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What do high crime areas, renewable energy, the war on drugs and foreign aid to impoverished nations all have in common? The more money government pours into these programs, the less successful and sustainable they become. Recent financial turmoil has policymakers questioning where the United States can afford to make spending cuts. One suggestion has been a reduction in direct foreign aid. Even if the American financial system were not in distress, the federal government should eliminate government-to-government foreign aid and instead focus on durable programs and ideas that will promote long-term growth and prosperity.

Foreign aid assistance falls short of meeting its goals for two fundamental reasons. First, a large part of foreign aid is transferred from government to government. As a result, the U.S. government hands billions of dollars to corrupt leaders to strengthen their militaries for personal use, manipulate their elections, and oppress their citizens. Economist Christopher Coyne highlights that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) “supplied nearly $105 billion in net disbursements and almost $144 billion in total commitments to the world’s worst dictators.” In essence, we are providing funds for despots in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and other nations that have no regard for human life and will do anything to remain in power.

Second, foreign aid creates a reliance mentality that stifles economic development and reduces accountability of aid agencies. Under the current system, as a country’s economy deteriorates, the level of foreign assistance they receive increases. This creates a perverse incentive for leaders of recipient countries to reduce rather than improve internal conditions so they will receive more external aid. The Western world gave over $2.3 trillion in foreign aid over the past fifty years and many of the recipient countries are now worse off than when they were thirty years ago. Aware of this statistical reality, DAC and other organizations attempt to provide development incentives and benchmarks for developing countries to meet. Generally, however, the incentives are weak and the benchmarks are broadly defined, allowing countries to superficially meet targets without actually making substantial improvements in infrastructure.

Furthermore, aid agencies are generally self-evaluating leading to a problematic lack of accountability. Aid agencies usually conduct their own assessments of how both the agency and the developing country is performing. Without outside critique, there is no liability for allocating funds inefficiently. Professor Bill Easterly says it best: “My students at NYU would not study very hard if I gave them the right to assign themselves their own grades.”

No matter how much aid the U.S. funnels into developing countries, for certain things they need most, foreign aid will not help. Money alone does not lead to progress. For a country to develop, it must create a sustainable infrastructure that can support rule of law, private property rights and economic freedom. Countries with freer markets, as evidenced by The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, tend to have a higher GDP per capita among developing countries. But private property rights and rule of law will never occur if the U.S. and industrialized nations continue to invest in corrupt regimes.

If government transfers don’t work, then what will? To help impoverished nations the U.S. should:

•    Increase microfinancing. Small private loans empower the poor (particularly women), create wealth, build community relationships, promote entrepreneurial activity and teach fiscal discipline and individual responsibility. 

•    Lower trade barriers. Trade generates enormous amounts of wealth for both trading countries, while at the same time improving the United States’ relationship with foreign consumers. 

•    Eliminate U.S. farm subsidies. Subsidies distort the market and eliminating them would allow foreign agriculture to be economically competitive. 

•    Repeal the ethanol mandate. Diverting corn from food to fuel use has raised food prices, and the world’s poor are suffering the most.  Global anti-hunger organizations are weighing in against ethanol and repealing the mandate would have an immediate effect on food prices.

•    Forgive foreign debt. Coupling elimination of direct government transfers with a forgiveness of developing countries’ foreign debt would provide a critical step in reducing aid addiction.

Nick Loris is a second year graduate student pursuing his master’s degree in economics at George Mason University. While in the Koch Associate Program, Nick worked as a researcher on energy and regulatory issues at The Heritage Foundation. Nick continues to work at Heritage, and plays significant roles in two of Heritage’s recently launched 10 Transformation Initiatives to expand economic opportunity and prosperity. Nick graduated in 2006 from Albright College with a B.A. in economics, finance and political science.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author’s employer, unless explicitly stated.

Two centuries of widespread fossil fuel use have created a climate crisis of potentially devastating scale. Greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting consequences of global warming are occurring faster than expected, and the window for meaningful action is closing quickly. The positions of developed and developing countries remain far apart on the magnitude, timing, and sharing of mitigation efforts. Any “post-Kyoto” treaty based on national pledges to reduce emissions will fail to meet the short-term cuts necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. A better approach is to make an intelligent, all-out push for rapid rollout of cheap and clean electricity in developing countries by strategically subsidizing a handful of technologies with the near-term potential to undercut dirty alternatives on cost alone.

