Exercising Power through Aid

It has been argued that US aid is given to reward political and military partners rather than to advance genuine economic and humanitarian causes abroad. Arguably, it has a two-fold purpose of furthering America’s foreign policy in expanding democracy and free markets, while conveniently it also improves the lives of those in the developing countries.

Additionally, USAID (United States agency for international development) only gave out 12.3% of its budget as humanitarian aid in 2004. However, impressively, 30.1% of it went to bilateral or developmental aid.

I don’t mean to be completely negative about the US commitment to aid because they are still the worlds’ greatest aid loaner. As it states in this BBC article, recently the US government gave out a very large sum of money ($900 million) to Gaza. Additionally, they are being extremely careful about making sure the aid does not go to their current ‘terrorist’ government (The Hamas). In fact, so careful, to the extent that some Congress members were hesitant about giving the large donation to Gaza just in case it ended up in the wrong hands. This proves that the US realizes the risk and how aid can be mistreated by corrupt governments.

Instead the aid will be shared between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the United Nations and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. I believe the UN is a great place to invest aid in because with more funds, they have the very possible potential to be a really significant peacekeeping force, just like they could have been if they were aided with the genocide in Rwanda.

The article describes the need for aid in Gaza, stating:

Around 1,300 Palestinians, of whom 412 were children, were killed during the
Israeli offensive on Gaza; 21,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged.
Thirteen Israelis were killed during the three weeks of violence.

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Last year there appeared a very interesting article about how the US had offered Cuba $5 million in relief aid after their hurricane, but they refused to receive it. After this refusal, they persisted and asked Cuba to reconsider, however they did not. But the US did not give at that, they licensed agricultural exports to Cuba worth $250 million to be used as lumber for reconstruction. This shows that the US does genuinely have their eyes on the lookout for humanity outside of its own, even humanity governed by a socialist regime.

However, the article didn’t say why Cuba insisted upon refusing aid from America. One can only be suspicious of political conditions that may or may not have been attached to the large aid package. It is possible however that the Cuban government simply didn’t want help from a country whose political ideology is different from their own.

This is a way that powerful countries exercise their power: through giving aid, or through giving aid with attachments or conditions. Dependency theorists argue that the giving of aid only increases states instability because they can no longer function on their own two feet; they become dependent on aid, dependant on the powerful. These countries that are dependent on aid arguably have no choice but to abide by the rules of the powerful and agree to their ideological system, because otherwise they may not survive.

Aid, a device originated for good, can be used as a tool for domination.