Aiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State Violence

Aiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State Violence. Jessica Trisko Darden. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020.

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Aiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State Violence provides a short, readable account of U.S. foreign aid and assistance and the role of both in subsidizing state violence and repression by recipients.  Foreign assistance is complex, with little unifying policy and strategy. Summarized by the author herself, “U.S. foreign aid policy has consistently been torn between supporting the common good, realized through economic development, and furthering America’s own security and diplomatic interests.”[3]  As such, American aid and assistance programs operate with no clear priorities. However, the author often conflates the terms aid and assistance, despite defining assistance using the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act. Perhaps a better definition is available from the DoD:

Assistance to foreign nations ranging from the sale of military equipment and support for foreign internal defense to donations of food and medical supplies to aid survivors of natural and man-made disasters that may be provided through development assistance, humanitarian assistance, and security assistance.[4]

New works on this topic, like Mara Karlin’s Building Militaries in Fragile States, discuss the how of U.S. assistance, while this book focuses on the enduring effects of aid and its consequences. In discussing these effects, a theory emerges known as the “coercive effect.” It is the lens through which assistance is viewed throughout Aiding and Abetting, particularly in the later case studies, and is defined by Trisko Darden as “the ways foreign aid influences a state’s coercive behavior—or its tendency to use violence or commit human rights abuses against its own citizens—while aid is being provided.”[5] More specifically, “Recipient countries can harness the foreign assistance given by developed donor countries such as the United States to increase the coercive capacity of the state irrespective of the intended purposes of the aid.”[6] This ability to harness aid as the recipient sees fit is known as fungibility, and has a major impact on the effectiveness of U.S. aid programs.

In the preface, she tells the story of her family’s forced departure from the Philippines. Placing this anecdote within the broader context of the Cold War and Philippine politics, she describes life under President Ferdinand Marcos and the near decade-long period of martial law that rocked the country and its democracy beginning in 1972. During this period, press freedoms were in decline, a curfew was implemented, and opposition leaders like Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. were imprisoned. Disappearances, killings, and torture were all features of Marcos’ rule.[7]

A consistent and underlying element in this story was America’s continued support for the Marcos regime. Marcos was countering a communist insurgency in the Philippine countryside, in-line with U.S. policy in countering communist influences and a sure guarantor of continued foreign assistance. Assistance was meant to strengthen the Philippine military and achieve broader development goals envisioned by the United States, often referred to as modernization. Yet, this assistance often undermined those goals and allowed the Marcos regime to focus on internal threats to its power. Knowing American money would always be there to subsidize its activities and ensure the regime’s hold on power meant state violence perpetrated against the opposition and broader population continued unabated.[8]

A brief history on the origin of U.S. foreign assistance is one of the many strengths of this book. In tracing the critical programs that came to define early American efforts, it seemed apparent that a new agency was needed to oversee and implement assistance programs around the world. The Cold War was the strategic backdrop through which programs like the Military Assistance Program and Public Law 480—also known as Food for Peace—would need to be organized to provide a better alternative to Soviet and Chinese influences and the Communist way of life. But at what cost? The author brings evidence to bear on a difficult truth: American foreign assistance has directly and indirectly contributed to state repression and violence on the part of aid recipients, and overlooked abuses and repressive measures in order to preserve or obtain broader objectives related to U.S. national security.

Indonesia, El Salvador, and South Korea provide the case studies for discussing the effects of American aid. Each case is unique in the way the recipient applied the aid and the ways in which the coercive effect fostered repression. In Indonesia, the coercive effect of aid was borne out in the invasion of East Timor by an internally focused military. El Salvador featured a military government with an internally focused military and security apparatus that committed abuses with American-supplied equipment and trained units. South Korea is a unique case, and often cited as one of the most successful for foreign assistance and capacity building. While its  externally focused military was gradually employed over time to suppress protests, intelligence and police services generally carried out that particular job.

In quantifying these case studies, the author makes effective use of statistical analysis to upend assumptions about the effects of military and economic aid. In the initial data covering 1976-2016, analysis shows that military aid had “no discernable association with government repression.”[9] Military assistance could be used to build a more effective and professional army. Whereas foreign economic aid could allow for government funds to be freed up and moved to spending on security services, which increases the likelihood of repression.

Human rights is a much vaunted component of American foreign policy. However, its place alongside foreign assistance is often secondary in an attempt to achieve broader strategic goals. This is a blunt appraisal, but it is a key part of the discussion on the coercive effect of foreign assistance that colors all three case studies. Indonesia provides just one chilling example of the coercive effect on an internally focused military and American acquiescence in order to maintain a strategic ally.

Indonesian soldiers inside East Timor (Quora)

The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1976 saw some 2,000 East Timorese civilians killed in the opening days of the campaign. The receipt of assistance meant that “roughly 90 percent of the military equipment used in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor was supplied by the United States.”[10] It was seen as an internal security matter because of lack of interest on the part of Portugal—East Timor’s colonizer—and Indonesian control of half the island of Timor. Abuses committed during the invasion include mass killings and sexual violence. Still, American discomfort with Indonesian actions did not outweigh greater concerns of Soviet influence there and in the wider region. In fact, when concerns were raised on human rights abuses, the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia indicated no desire to shift course, in essence arguing that “ending security assistance would not only drastically reduce U.S. influence but could cause Indonesia to turn for security assistance to countries with less concern for human rights.”[11] In addition, “American fears about Soviet influence in Indonesia, and South Asia more generally, overrode legitimate human rights concerns.”[12]

