The United Nations and Other International Organizations
The U.S. belongs to over 60 international technical, regional, diplomatic, military, and financial organizations. However, member states often fail to assess whether these organizations remain focused on and are fulfilling their original goals. As a result, their effectiveness and relevance to U.S. taxpayers is often in doubt.

The United Nations, created in 1945 to maintain international security and promote basic human rights, performs some useful tasks but has often failed to fulfill its primary responsibilities. For example, the world has witnessed hundreds of wars since 1945, yet the U.N. has authorized the use of force in response to aggression only twice: to respond to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea and to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The 65 peacekeeping missions it has authorized often have been beset by mismanagement, fraud, procurement corruption, and incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse. U.N. procurement and management have also proven vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement, as evidenced by the Iraq Oil for Food scandal.

The U.N.’s aid-focused development plans have a poor record of success. Countries receiving significant U.N. development assistance show no better results than those that receive little aid.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, created in 2006 to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights, has exhibited persistent bias against Israel, partiality and politicization in its examination of human rights, and an inability to exclude from membership states with appalling human rights records. The council’s record in these areas has not improved significantly since the U.S. joined it in 2009.

The failure to implement reform of the U.N. system is particularly disturbing for the U.S., which is the U.N.’s largest financial contributor. Countries opposed to U.S. policies and leadership use the U.N. and other international organizations, in which they are on a more equal footing with the U.S. in terms of decision-making, to assert their influence. U.S. allies are often unreliable partners in these organizations. Allies that are part of the European Union (EU), for example, frequently say they cannot negotiate with the United States on a policy until the EU arrives at a unified position. Voting as a single bloc—irrespective of members’ national interests—enables the EU and other regional and ideological groups like the G-77 to counterbalance U.S. leadership and constrain U.S. actions. The U.S. must use the tools available, including financial withholding, to bolster its efforts at the U.N.

America’s Alliances

Although it stands as the most successful military alliance in modern history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) remains beset by post–Cold War challenges, including the struggle to formulate a cohesive defense strategy, inequitable sharing of financial and operational burdens, enlargement fatigue, and limited European defense capabilities. Although NATO was able to act in Libya, the U.S. was once again forced to provide most of the arms for the mission, especially advanced weaponry. The 10-year war in Afghanistan remains a crucial test of the alliance’s willingness and ability to stand behind its Article 5 obligations.

NATO also faces a serious challenge from the EU’s efforts to create a separate defense identity, especially in an era of declining defense budgets. The EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy has resulted in duplication of NATO’s role and structures, delinking of the NATO and EU alliances, and discrimination against non-EU NATO members such as Turkey. The EU’s drive to lift the arms embargo on China is but one example of how far removed its strategic outlook is from that of the U.S.

The Anglo–American Special Relationship is rooted in common values, shared interests, and a shared desire to play a leading role in the world. The U.S. ratified the U.S.–U.K. Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty in 2010, and President Obama undertook a state visit to the United Kingdom in 2011. Overall, however, the Administration has undervalued and even undermined the Special Relationship—for example, by encouraging Argentina to advance its groundless claim to the Falkland Islands. Moreover, Britain has done too little to ensure that it remains a sovereign and capable partner, instead cutting defense spending to critical lows and failing to resist the EU’s relentless drive to stop member states from playing an independent and assertive role in the world. Both sides lack a strategy for advancing united global leadership in defense of liberty.

The U.S. has treaty commitments to five allies in the Western Pacific: Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand. The alliances in Northeast Asia and Australia serve as anchors of America’s resident power status to balance China’s rise and ensure regional peace and security. In particular, U.S. military bases in Japan and South Korea are indispensable in deterring an aggressive, heavily armed Communist North Korea. The U.S. also has key security partners in Taiwan and Singapore and growing ties with other Southeast Asian nations and India.

Despite some wise individual policy choices by the Administration, the overall confidence of our allies in U.S. leadership has been undermined by perceptions of American economic decline, defense budget cuts and procurement decisions, the rapid rise of China, and deference to Chinese interests, particularly concerning Taiwan. The Administration has strained to counter these doubts without addressing the underlying causes.