The race to avert catastrophe will be won or lost in the developing world. Emissions reductions proposed in Europe and the U.S. are necessary but insufficient on their own. Assuming developed countries implement existing proposals, meeting a prudent global emissions pathway will likely require developing world emissions to rise and then return to present levels by 2020. Over the same period, energy demand in developing countries is projected to increase by nearly 50%. Low- and no-cost efficiency improvements could possibly reduce this figure to 30%, but large-scale decarbonization of developing economies will still be required.

International treaties can achieve many things, but revolutionizing energy systems over the course of a decade is not one of them. It will be hard enough to get agreement on long-term climate objectives at next year’s UN negotiations in Copenhagen, never mind short-term action in the midst of a global recession. Poor countries do not like this state of affairs any more than the rich. They have the most to lose in a warmer world of water stress, falling crop yields, and extreme natural disasters. But the tangible clamor for more energy will prevail over dire-but-murky threats on the horizon. This political calculus will not change fast enough to give us a treaty capable of avoiding dangerous climate change.

The UN process may still be successful at moving (slowly) toward agreement on adaptation and carbon trading – and, for these reasons, should not be scrapped – but it must be superseded in the short-term by a financial offensive with one objective: Make clean energy in developing countries permanently cheaper than the fossil fuel alternatives – and fast. Since public subsidies will never be more than an infinitesimally small percentage of overall energy sector investment, the strategic imperative is to drive a few key technologies down their learning curves to cost parity with dirty coal. The electric power sector offers the best candidates as it produces more than 40% of all developing world fossil fuel emissions and is growing rapidly in China and India. Only a handful of renewable technologies have the ability to beat coal power on cost alone and the potential do to it at large scale within the next 5 to 10 years, so identifying and aggressively exploiting these opportunities is critical.

The U.S. and six other developed countries have already pledged more than $6 billion for Climate Investment Funds to be administered by the World Bank; disbursement will begin early next year. The World Bank has so far refused to adopt project selection criteria that would prioritize investments with the potential to catalyze a clean energy revolution, preferring to finance coal power plants with marginal efficiency improvements. Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would require U.S. contributions be used in support of high-potential, clean technologies. The fate of this obscure legislation is perhaps more important to the climate than the Copenhagen talks. If passed, it would force the World Bank to adopt a transformational strategy or lose the money.

The deck is stacked against us, and time is running out. If we are to avoid disaster, we must place intelligent bets on a handful of technologies with the potential to quickly provide vast quantities of cheap, clean power in the developing world. Just as the venture capitalist takes risks in search of big rewards, effective climate policy must throw aside convention and play to win. Our current approach will undoubtedly result in too little, too late. The stakes are too high to let that happen.

Kevin Ummel is part of the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. He is co-architect of the Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) global power plants emissions database and co-author of a forthcoming book on climate change and energy policy. He holds a B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

Nuclear weapons have only been used once in history, when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki over 60 years ago.  Throughout the Cold War, the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) kept the Soviet Union and the United States in a precarious nuclear balance.  When this standoff ended, we breathed a collective sigh of relief.  Enter the post-9/11 world, with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups doing anything they can to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or nuclear know-how.  Not only do the thousands of existing nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert continue to be extremely dangerous, strategically useless, and costly to maintain and secure, but the surge in terrorist organizations seeking nuclear weapons/technology makes having and securing nuclear stockpiles a much more risky proposition.  The next president should begin to draw down – and eventually eliminate – U.S. nuclear weapons.

The Problem. The real nuclear risks for the U.S. are an unintended nuclear launch; global proliferation; and nuclear terrorism.  

First, the U.S. and Russia – scarily repeating the tense relationship exhibited in the Cold War – have about 2,500 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert (i.e., ready to be fired in under three minutes).  Mistakes in the past have gotten us minutes away from nuclear war.  

Second, as nuclear weapons remain at the crux of U.S. security policy, other countries – some of which cannot secure their warheads as strongly as needed – will also see these weapons as central to their security and either maintain their current stockpiles or seek to acquire weapons to bolster their national security.

