I might be graduating tomorrow, so I’ll have to keep this post fairly short. Looking on the bright side, however, my commencement speaker is Jeffrey Sachs. I’m proud to have played a small part in selecting him. You can trust that I will be sure to write my reflections on whatever his advice is to the graduates of the Grinnell College class of 2010. That said, I’m going to succinctly lay out a case for why assisting foreign nations in development is smart policy, despite the myriad of problems we have at home.

While current efforts may exacerbate the problem and must be significantly modified, abandoning foreign assistance to the region is not an acceptable solution. Underdevelopment is a threat to national security. Deep poverty and injustice in states can alienate populations from their government, increase the risk of civil conflict and erode a weak state’s capacity to govern. This leads to domestic and transnational security threats as seen in Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and countless other nations. Furthermore, the USAID’s staff, when deployed effectively, has empirically been one of the most powerful instruments of soft power the U.S. government has at its disposal. Their success creates valuable allies and influence when crafting United States foreign policy. As Senator Kerry (D- MA), Chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations said:

“History teaches us that America is safest and strongest when we understand that our security will not be protected by military means alone. It must be protected as well by our generosity, by our example, by powerful outreach, and by instilling a palpable sense in the people of the world that we understand—and share their destiny. That has always inspired people, and it always will. It undercuts our enemies, it empowers our friends–and it keeps us safer.”

In many places, the US Agency for International Development is the most visible face of the U.S. government; its influence at the level of civil society is far greater than the State Department’s or the Pentagon’s, whose representatives tend to remain in capital cities. USAID officers have daily interactions with civil-society leaders, government officials, members of local legislative bodies, businesspeople, and ministries that deal with development issues.

Thus, development must be regarded as one of the three key pillars of foreign policy, equal importance to defense and diplomacy. Federal policy ought to reflect this.