Debates over trade restrictions have erupted from time to time during our history, and they have not always been resolved in favor of greater freedom. But the historical record is clear: When we have opted for freer trade, we have been rewarded with long periods of greater prosperity. As President Ronald Reagan observed:

The benefits of free trade are well known: It generates more jobs, a more productive use of a nation’s resources, more rapid innovation, and higher standards of living both for this nation and its trading partners. While a unilateral commitment to free trade benefits the Nation, Americans gain even more when U.S. trading partners also open their markets.

Many critics of U.S. trade agreements and of free trade in general assert that free trade destroys jobs and lowers wages, but the facts show otherwise. Countries that have the lowest trade barriers also have the strongest economies, the lowest poverty rates, and the highest average levels of per-capita income.

The biggest threat to U.S. prosperity does not come from free trade, but from the decline in economic freedom in the United States. In 2010, for the first time ever, the United States fell from the ranks of the economically free in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. This reduction in freedom has been accompanied by a stagnant economy, persistently high unemployment, and lethargic economic growth.

Trade is the framework upon which American prosperity rests. What is needed is a return to the free trade policies that have created economic dynamism, which engenders continual innovation and leads to better products, new markets, and greater investment.

These successes, often trumpeted by President Barack Obama, resulted from a decade of efforts to make sanctuaries unsafe, cause attrition in the cadre of terrorist leaders, preempt planning and operations, disaggregate networks, thwart terrorist travel and communications, and disrupt fundraising and recruiting. As Congress and the Administration wrestle with the difficult decision of where best to spend precious security dollars, this record of success in the war against terrorism and preventing terrorist attacks during the past decade should not be ignored.

Yet the Administration has distanced itself from the post-9/11 effort. Shortly after taking office, President Obama declared the Administration’s intent to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, restrict interrogation policies, and stop characterizing anti-terrorist operations as wartime conflict. President Obama banished terms like “Long War,” “Global War on Terrorism,” and “unlawful combatants.” He also refused to identify as Islamist the terrorist groups that use religion to justify the slaughter of innocents to promote a radical agenda, even though most Muslims use that term.

It is increasingly unclear to most Americans both who it is that we are fighting and why we are fighting them. The war on terrorism is not over. Terrorists who aspire to attack this country are as determined as ever. The U.S. must therefore be prepared to fight a war of ideas against Islamist extremist ideology both at home and abroad. America must continue to adapt to these ever-changing terrorist threats in order to win the long war against terrorism.

Progress Against al-Qaeda. The U.S. has made major strides against al-Qaeda in the past year by enhancing its intelligence operations inside Pakistan and escalating drone missile strikes against terrorists in Pakistan’s tribal border areas. The U.S. raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden on May 2 at his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, marked a turning point in the U.S. war on al-Qaeda. Since then, the U.S. has taken other senior al-Qaeda members off the battlefield, including number-two commander Atiyah abd al-Rahman through a drone strike in Pakistan in August and Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a drone strike in Yemen in September.

But the setbacks for al-Qaeda do not spell the end of global terrorism. Al-Qaeda affiliate organizations throughout South Asia and the Middle East remain motivated and capable. While the U.S. may be safer today than it has been at any time since the 9/11 attacks, it must remain vigilant at home and continue its engagement in South Asia. Failing to make additional progress in rooting out terrorism from Afghanistan and Pakistan could set the stage for future attacks on the U.S. homeland.

U.S.–Pakistan Relations. The U.S. relationship with Pakistan took a nosedive following the bin Laden raid last May. Pakistan’s military leadership reacted angrily to the fact that the U.S. conducted the raid unilaterally and expelled some 90 U.S. military trainers from the country to demonstrate its displeasure. The U.S., in turn, suspended $800 million (or about one-third) of its military aid to Pakistan.

While U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before Congress that the Administration does not assess that senior Pakistani officials harbored bin Laden, the situation demands that Pakistan change its counterterrorism policies and end its ambiguity toward Islamist militancy. It is the Pakistan military and intelligence links with violent Islamist groups over the past 20 years that has ultimately led to a situation where the world’s most wanted terrorist could hide under the nose of the Pakistan military for six years.

Retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen’s blunt remarks to a Senate panel on September 22 that the Haqqani insurgent network was a “veritable arm” of Pakistani intelligence demonstrates the high levels of frustration within the Administration over Pakistani policies in Afghanistan. Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Haqqani network conducted the September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy as well as a major truck bombing against a NATO base that injured 77 soldiers on September 10. Pakistan’s reluctance to play a helpful role in promoting Afghan reconciliation and its defiance of U.S. calls to break ties to groups attacking the U.S. in Afghanistan are pushing the region into deeper conflict. Unless Pakistan agrees to work more closely with the U.S. in confronting groups that attack U.S. interests, the U.S. will have to recalibrate its policy toward Pakistan, despite the potential negative repercussions for other U.S. interests in the region.

Pakistani leaders assess that U.S. forces will depart the region prematurely and that continuing support for the Taliban and Haqqani network constitutes their best chance to counter Indian regional influence. Unfortunately, President Obama’s aggressive withdrawal strategy to remove 33,000 troops by next September only reinforces their view that the U.S. will depart Afghanistan before the situation is stabilized.

Afghanistan. The U.S. cannot afford to withdraw precipitously from Afghanistan and leave the Taliban once again to fill the void. Washington must allow conditions on the ground to determine the pace of U.S. withdrawal. The U.S. should also be clear that, even if it is not involved in direct combat operations after 2014, it will remain deeply engaged in Afghanistan diplomatically and economically and with a residual force focused on counterterrorism operations and providing support and advice to the Afghan security forces.

Securing Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons. The U.S. has given Pakistan crucial assistance to improve the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal. If the U.S. develops hostile relations with Pakistan, it will lose any ability to influence Pakistan’s handling of its nuclear assets. Perhaps the strongest argument for continuing to pursue engagement with Pakistan is to help ensure that its nuclear weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists.

Indo–Pakistani Tensions. The dispute over the status of Kashmir has been at the heart of Indo–Pakistani tensions since partition of the Subcontinent in 1947. In recent years, however, friction over Afghanistan has also contributed to their mutual hostility. An attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 that killed over 50, including two senior Indian officials, and was allegedly directed by Pakistan’s intelligence service sparked anger in New Delhi but also reinforced its resolve to maintain influence and economic ties with Kabul.

Official bilateral dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi resumed in February of this year following a two-year hiatus caused by the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. In early November, Pakistan’s Cabinet approved a decision to give India the status of most favored nation, which would allow the two countries to trade on equal terms, giving each other low tariffs and high import quotas. Despite this step forward on trade issues, tensions over Afghanistan will continue to jeopardize prospects for a major thaw in Indo–Pakistani relations.

India’s Growing Role in the Asia–Pacific. The U.S. has a fundamental interest in developing a strategic partnership with rising democratic power India as it increasingly contributes to a stable order in the Asia–Pacific. India is enhancing its political and economic ties throughout East and Southeast Asia and strengthening its naval presence in the Indian Ocean region. The growing strategic challenge presented by a rising China should contribute to an increase in cooperation between Washington and New Delhi in defense and other key sectors, such as space, maritime security, and nuclear nonproliferation.

Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned in January 2011 that “North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States” because it will develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) within five years. Pyongyang has already deployed hundreds of missiles that can target South Korea, Japan, and U.S. bases in Guam and Okinawa.

Pyongyang’s unprovoked acts of war in 2010 against a South Korean naval ship and a civilian-inhabited island were chilling reminders that its conventional forces remain a direct military threat to a U.S. ally. North Korea will feel compelled to conduct additional provocative acts in order to achieve its foreign policy objectives.

For years, many sought to absolve North Korea of responsibility for its acts by blaming U.S. and South Korean policies. It was also claimed that a one-track policy of returning to the “Six-Party” negotiations, offering concessions, and abandoning punishment for North Korean violations would resolve the nuclear issue and prevent provocations. Yet secret discussions underway last year did not prevent Pyongyang’s attacks on South Korea. Similarly, during the last four years of the Bush Administration, the U.S. engaged in multilateral negotiations and frequent direct bilateral diplomacy with Pyongyang, but North Korean intransigence, noncompliance, and brinksmanship continued.

In early 2009, there were euphoric expectations that the election of Barack Obama would lead to dramatic breakthroughs with North Korea. Instead, Pyongyang quickly sent clear signals that it would not adopt a more accommodating stance, rejecting several attempts by the new Administration to engage in dialogue.