Finally, the more nuclear weapons there are in the world, the greater the chance that one will fall into the wrong hands.  There are eight countries (plus probably North Korea and possibly a future Iran) that possess nuclear weapons; together, these countries have over 27,000 nuclear weapons.  Many leading nonproliferation experts see nuclear terrorism as the #1 threat to U.S. national security.  Most recently, at the Peace and Security Initiative’s annual meeting, Ambassador Bob Gallucci – the lead negotiator of the 1993 Agreed Framework with North Korea – highlighted nuclear terrorism above any other nonproliferation threat.  “We have neither defense nor deterrence against nuclear terrorism,” with U.S. borders (especially maritime ones) being porous and with terrorists valuing our death over their own life.  Nuclear materials can either be leaked (most likely from Russia or Pakistan) or transferred (most likely from North Korea and Iran) to terrorists groups.

What Can Be Done? In a groundbreaking January 4, 2006 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, four prominent Republican and Democratic statesmen (Schultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn) recommended a “world free of nuclear weapons.”  Additionally, both presidential candidates Obama and McCain have echoed this call for a nuclear weapons-free world.  In the first two years of the next administration, the following initial steps should be taken:
•    Renounce the first use of nuclear weapons and take weapons off hair-trigger alert.
•    Halt all new nuclear weapons programs.  This week, Capitol Hill eliminated funding – yet again – for the Bush Administration’s so-called “Reliable Replacement Warhead”    (a new nuclear weapon).
•    Work with the international community to curb efforts to produce material for nuclear weapons (e.g., working on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT)); recommit to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) – pledging to work with other nuclear weapons states towards meeting the NPT goal of disarmament; and help nations secure their nuclear weapons stockpiles (through the Nunn-Lugar program and other available options).
•    Engage and encourage the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).  
•    The U.S. should work with Russia to accelerate the dismantling of existing nuclear stockpiles.  

Merely possessing nuclear weapons is a dangerous proposition, even if they are never launched.  For example, on August 29, 2007, six U.S. cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads went missing for 36 hours.  No one knew where they were or, even, that they were missing.  Luckily, they were recovered and the U.S. Air Force personnel involved in the mishap reprimanded.  Next time, we may not be so lucky.

Alexandra Toma is a Next America Fellow and currently the Director of the Peace and Security Initiative (PSI) for the Ploughshares Fund. She graduated summa cum laude with a Master's in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and studied conflict resolution for her undergraduate work at the University of Virginia.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

The decline in the value of the dollar, along with increased demand by developing nations, has led to a two-fold increase in the price of oil in only 3 years. High energy prices have slowed economic growth and expanded the trade deficit. Indeed, more than half of the nearly $800B trade deficit is from oil imports. The energy intensity of our economy, and our reliance on foreign oil for two-thirds of our supply, is a strategic vulnerability that all Americans and policymakers now recognize. There is unanimity on the need to reduce oil imports, but disagreement on whether gas is too cheap to accomplish that. We believe that high energy prices is one of the key reasons we must reduce our consumption of foreign oil, and that the disease of high prices should not be confused with the cure of greater self-sufficiency.

Oil is an incredibly versatile commodity crucial to any industrialized economy. It is used not only to make gasoline and diesel, but also jet fuel, heating oil, propane, petro-chemicals, fertilizer and plastics. Any rise in the price of oil inevitably leads to higher prices at the pump, creating hardship for families and businesses alike, and a transfer of wealth to oil producing nations that enriches many hostile adversaries.

To strengthen our economic well-being and national security, we must eliminate the strategic value of oil by replacing petroleum derivatives as the primary transportation fuel with biofuels and electricity.

We can decrease demand by eliminating the monopoly of gasoline-only vehicles. It costs less then $100 to manufacture an automobile that runs on biofuels. Flexible-fuel plug-in hybrid vehicles will substantially reduce demand and will be introduced in the next few years, with the technical capability to achieve efficiencies of 500 miles per gallon of petroleum-based fuel. Fully electric vehicles would not consume any oil, and since most Americans travel less than 40 miles per day they would gain wide-acceptability when they become affordable.

A broad range of homegrown biofuels will further reduce foreign oil demand while eliminating a transfer of wealth to oil producing nations. Cellulosic, corn and sugar ethanol, methanol and butanol can be made from inedible biomass, coal or natural gas. While biofuels proliferate, expanded domestic drilling can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and our trade deficit without the environmental harm that plagued offshore drilling decades ago.

