USAID Really Does Protect Americans and Save Money
In Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti and elsewhere, aid workers have been the military’s soft-power partners.
Can it still be saved?
Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Throughout my nearly four decades in uniform, I frequently worked alongside the professionals of the US Agency for International Development. From my first forward deployment, as a junior officer detailed to painting orphanages in the Philippines, I deeply admired these dedicated civil servants.
Especially toward the end of my career — as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, as a four-star admiral in command of US Southern Command, and then as supreme allied commander at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — I relied on USAID for short- and long-term reasons. In combat areas, USAID workers helped create security for my troops in the field. Over the long term, they provided stability by helping prevent disease outbreaks, famine and more — and the fights and chaos that so often follow.