North Korea declared the Six-Party Talks agreements void because the regime had new demands. Pyongyang also conducted a rapid-fire series of provocations, including threats of war, abrogation of the Korean War armistice, a long-range missile launch, and a nuclear test. But biting the offered open hand of dialogue backfired on Pyongyang by causing a belated epiphany among U.S. experts that the regime, not U.S. policies under successive Administrations, was to blame for the North Korean nuclear problem.

The reality is that pressure and conditional engagement—along with strong military deterrence, offers of economic assistance, and public diplomacy—will be most effective when integrated into a comprehensive strategy. However, since it will be difficult if not impossible to attain North Korean denuclearization, Washington and its allies must ensure that they retain sufficient military resources, including missile defenses, to deter, defend, and if necessary defeat the multifaceted North Korean threat to peace and stability in Asia.

Kim Jong-il has recovered from his August 2008 stroke, but he continues to have serious health problems. The planned leadership succession to his third son, Kim Jong-eun, appears to be on track. Despite speculation that the son may be more amenable to implementing political and economic reform and pursuing a less belligerent foreign policy, there is no evidence to support this view. The young son’s legitimacy comes from his lineage as well as maintaining the policies of his father and grandfather. He may feel compelled to act even more provocatively in order to prove his mettle to other members of the senior leadership who may seek to challenge him.

Since President Obama took office, the White House has systematically undercut comprehensive missile defense and thereby placed the U.S. homeland and our allies at greater risk. On February 1, 2010, the Administration released its Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report, which indicated that the Administration would continue to pursue a less-than-robust effort to protect the homeland against long-range missile strikes. As Iran has again launched a space rocket, which has much in common with long-range missiles, the U.S. is likely to be at greater risk in the future.

Iran is not the only state that is likely to consider using missiles in an attack against the United States. North Korea has launched the Taepodong 2 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which has the capability to deliver a nuclear warhead to Hawaii. A third stage could boost the weapon’s range to include the continental United States. The best way to contain the threat from North Korea will be through missile defense.

While Russia is not likely to launch a missile attack against the United States, President Obama’s policies toward Russia have made the United States more vulnerable to attack by undermining both U.S. strategic superiority and the international stability that it provides. It essentially fails to recognize the need for an arms control policy that is compatible with a defensive strategic posture in light of greater proliferation pressures. The Heritage Foundation has articulated such a posture as a “protect and defend” strategy.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), a centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s “reset” policy toward Russia, is fundamentally flawed, putting the United States at a disadvantage. It requires the U.S. to cut its strategic forces significantly. The already overstretched defense budget will have to bear additional costs associated with implementing New START, such as building specialized storage sites.

By comparison, under New START, Russia is allowed to expand its nuclear arsenal, which the most recent data exchange under the treaty reveals it is doing. Russia has also determined that language in the treaty’s preamble would allow it to threaten to withdraw from the treaty should the United States expand its ballistic missile defenses.

Iran

Iran’s hostile regime has been one of the chief beneficiaries of the political turmoil that has convulsed the Middle East during the “Arab Spring,” which distracted the United States and other countries from the ongoing standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The dramatic events diverted international attention from Tehran’s stubborn defiance of repeated U.N. Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue. There is a distinct danger that Tehran will conclude that growing regional instability is tilting the balance of power in its favor and will give it greater latitude to press ahead with its nuclear weapons program. This could result in a preventive strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and, if Iran actually attains a nuclear weapon, greater instability and the possibility of a nuclear war in the volatile Middle East.

The “Arab Spring”

The so-called Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia in December 2010, turned into a long hot summer and an angry autumn in much of the Arab Middle East. While pro-Western rulers were toppled in Tunisia and Egypt, entrenched dictatorships have fought back hard in Libya and Syria. Although the initial pro-democracy impetus of the popular demonstrations was encouraging, Islamist extremists and other radical forces are positioned to exploit the ensuing political turmoil, power vacuums, and economic disruptions.

The Administration’s hesitant and inconsistent responses to the unfolding populist uprisings have made the situation worse. The Administration quickly abandoned longtime ally President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt while equivocating for five months before calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, despite the fact that Assad’s regime has a much worse human rights record, remains a leading state sponsor of terrorism, and is Iran’s chief ally in the region.