Some argue that higher prices—in the form of higher gas taxes—are needed to reduce our consumption of foreign oil. This heavy-handed approach would place a regressive gas tax on those who are least able to afford newer, more fuel efficient technologies that would substantially reduce their consumption more then high prices do already. Further, a gas tax would have no impact on the underlying price of oil, which is driven by OPEC’s price setting control and demand from the developing world.

Our economic vitality depends upon access to affordable oil. What will reduce consumption is to replace foreign oil consumption with viable alternatives that are still a few years away, not place a sin tax on gasoline.

Brian Smith is the Vice President for Business Development at Sabot 6, Inc. in Arlington, VA.

Alan Feinberg, Vice Chair of the Future Leaders for McCain Energy and Environment Policy Committee, contributed to this piece.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

America’s image in the world is a key factor in keeping us safe, advancing our democratic ideals, and maintaining our competitive edge. Short-term poll fluctuations do not reveal the depth and intensity of anti-American narratives, nor their long-term consequences. We should get our ears to the ground, and listen to the stories that communities and nations construct about their ties to America.

* * *

Over the past six years, America’s global reputation has plummeted. Our favorability ratings have fallen by more than 40 points worldwide. Yet when we look at the actual short-term consequences of these numbers, as Robert Koehane does in his book Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, there are not many quantifiable effects.

The sales of trademark American companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola remain strong. The U.S. tourism sector hasn’t experienced a drastic slump that can’t be explained away by rising plane fares. Despite tougher student visa requirements, anti-American countries such as Turkey still try desperately to squeeze their kids into U.S. universities. And regardless of anti-American populaces, pro-American leaders sprout up from Mexico to France.

Yet Americans worry. 68% of us are deeply troubled by our global role – that’s more than during the Vietnam War. Given the contradictory numbers, is their concern justified?

Absolutely. Anti-Americanism directly weakens our national security and, at critical junctures, can damage our economic and political interests.

For example, in 2003 the Turkish parliament reacted to public outcry and refused to grant America permission to open a northern front in Iraq. In Poland, public pressure made our missile defense shield a far tougher political sell for the nation’s leaders. And in France low public opinion ratings for the U.S. and the war in Afghanistan make President Nicolas Sarkozy’s job keeping French troops there harder each day.

Fareed Zakaria recounts a May 2007 exchange between Sarkozy and Condoleezza Rice. Rice asked Sarkozy, “What can I do for you?” And he replied, “Improve your image in the world. It’s difficult when the country that is the most powerful, the most successful – that is, of necessity, the leader of our side – is one of the most unpopular countries in the world. It presents overwhelming problems for you and overwhelming problems for your allies.”

Anti-Americanism poses problems from the capitals to the street corners. Among young Muslims, anti-Americanism provides a convenient rallying point for discontentment. In the suburbs of London, dozens if not hundreds of young men have traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban against NATO and the U.S., resisting America’s “War Against Islam,” they say.

Disconcertingly, Muslim majorities in Pakistan, Morocco, Indonesia, throughout the Middle East, and in parts of Europe believe America is engaged in a war with their religion. This justifies retaliation in many of their minds, and is a staggering strategic blunder for the U.S.

It gets worse in the battlegrounds themselves. In his book Descent Into Chaos, Ahmed Rashid describes how the U.S. squandered initial Afghan goodwill and excitement after the overthrow of the Taliban. In less than a decade and for under $5 billion a year we could have rebuilt a nation. We did not. Now the Taliban is resurgent.

In our war in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, the locals’ views of America have much to do with whether they help Americans capture insurgents, join rebel ranks, or sit silently on the sidelines. In door-to-door battles, we need their help.

And in the larger struggle for open markets and transparent democracies, we need their faith. But when we support regional dictators like Islom Karimov in Uzbekistan -- who used the cloak of the “war on terror” to boil dissidents alive -- our silence only strengthens the forces of political Islam, and risks locking us in a perpetual struggle against new foes who link their near oppressors with us, the far one.

Anti-American sentiments then make life harder for genuine pro-democracy forces around the world. In Iran, for example, a pro-U.S. population runs the risk of falling under an increasingly nationalistic spell as the U.S. waves sticks and few carrots. In Venezuela, young student activists who lead the public demonstrations against Hugo Chavez scrupulously avoid citing the U.S. as a model democracy and turn to Scandinavian nations instead. These pro-democracy forces attempt to espouse the ideals America does, while keeping their distance from the U.S. itself. It’s a taxing tightrope act that may not prove sustainable.

