Either way, not being American, and I agree USAID should not exist. It's a clutch for every country, keeping incompetent leaders/dictators in power.
Plenty of incompetent leaders maintain power with starving people. Some by design.
I don't think there's any magic behind somehow punishing the locals / children and leadership change, let alone changes that are productive / what you want ...
I don't buy into the idea that this money always just vanishes.
I know some folks who actually ran charities that got some funding from the feds ... they feeding the locals.
Foreign aid helps hide the holes in incompetent/corrupt governments, so the economy takes a bit longer to crash, people a bit longer to notice, and people get reelected, rinse and repeat.
In my country, near elections, inflation rates nosedive, everything becomes cheaper, but government does not have all the money to do that because we import almost everything and our currency is weak. They use foreign aid money for some of this. After elections, rates skyrocket. Are people really better off just because they ate for 3 months longer?
"When aid funds are used to substitute for government spending, then few, maybe even no one, has actually been helped unless the government uses the freed-up money for other projects of benefit to the general population. Of course, they don’t. They use the money to shore up their political position and the loyalty of their essential backers."
So there is definitely an argument to be made, that if you are not careful with how you dispense foreign aid, you will definitely empower corrupt politicians.
The book discusses examples where foreign aid was used more effectively.
But as for starving the poor to effect change you want, I think history has shown you just end up starving the powerless (folks in power don't care) and change doesn't necessarily happen. So who are you punishing?
> I think history has shown you just end up starving the powerless (folks in power don't care) and change doesn't necessarily happen.
I know. I was not specifically arguing that it was definitely going to happen in all or even any current scenario. I just wanted to make the case that giving aid to countries with corrupt governments can definitely keep them in power longer.
I am not making the case, that we should sacrifice starving people, in the hopes of triggering a revolution. We just should stay cognizant of the fact, that foreign aid can influence internal political balances between factions. After analysis it might be, that we have to accept helping a dictator by stabilizing his country, if it saves more lives.
When America pulls the vig from countries that need it, they don't turn around and correct their course. We've been trying to strongarm Pakistan to do the right thing for 4 decades now, and all we've gotten in return is an accelerated nuclear focus and an experimental ICBM program. If we let these "sins of the father" situations fester, then they turn around to China or Russia for help instead. American leadership simply doesn't realize the value of globalism right now.