Rather than develop a long-term strategy to advance American interests and freedom in the Middle East, the Obama Administration has focused on the short-term symptoms of dysfunctional dictatorships. It plunged into an ill-considered war in Libya to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at easing a humanitarian crisis, but the Syrian crisis, which involved a regime that posed a much greater threat to U.S. interests, received little attention, in part because Syria received greater backing from Russia in the U.N. Security Council. The United States should go to war only to defend vital national interests, not at the whim of the U.N. Security Council.

The Obama Administration’s policy toward Syria, like its policy toward Iran, has been flawed by wishful thinking about the prospects for diplomatically persuading a hostile dictatorship to stop repressing its own people and supporting terrorism. The Administration was slow to condemn the Assad regime for its crimes against Syrians, was slow to ramp up sanctions on the regime, and dragged its feet before finally concluding that Assad had lost legitimacy as a leader. It should have been clear that the Assad regime was illegitimate from the beginning.

At the same time, the Administration launched a war in Libya, where no vital U.S. national interests were threatened, without a clear military plan or exit strategy. The Administration’s short-sighted effort to score a quick and easy military victory over Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s regime failed to end the threat to civilians in “days not weeks,” as President Obama promised. Instead, Qadhafi fought on for seven months in a brutal civil war that killed an estimated 50,000 Libyans before he was captured and killed in late October 2011. Meanwhile, the Administration turned the military mission over to NATO and “led from behind,” confusing allies and adversaries about the U.S. commitment to a decisive victory. It also involved the U.S. in an open-ended military intervention in support of groups that were not adequately vetted and thus may not turn out to be friendly toward the United States. The public emergence of Islamist military commanders within Libya’s new regime and its declaration that Islamic law would be the basis for a new constitution have raised disturbing questions about the nature of Libya’s new rulers.

The Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

The chief barriers to peace are Palestinian terrorist attacks, not Israeli settlements. Many Israeli settlements are located in areas that eventually could be folded into Israel in exchange for equal amounts of Israeli territory transferred to Palestinian control, if and when borders are agreed upon in a final settlement. Yet when the Administration sought to revive the comatose peace process, which has been on American-supplied life support since the collapse of the 2000 Camp David summit, it made a settlement freeze the centerpiece of its strategy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government agreed to a temporary freeze of West Bank settlements but balked at halting housing construction in east Jerusalem, which is claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. It was unwise for the Administration to push for a settlement freeze in Jerusalem that no Israeli government could agree to in the absence of rapid movement for a permanent peace settlement that would include ironclad provisions to ensure Israel’s security against terrorist attacks.

The Administration’s primary focus on the settlements guaranteed friction with Israel’s center-right government and hardened the Palestinian negotiating position, because Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could not be seen as less opposed to settlements than is the United States. Despite the fact that Palestinians had negotiated for many years without gaining such a settlement freeze, Abbas has made it a condition for resuming talks. As long as this emphasis on halting construction in Jerusalem continues, there is likely to be little progress on negotiations because the Palestinians will sit back and let Washington extract concessions from Israel without feeling any need to reciprocate with concessions of their own. To make matters worse, Abbas chose to push for the United Nations to endorse unilateral Palestinian statehood rather than relying on negotiations with Israel, which is the only genuine path to peace.

Since 9/11, America has done a better job defending itself, thwarting at least 40 Islamist-inspired terrorist plots aimed at the United States. Additionally, America has improved efforts to safeguard its own sovereignty by investing significantly in border security. These measures discourage illegal border crossing and unlawful presence in conjunction with workplace enforcement and programs to prevent illegal employment. Furthermore, lessons learned in the war against terrorism have stopped some practices and programs that contribute little to real security.

Progress in the homeland security enterprise, however, has been inconsistent. The White House continues to press for an “amnesty first” approach to border security, immigration policy, and workplace enforcement while undercutting key tools, including the 287(g) program, which facilitates state and local cooperation on investigating immigration-related crimes. Such a strategy undermines the progress that had been made in fixing broken borders and restoring credibility to U.S. immigration laws.

Meanwhile, the federalization of disaster response continues—overstretching the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and leaving states and localities fundamentally unprepared to manage local disasters—while unworkable mandates, such as the cumbersome requirements for 100 percent scanning and screening of maritime and air cargo remain on the books. At the same time, congressional oversight, the federal homeland security grant process, and the Administration’s approach to cybersecurity remain dysfunctional.