New options for political alliances, business partnerships, entertainment outlets and global narratives are emerging in China, Russia, India, South Korea, South Africa, and Brazil. The young generation who grew up in a post-9/11 world may prove more likely to look beyond America when imagining their future.

As these new competitors rise, America must enhance its advantages; chief among these are the ideals it promises – openness and opportunity. But if anti-American sentiments harden, young citizens around the world might opt for something new, another narrative that places them at the front of the emerging global order. This could impact where they go to study, work, and innovate, and, among the extreme, whether they decide to engage in violence against an old foe.

The task for the coming administrations is to convince world citizens that their successes and our successes are intertwined. If we become demonized as reckless, belligerent and wasteful, America will lose an important tool at a time we need it most.

Amar C. Bakshi is a Next America Fellow and spent the past year reporting for the online editions of The Washington Post and Newsweek, traveling around the world looking at how America impacts ordinary lives in a dozen countries. He posted text and video daily at www.washingtonpost.com/america.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment recently described Russia’s behavior as that of a “19th-century power” competing for spheres of influence. Emboldened by oil wealth, Russia is increasingly willing to exert an aggressive foreign policy in pursuit of its interests. One Russian priority is to bolster its role of regional hegemon, and the recent crisis in Georgia has demonstrated that Washington has few means to resist. Should the United States, however, cede to Russia a sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union – a concept that smacks of 19th-century realpolitik? Certainly Moscow enjoys a natural preponderance of influence throughout much of Eurasia, through the spread of the Russian language, extensive trade links, and a shared history with neighboring states. But Washington’s disengagement from the region in favor of Moscow’s role as overseer would be highly deleterious to both America and the states of the former Soviet Union.

A Moscow-controlled sphere of influence would forever doom Europe to a crippling dependence on Russian energy. As it is now, oil and gas from Central Asia is overwhelmingly shipped through Russian pipelines, granting control to the Kremlin. Only the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline provides an alternate route to Russian delivery networks, and this required intense American engagement to reach fruition. The status quo, with Russia having locked up most Central Asian production, leaves European allies open to the threat of politically-motivated energy cut-offs and hamstrings freedom of action for the states of Central Asia.

There’s also no guarantee the Russians would be happy with sway over the “near abroad” only. Russia has relationships with states and actors throughout the world in areas of great importance to the United States, including what many would call America’s own “back yard.” These bilateral links aren’t always seen as benign to Washington. Venezuela has cultivated a closer association with Moscow, snapping up military hardware. Recently, Prime Minister Putin called for a restoration of ties with Cuba, a move that sparked speculation on renewed military cooperation. And Russia does not want to be a regional power only. Moscow wants its voice heard in European affairs, primarily with security issues. Many see Russian foreign policy of recent years as resembling efforts after defeat in the Crimean war, when Moscow sought to reverse its curtailed authority in European affairs and rebuild its standing on the Continent. Whether or not it has an exclusive sphere of influence over the former Soviet states, Moscow still has global aspirations that are growing.

Declaring the region to be Russia’s private preserve runs against the right of other sovereign countries to choose their own path. Just as the United States correctly pressed for the expansion of NATO in the 1990s, so too should the West continue to push for strengthened economic and security ties with interested former Soviet states. Moscow may perceive this as aggressive, but Kiev and Tbilisi see NATO as a means of entering the West, not escaping the East. Russia takes great pains to stress the importance of its own sovereignty, and its neighbors should be afforded the same rights, no matter how small.

Most important, downgrading the international order to spheres of influence denies how much the United States needs Russia on global and regional issues, and vice versa. Energy security, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism confront both East and West and must be addressed on the global level; exclusive zones of influence may fence off areas of contention, but they do not allow for collaboration where interests coincide. Jealously guarding spheres of influence not only harms regional players, but stymies much-needed cooperation on the imperative challenges confronting the global order.

John Elliott is a Research Associate in the Europe Studies and Russia and Eurasia Studies programs at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

The best way for the United States to encourage China's peaceful rise on the world stage would be to promote democratization of the regime in Beijing. Only a robust commitment to that effect will help rebuild the legitimacy of U.S. democracy promotion, restore the credibility of U.S. leadership, and regain the confidence and trust of its democratic allies in the region and throughout the world.

