Foreign Aid: Effectively Advancing Security Interests (Weapons of Market Destruction: ECONOMICS OF SECURITY‪)‬

The use of foreign aid as a tool to advance national security interests has been a driving force in US foreign policy since the implementation of the Marshall Plan, the United States' first official aid program. Critics of using aid for national security purposes, such as Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs and InterAction President and CEO Samuel Worthington, claim that this geopolitical aid goes to countries that are often wealthier and more corrupt than the nations that do not receive it. Such aid, the argument continues, is not spent on long-term development, but on short-term political gain. Proponents of this view draw the conclusion that foreign aid, so motivated, cannot be effective in reducing poverty. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]