Give More U.S. Aid...(United States and foreign policy)(Brief Article)

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with Paul Nitze, one of the last living "Wise Men," the generation of policymakers that gave America its successful cold-war containment strategy. Nitze, white- bearded and frail, recalled a moment a half century before when he had difficulty in convincing George C. Marshall of the wisdom of the Marshall Plan. It was the spring of 1947, and the revered secretary of State and former World War II Army chief of staff was soon to give a speech at Harvard announcing the $13 billion aid program ($88 billion in today's dollars) to save Europe. Marshall has gone down in history as the plan's indefatigable champion, perhaps American foreign policy's finest hour. But in his talk with Nitze, then a State Department aide, the general was having his doubts. "It's just not the sort of thing we do," said Marshall.

No, the Marshall Plan wasn't the sort of thing America did. Until then. It was a brand-new solution to a brand-new problem. And it took a powerful brew of American imagination, willpower and geopolitical necessity. Historians and economists have debated the true economic efficacy of the Marshall Plan, but no one doubts that its payoff in good will was priceless. It created an enduring sense of gratitude and community that, even in these rocky times for the Euro-American relationship, helps to sustain it.

A similar challenge confronts us now--and once again this is no time to be dickering over the economic wisdom of overseas development aid. That critique has run amok in Washington for a decade or so, and it has done untold damage. Rather than offer a nuanced diagnosis of the problems of foreign aid, Sen. Jesse Helms and his posse of isolationists simply killed the patient. They chopped the foreign-aid budget to less than a cent on the federal dollar, or .1 percent of GDP, compared with the 1949 high of 3.21 percent, putting America dead last among 22 major nations. They practically bankrupted the United Nations; the gap between rich and poor nations widened. The result: the most powerful nation in world history is now seen as Shrek the Ogre. "We Americans believe we're helping the world get better. But the message hasn't gotten through," says Thomas Bruce of CLS & Associates, which advises corporations abroad.

Yes, we all know that foreign-aid programs usually don't work very well. Loads of money, ill used, often just breeds resentment--witness Russia's cantankerous relationship with the IMF. But that doesn't mean that such programs can't work. And if we've ...