Democracy promotion may not be as popular today as it once was.  Some argue that the United States should abandon its oft-stated goal of spreading freedom and democracy as a central pillar of its foreign policy because of flagging support for democracy worldwide.  If democracy has taken a hit, it is less because of U.S. unilateralism and more because of a failure to realistically anticipate just how arduous of a process democratization can be.  No one should have expected Iraq to become a democracy overnight.

The question  we need to ask ourselves is whether the world will be more secure without U.S. support for democracy worldwide or whether U.S. interests will be better served if we got out of the trade altogether?   The answer to this question is most clear when one looks at China.  How the United States manages China's rise will undoubtedly be the greatest foreign policy challenge America faces in the decades ahead.

U.S. allies in the region such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan would not have become democracies without U.S. encouragement and assistance.   Promoting the opening and liberalization of the regime in Beijing ought to be a central foreign policy objective in the next administration.  Such a policy will not only create conditions for greater freedom for China's billion-plus people, it will send a message that support to autocratic regimes in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea must end.  A more moderate China would be less likely to engage in aggression abroad, such as what we have witnessed this week on the part of Russia.  Such a policy will also send a signal to China and others that adapting to international norms and values will determine whether they will be accepted on the world stage.

Promoting the freedom agenda may be more difficult today without Soviet aggression chasing other countries into our camp.  Few can doubt China's successful rise.  If the United States lets this stand as a model for countries in the region and around the world, however, it will be a victory for autocratic regimes everywhere.  The United States ought to be more consistent with its approach to democracy-whether in Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, or China.  Democracy can take different shapes in different nations, but authoritarianism is a specter hanging over the free world.

The United States should not seek to directly force change on China, but create conditions externally that will encourage the processes to emerge.  The emphasis can not be narrowly defined by the end (e.g. free and fair elections) but in supporting the processes of democratization. There is no one size fits all solution to the world's problem, yet a case-by-case approach toward China in democracy promotion only leaves room for Chinese exceptionalism.

For now, the most important policy the United States should advance is to work openly with China's democratic dissidents. U.S. leaders should not shy away from meeting with dissidents.  Refusing to do so acknowledges Beijing's worldview as legitimate. The United States should continue to make public statements that pressure the Chinese government to change its ways.  This has proven effective to the extent that Chinese leaders have on occasion released political prisoners before international meetings in order to deflect criticism.

The enterprise of democracy promotion is a long term investment that is indeed in need of restructuring, but that restructuring should be to make it stronger, not obsolete. Making exceptions to the rule will only create the conditions for free riders to exploit loop holes in the system.  China is a country that houses close to a fifth of humanity and has the fastest growing economy in the world.  More freedom for the Chinese people means more security for the world-and by extension the United States.

L.C. Russell Hsiao is the Associate Editor of China Brief at the Jamestown Foundation.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

Increasing pressure to focus U.S. development assistance primarily on U.S. national security interests misunderstands the original objectives of development assistance and will ultimately risk our personnel and national security.

When Congress signed the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961, the focus and objectives of U.S. development assistance were born. The Act clearly separated for the first time in legislation, military and non-military aid. Members of Congress understood that separation was necessary to ensure development programs are not co-opted by military and intelligence objectives. For example, a needs assessment of internally displaced Iraqis could become an intelligence gathering session for CIA operatives to capture suspected insurgents. This manipulation of non-combatants does not only conflict with development objectives, but raises serious ethical concerns.

In addition, the new federal agency that was established from the Act, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was given its independence from the State Department; creating space between USAID and the political powerhouse of State. Without this space from foreign policy political objectives, a bag of food risks becoming the carrot and bargaining tool with difficult regimes rather than supplying starving populations with food.

The reality is that this dangerous shift has already begun with the introduction of the three D’s paradigm (defense, development, and diplomacy). U.S. national security interests are slowly creeping into U.S develop assistance and the devastating effects of that decision catches headlines on a monthly basis. Kidnapping and killings of aid workers has dramatically increased in the last year as stakeholders and communities on the ground begin to no longer see NGOs as a neutral entity.