Getting the national homeland security enterprise right remains one of Washington’s most difficult challenges. However, Congress and the Administration have the opportunity to recalibrate the nation’s homeland security priorities to ensure that the United States remains free, safe, and prosperous.

Over the past 40 years, the developed nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have donated over $3 trillion in official development assistance (ODA), with about one-third of it—nearly $1.1 trillion in constant 2008 dollars, according to the Congressional Research Service—coming from the United States. This assistance is spent such programs as bilateral and multilateral development (social welfare, agriculture, health care, food aid, and reform of institutions) as well as humanitarian, economic and political security, and military assistance.

Yet studies by economists such as Professor William Easterly of New York University have repeatedly shown that ODA fails to produce sustainable economic development through economic growth, job creation, and higher living standards. Foreign aid rarely generates sustained prosperity; if it does achieve short-term success, it does so at a very high price. For the most part, no multipliers materialize after the aid is spent because it leaves the economies of recipient nations fundamentally distorted. The influx of development assistance often stimulates rent-seeking behavior by the politically well-connected, weakens institutions of democratic governance, and perpetuates the corrupt regimes that are the main obstacles to growth.

The Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, measures a country’s openness to competition; the degree of state intervention in the economy (whether through taxation, spending, or overregulation); and the strength and independence of the judiciary in enforcing rules and protecting private property. It consistently finds that free markets and entrepreneurship are keys to prosperity. The 2011 Index highlighted a significant positive correlation between higher economic freedom scores and reduced poverty as measured by the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index as well as improved democratic governance and political stability as tracked by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy.

Even though traditional U.S. development assistance programs do not have a good track record, President Barack Obama dramatically increased spending on foreign aid; he requested $35.9 billion in foreign operations funding (excluding State Department operations) for fiscal year (FY) 2012, up from $26.1 billion requested for FY 2009 (the last budget of the George W. Bush Administration).

The U.S. bilateral and multilateral development assistance requested for FY 2012 includes $1.5 billion for the operating budget of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); $1.125 billion for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC); $6 billion (combined State Department and USAID funding) for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); $625 million for family planning and reproductive health; and funding for other global health and child survival programs, international humanitarian and disaster assistance, migration and refugee assistance, and economic support funds (ESF).

The total FY 2012 request for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other international programs in the budgets of USAID, the State Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services comes to over $7.15 billion, including funding for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. While some of these targeted programs—like the MCC—produce good results, others do not.

The problem with traditional development assistance is that it relies on a government-to-government model that has not generated significant and sustainable opportunities on the ground for people in developing nations. Instead, it has tended to promote statist approaches to development that increase control of the market by those in power, create distortions in the economy and new opportunities for corruption, and promote dependence on the government. With rare exceptions, traditional ODA has tended to reinforce the problems that undermine lasting development. Moreover, while attempting to reduce illiteracy and gender inequity in developing countries is important, traditional development assistance aimed at such problems is simply insufficient to overcome the impediments to growth.

The need for ODA is further disputed by the fact that, today, private financial flows to the developing world that contribute to economic growth dwarf ODA. According to the Hudson Institute’s Index of Global Philanthropy, billions of American dollars from faith-based and other charitable, academic, and humanitarian groups go to the needy overseas every year and show far better results than government ODA. The key is to facilitate these flows, not compete with them. Private flows go where they obtain the best return or best navigate the policy hurdles. The U.S. should encourage developing countries to remove the barriers that impede these flows.

Over the past decade, the U.S. government has attempted to achieve more measurable results from its aid programs. The Millennium Challenge Account program was innovative in that it was designed to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional USAID model by allocating assistance to countries that have embraced the policies linked to economic growth. The objective criteria used by the Millennium Challenge Corporation to determine which countries will receive funding—“their performance in governing justly, investing in their citizens, and encouraging economic freedom”—mirror principles used in preparing the annual Index of Economic Freedom.

Participation in MCC programs requires recipient governments to take high-level ownership of the projects funded and commit to reducing corruption and improving transparency and accountability. MCC programs to promote sustainable economic development deal with such areas as transportation, water and industrial infrastructure, agriculture, education, private-sector development, and capacity building.

