As an addendum to recent postlets on US foreign aid, allow me to point you to Foreign Policy mag's discussion of popular perceptions of US aid (too little? too much? official? private? &c). It slants a bit against the US, but it does note this, if only in passing:
"The United States Helps Poor Countries in Many Ways Besides Foreign Aid.”
True. The United States helps provide security around the world by keeping sea lanes open for commerce, providing peacekeeping forces, and airlifting supplies during emergencies, as evidenced by the U.S. military’s valuable role in tsunami relief efforts. U.S. trade and investment also accelerate growth and development. In addition, U.S. firms develop technologies such as medicines and the Internet that low-income countries can use at a fraction of the cost of creating them.
Any discussion of whether the US is global 'scrooge or savior' must include this, not as an afterthought, but as a central fact of the US's role as world Leviathan. As T-Barnett frequently notes, the US is the only country in the world capable of exporting security, not just for emergencies, not just for policing dangerous regimes, not just for peacekeeping, but for essentially permanent 'missions' protecting critical sea lanes and other key infrastructure that keeps the global economy humming. The US possesses the only global military in the world, no other country can project force across hemispheres - no one can even usefully help us. Moreover, by supplying security to the world, other countries are freed to reduce defense spending to minimal levels and spend more on the welfare of their own populations (and, presumably, on international charity efforts). The hundreds of billions of dollars the US spends on security - to say nothing of the thousands of our sons and daughters we put in harm's way around the world - is our largest and most important foreign aid expenditure. Hey, you're welcome.
++ Sorry, dashed this one off on my way out of the office - just to clarify/restate the 'main idea', security isn't the same thing as development aid, nor is it a replacement for well-funded and realistic aid programs. Security, however, is the precondition for the trade and economic growth that make development possible.
+++ The importance of US trade policies and technology transfers, as mentioned in the FP quote, is also consistently undervalued in the development picture. The FP piece touches on trade policy a bit more, and this recent Muck/Mystery post probes deeper into the evolution of more robust development strategies. Hopefully will begin posting more on technology transfer and development, esp w/r/t energy tech. For the time being though I am just a mess!