The potential long-term affects of this shift would be detrimental. By narrowly focusing development assistance on national security interests, U.S. efforts will miss root causes of problems, and could create or escalate conflict. Development programs will shift towards counterterrorism, de-radicalization, and extremism. Through this lens, for example a country experiencing an insurgency could result in counterinsurgency programs. However, underlying issues that sparked the insurgency could be a deep-seated sense of discrimination and lack of political voice. In this case, under normal development assistance, programs to provide civic rights training, support democratic structures in the government, and provide nonviolent alternatives to airing grievances might not be considered under national security objectives.

In addition, on a humanitarian level, responses to natural and man-made disasters for national security interests could result in imbalanced, impartial engagement and create a situation where some areas of countries are provided assistance because they are perceived as important to national security interests while others are not. The result of this imbalance can spark conflict and widespread animosity towards the United States in countries or communities where these perceptions and attitudes previously did not exist.

For the last twenty years U.S. development assistance has been cut and shrunk numerous times. The result has been decreased national security. Destabilized countries, increasing internal conflicts, famine, illegitimate governments, and corruption are all issues inherently addressed, prevented, and mitigated through U.S. development assistance.

The solution is not shifting U.S. development assistance efforts towards national security, but increasing U.S. development assistance because it indirectly improves our national security.

Marci focues on religion, conflict, and peacebuilding issues at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation. She is a Master's in Science Candidate at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

As President Ronald Reagan stated in his last State of the Union address:

"A creative, competitive America is the answer to a changing world, not trade wars that would close doors, create greater barriers and destroy millions of jobs. We should always remember: Protectionism is destructionism."

Today his words couldn’t be more relevant to our economy. The United States should compete in the global market place as a free economy

As the foundation of a strong and healthy economy, economic freedom empowers people by providing more opportunities. Greater economic freedom makes it possible for more people to enjoy the benefits of a dynamic economy. Most economic fallacies are based on the rather simplistic assumption that an economy is static and economic growth adheres to the “zero-sum game” rule, asserting that the size of the economic pie is fixed so that, if someone gets a bigger piece of pie, it means that someone else must settle for a smaller piece. The “zero-sum rule” is just not true. In fact, the size of the pie can grow so that both people get more.

America has proved time and again that the right policies, those that enhance economic freedom, can make the pie much bigger.

Indeed, today's economic development and lasting prosperity depend on maintaining and improving an environment in which entrepreneurial activities and innovation can flourish. Investment capital and entrepreneurial talent flow toward economies with lower taxes, secure property rights, sound money, and sensible regulatory policies. Countries with higher degrees of openness and flexibility benefit from the free exchange of commerce, and thereby citizens of those countries enjoy more opportunities and greater prosperity.

America’s strength has not been an exception to this rule. For example, more open trade policies in the last 10 years have enabled our economy to expand by nearly 40 percent and boosted job growth by over 13 percent. It is true that while the benefits of free trade are widely shared and dispersed, the initial, temporary pain that free trade causes for some industries is focused and sharp. Yet, our economic freedom has fostered the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation that creates new products and more jobs, sustaining America's strength and spreading the benefits of its dynamic economy.

It should be also remembered that since the end of the Second World War, America’s trade and economic policy has persistently supported an integrated global economy, stimulating our strength as well as economic development in many parts of the world. Today's cynicism and doubts about the benefits of international trade and globalization should not abruptly bring to a halt America’s long-standing commitment to openness and economic freedom.

In a time of economic uncertainty, responsible policymakers should not get trapped in attempts at quick fixes of short-term problems at the risk of eroding the economic freedom that has been the backbone of America's prosperity and strength. While our $13 trillion economy is going through challenging times, pessimism is not an excuse for protectionism, and America must take a long-term view focused on strengthening economic fundamentals. A proven way to adapt to today's rapidly changing global economy is to remain creative and flexible -- and therefore competitive -- by enhancing economic freedom, rather than eroding it through protectionist measures.

Economic integration through globalization is a fact of life - both economically and socially. It requires that challenges be thought of in different ways, that some old ways of thinking be discarded. America must not shy away from the challenges of pursuing greater economic freedom. That is the choice that we should make to ensure our competitiveness and lasting prosperity.

Anthony B. Kim is a Policy Analyst in the Center for International Trade and Economics at The Heritage Foundation.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.

