries, among other results.  It is no secret that the amount of aid the US gives to each country often directly correlates with our interests there.  We have also engaged in humanitarian foreign aid to build relationships with other governments. In their article, Benjamin Goldsmith, Uysaku Horiuchi, and Terence Wood argue that foreign public opinion is favorable toward the United States when we “do good” in other countries, which benefits Americans abroad and our foreign policy in the long run. However while foreign aid can be a great tool and demonstrates the American values of creating a more prosperous, free world, it is also a topic of large contention.

Foreign aid is not always used effectively. In 1987, Ronald Reagan made a speech opposing the mismanagement of foreign aid funds, stating “with this money we bought a yacht for Haile Selassie”.   Since this time, more safeguards have been instituted to ensure the responsible spending of foreign aid funds. To increase transparency in foreign aid spending, a new official government website reports all foreign aid data expenditures and breaks down funding by country and type of aid assistance.  Development projects have also been increasingly contracted out to third party organizations that have greater oversight capacity to manage projects funded by foreign aid.  So while there is still a margin of error and room for improvement, foreign aid spending has become much more responsible since Reagan’s speech in 1987.

Regardless of these changes in implementation, foreign aid is a highly unpopular concept.  In 2014 the US gave a total of 32 billion dollars in foreign aid to other countries.  While this sounds like a large amount, it was only 0.19% of the US national income. The US gives the most foreign aid in dollar value, however we fall short of generous on a global scale in percent of national income.  Sweden gives the most percentage of foreign aid, with 1.1% of their national income. In reality the US is average in its foreign aid expenditure, relative to national income. However Americans do not perceive aid this way. The Kaiser Family Foundation polled Americans and found that on average they believed 26% of our federal budget goes to foreign aid—more than all of military spending, education, transportation, and veteran’s benefits put together.  

Considering these misconceptions about foreign aid, it is easier to understand why an important topic like foreign aid, so capable of shaping international opinion of the US, has not been a greater priority in election 2016.  Both candidates address their foreign aid positions on their websites. Hillary Clinton refers to foreign aid as a component of her formula for “smart power” in her statement “we have to use every pillar of American power – military might but also diplomacy, development aid, economic and cultural influence, technology, and the force of our values, that is smart power.” Donald Trump directly mentioned aid in his bid announcement when he stated “It is necessary that we invest in our infrastructure, stop sending foreign aid to countries that hate us and use that money to rebuild our tunnels, roads, bridges, and schools […].” By “countries that hate us”, Trump is referring to Pakistan and Egypt, two of the largest recipients of foreign aid.   However most—almost half—of the aid we give to each of these two countries is categorized for “peace and security”. That is what can be so confusing about foreign aid. There is no specification within the term for what is given in military aid, and what is given in humanitarian and infrastructure assistance.

President Obama has proposed that foreign aid should be combined with the defense budget, since the multifaceted wellbeing of other nations and their citizens is vital to America’s national security.   With this assertion by our sitting president and the statements made by both president-elects of America’s two largest parties, we can conclude that aid cannot be supported by the American people unless it is framed as a power-inducing factor to America’s national security.  To revisit my initial question regarding foreign aid’s nonexistence in presidential debates this past election, what I least expected in starting this research has seemed to be true—foundationally, foreign aid is a nonissue in this election, with both candidates viewing it as a similar tool, from different sides of the aisle.

It could also be the case that recent events in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino,  and Orlando, and the nativist sentiments that followed, do not allow for discussion of spending more money on aid that would not directly result in greater safety for Americans. However Bush’s support of PEPFAR to reduce the AIDS epidemic, Obama’s “Power Africa” program, America’s support of other countries after national disasters, and funding to make elections in budding democracies more transparent are efforts that do not go unnoticed globally. By framing foreign aid as solely an endeavor for power, we may miss out on opportunities to make deeper partnerships, greater developmental advancements, and participate in the successes of lesser-developed nations. While it is strategic to use foreign aid to make America more powerful, it is just as beneficial in the long run to use our power to promote—and fund—aid projects that reflect American founding ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness beyond our own borders.  To our president-elects, it may be time to debate aid, and all categories of it, more in-depth. After all, foreign aid matters, and not just to those who vote for you.