American desires to uphold human rights among recipients of assistance would eventually include a vetting process under the Leahy Laws. Designed to “make the recipients of assistance more accountable to their own people by using the power of America’s purse,” this mechanism is a critical part of American aid and assistance programs.[13] To be sure, such oversight can be easily sidestepped out of greater strategic concerns, especially as American influence becomes limited once human rights abusers are blocked from assistance. Whether a recipient takes meaningful action to remedy such abuses to resume assistance is further from American control.[14]

The scope of this book is limited to how assistance facilitates state violence. It highlights an understudied portion of foreign assistance, but does little to prescribe a workable solution. One suggestion by the author is to force recipients to maintain the same level of funding for certain sectors after receiving aid to defeat the coercive effect. Another is to simply do away with most assistance without discussing which should be spared and which should not. Strangely, the author cites surveys of Democrats and Republicans asking whether the U.S. spends too much on foreign assistance. The results show that a majority of respondents thought the foreign assistance budget was too high, and that military assistance and weapons sales did not help achieve U.S. interests or bolster American security. Yet, the author also indicates that most Americans do not know or care about foreign assistance programs or their share of the overall budget, and that the foreign assistance budget itself is mere pocket change in comparison to other funding. This seems to be a counterproductive point, but sheds light on the problem of domestic messaging on why foreign assistance matters, its overseas effects, and the need to puncture public indifference.[15]

This work should serve as a yield sign to those policymakers and military officials who consider bi-lateral foreign assistance in areas of supposed strategic American interests. It should also serve as a guide to better envision the enduring effects of U.S. assistance—both good and bad—and generate discussions around the implementation and the cost of foreign assistance in a renewed era of competition. The role of the military and security forces within a recipient’s society, and the weight of American resolve in maintaining human rights at the potential cost of strategic interests—and vice versa—should be deeply discussed and questioned. Does the provision of assistance enable a government to commit abuses against the people it is meant to represent? Is the United States willing to accept such abuses as a means of achieving its strategic objectives at the cost of local lives?

Understanding how foreign assistance might enable state actors to maintain power in ways that violate the values America espouses in its national policy documents is key to understanding the nature of power in a recipient state. As such, the United States could better tailor such assistance in local contexts that serve the people who need it most while at the same time achieving its strategic objectives. Yet, such a solution is too far out of reach without a workable strategy that connects aid to achieving those broader objectives. This is to say that understanding the reality in which foreign assistance might be used matters only as much as the effort in which the United States is committed to asking the deeper questions, building a comprehensive strategy, and recognizing the limits of its own power in a state far different from its own.

U.S. Soldiers unload humanitarian aid for distribution to the town of Rajan Kala, Afghanistan Dec. 5, 2009. (U.S. Army Photo/Wikimedia)

As recent discussions on Afghanistan have shown, the obvious answer is not always the easy one. Does the provision of assistance better the state, or merely maintain the survival of the current government at the cost of wider stability and the lives of the people? As Trisko Darden concludes, “Foreign aid has so far proven to be a flawed instrument for advancing freedom. The strategic use of foreign assistance, the propping up of military dictatorships, costly internal wars—all these supposed features of the Cold War persist today. The coercive effect of foreign aid is not a thing of the past, it is part of our current moment.”[16]

Harrison Manlove is a U.S. Army ROTC cadet. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U. S. Government.

This article appeared originally at Strategy Bridge.

[1] Lee, Melissa M. “Subversive Statecraft.” Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs Magazine, December 6, 2019. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-12-04/subversive-statecraft.; Rose, Frank A. “As Russia and China Improve Their Conventional Military Capabilities, Should the US Rethink Its Assumptions on Extended Nuclear Deterrence?” Brookings. Brookings, October 25, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/10/23/as-russia-and-china-improve-their-conventional-military-capabilities-should-the-us-rethink-its-assumptions-on-extended-nuclear-deterrence/. 

[2] Garamone, Jim. “Dunford Describes U.S. Great Power Competition with Russia, China.” U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, March 29, 2019. https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1791811/dunford-describes-us-great-power-competition-with-russia-china/.; “Defender-Europe First in Series of Power Projection Exercises.” Association of the United States Army, November 25, 2019. https://www.ausa.org/news/defender-europe-first-series-power-projection-exercises.; Dan Lamothe, Danielle Paquette. “Pressure Builds against the Pentagon as It Weighs Reducing Troop Numbers in Africa.” The Washington Post. WP Company, January 20, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/01/20/pressure-builds-against-pentagon-it-weighs-reducing-troop-numbers-africa/.

[3] Trisko Darden, Jessica. Aiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State Violence. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 5.

[4] Department of Defense dictionary of military and associated terms, Department of Defense dictionary of military and associated terms § (2020). 86.

[5] Trisko Darden. Aiding and Abetting. 17. It should be noted by the reader that the author’s use of “coercive effect” is unique to this work and does not follow the more widely known definition of coercion. Under international law, coercion is defined as “the government of one State compelling the government of another State to think or act in a certain way by applying various kinds of pressure, threats, intimidation or the use of force…” See “Coercion” defined on Oxford Public International Law online research service. 

[6] Ibid., 18.

[7] Ibid., viii.

[8] Ibid., ix.

[9] Ibid., 39.

[10] Ibid., 57.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid., 7.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., 115.

[16] Ibid., 118.