U.S. security assistance has made direct and short-term contributions to national security. This assistance includes the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program to subsidize sales of U.S. military equipment, services, and training to friendly developing countries; International Military Education and Training (IMET) grants for training foreign military professionals; and some funding of international peacekeeping operations.

Targeted U.S. political, security, and humanitarian assistance can be an effective foreign policy tool. It is an important aspect of our engagement in many countries with which the U.S. holds important national interests, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Iraq, but that would not yet qualify for MCC funding. Programs such as those that focus on combating hunger and reducing maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS, for example, maintain America’s credibility as a compassionate and moral world leader. However, many of these programs could be administered by the State Department or other government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To protect and defend America’s vital national interests, the U.S. military must have the tools it needs to deter attacks and enhance diplomatic efforts—and, when diplomacy and deterrence fail, to fight and win. Combat victory requires a force adequately equipped to defend the U.S. and its allies against strategic attacks, to prevail in traditional and asymmetrical warfare, to defeat terrorist organizations and organized criminals, and to respond to threats that emanate from failed states.

America’s security commitments around the globe have strained every branch of the armed forces, but the root of the problem lies in decisions made in the 1990s. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton cut defense spending dramatically. The Clinton Administration reduced the entire military—its forces and equipment—by fully one-third under the utopian assumption that the end of the Cold War would lead to a “lasting peace.”

Cashing in peace dividends is an even riskier proposition now than it was after the Cold War ended. President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup in the 1980s, coupled with his successful diplomacy, created a cushion that largely allowed defense investments to be deferred in the 1990s, even though military operations were ramped up. Also, defense budget increases since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have generated little cushion. They have largely been consumed by a high pace of operations. The ongoing need to invest in and recapitalize the force (i.e., buy new planes, ships, weapon systems, and equipment) remains.

On average, major U.S. military platforms are now more than 25 years old and are wearing out much more quickly than planned. The combat vehicle fleet of Abrams tanks is largely based on technology from the 1980s and earlier. Many of today’s tanker and bomber pilots are flying in airplanes first used by their grandfathers. The U.S. Navy fleet contains the smallest number of ships since 1916. Yet the Navy is being tasked with more responsibilities than ever, such as securing vital sea-lanes of commerce around the world worth over $14 trillion annually.

Today, America is asking all of its military forces to do more. U.S. soldiers are under stress. They have been strained by 10 years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 1990s “procurement holiday” has left the military with outdated and decrepit weapons and equipment. These circumstances have taken their toll on both people and equipment. The bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Independent Panel concluded in 2010 that “the aging of the inventories and equipment used by the services, the decline in the size of the Navy, escalating personnel entitlements, overhead and procurement costs, and the growing stress on the force means that a train wreck is coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition, and force structure.” This “train wreck” is here, and it threatens to undermine America’s ability to defend itself and protect its vital national interests at a time when threats to its security are increasing.

Both Iran and North Korea have active nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the ability to reach U.S. allies and forward-deployed troops with ballistic missiles. China is engaged in a non-transparent major military buildup with unclear intentions. A re-emergent Russia is vigorously modernizing its nuclear forces and seeks to intimidate its former Soviet neighbors, Europe, and the NATO alliance. Terrorist threats to the U.S. and its European allies emanate from Southewest Asia, the Middle East, and failed states. Cyber attacks threaten critical financial and communication networks in an already teetering economy as well as the national security assets that employ them.

Despite such threats, the Administration has lowered the defense budget baseline by some $750 billion over a 10-year period when calculating from President Obama’s second defense budget request in FY 2011. Congress has acquiesced in this budgetary sleight of hand, which permits the Obama Administration to argue that it has not cut the defense budget at all. The August 2011 debt deal now threatens to “hollow out” the military. On top of discretionary caps already legislated, the new budget act stipulated that the newly created Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction must agree on a sufficient deficit-reduction plan by December 2011 and Congress adopt it into law by January 15, 2012, or an automatic trigger would force cuts of $1.2 trillion—with half of that coming out of the defense budget. Such cuts would irreparably harm the U.S. military and endanger vital U.S. interests.

The debt deal also did not fully address the cause of the debt crisis: runaway domestic spending and the burgeoning growth of Social Security and the other big social entitlements. Indeed, the projected growth of entitlement programs will soon make it impossible for Congress to provide a robust defense budget and take care of those in uniform.