By Ysbrant Marcelis

Long term success in Iraq is contingent not only on military improvement but on sustainable economic development. While the reduction of violence is a necessary and important first step on the road to recovery and reconstruction, Iraq requires economic growth in order to ensure that the roots of a strong democracy can take hold. Security cannot be separated from economics: doing so will create an illusion of peace that is entirely dependent on the United States. Neither the U.S. nor Iraq wants a separate peace. Instead, we need to define success in broad terms and recognize that while we may be able to militarily exit Iraq in the next two years, our commitment to Iraqis should extend to the creation of a free and prosperous society.

The recent success of the surge has created a window of opportunity for the long term development of Iraq. However, as noted in recent testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, military success alone cannot guarantee the growth of democracy and an open Iraqi society. The institutionalization of effective rule of law and the promotion of an independent Iraqi state is contingent not simply on the show of force but on the ability to create a plausible and sustainable alternative to violence.

This alternative cannot rely on a continued U.S. presence in Iraq but must be driven by the will and ability of Iraqis to be part of the process of economic redevelopment. It requires providing commercial loans for small business development and the opportunity to attain the necessary tools for entrepreneurial market growth. Much as the stability of the American economy rests not only on the shoulders of Wall Street but on the backs of small and medium sized enterprises, so too stability in Iraq cannot be based solely on large scale aid projects that focus less on long term private sector development than on immediate, fleeting gains.

Last month, at an under-reported summit held in the United Kingdom at Windsor Castle, senior managers from some of the most prominent financial institutions in the world met with the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI). Facilitated by the British and U.S. governments, the summit was focused on developing the political and economic muscle of the TBI. The focus on TBI, which aims at becoming a player in the international financial arena and is preparing to open a subsidiary in London, brought home the oftentimes forgotten reality behind the more tangible efforts at improving security: the wallet speaks louder than the gun.

The Windsor Summit spoke to a core aspect of Iraqi development. Success depends on the capacity to engage Iraqis in the process of socio-economic development. This process cannot be restricted to the Iraqi elite, but must be geared towards the growth of basic economic structures. The development of these structures partly rests on traditional macro economic policy – international debt financing of public infrastructure growth, the development of internal capacity, and the institutionalization of reform in such sectors as petroleum and finance. But macro policy at the bilateral governmental level constitutes only one aspect of the development dynamic. Micro economic policy, geared towards entrepreneurial development and market growth, is instrumental towards creating long term stability in Iraq.

Early failures to realize the importance of these basic economic drivers severely hampered U.S. attempts at establishing stability. An early employment plan targeting young men in Sadr City in 2003 was disbanded by L. Paul Bremer a few months later. Pre and post disbandment figures showed that the rise of violence and extremism in Sadr City directly corresponded to an increase in unemployment. Similarly, economic development efforts by the Administration failed to reflect reality on the ground. New construction in the petroleum and energy sector was not compatible with existing infrastructure. Electricity, sewage and water were sporadic in implementation. Schools were built in areas without kids or teachers.

Despite these failures, the conditions for commercial development in Iraq did manage to grow. This growth was driven not through government funding, but by private sector incentives and market dynamics. At the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003 there were virtually no mobile phones. Today, there are over 10 million cellular subscribers, accounting for over 30 percent of the population.

Similarly, the last three years have seen the development of the private Iraqi banking sector. With private consumer banks virtually eradicated under the Hussein regime, the growth of commercial financing entities marks a watershed moment for Iraqi development. Access to finance is not simply a mechanism for the upper class, but a powerful tool for economic empowerment across the socio-economic spectrum. As demonstrated across the development landscape, basic access to savings can significantly reduce transitory labor shocks, enable individual credit history, and facilitate an increased ability to take out commercial loans.

In line with these trends, Iraqi GDP growth has surpassed analyst expectations, with a projected 8 percent annual increase expected in 2008 and 2009 years. Much of this growth is derived from the oil industry, which still accounts for over 70 percent of annual GDP. With an expected increase of at least 200,000 barrels per day over the next year, the revenue from oil will likely continue to stimulate organic economic growth. The Iraq Oil Revenue Sharing Law will further distribute the economic benefits of increased oil production, with an average 25 percent increase in per capita income.

These trends indicate that economic success in Iraqi is not just necessary but possible. Long-term stability and development in war zones is contingent not on the absolute ability to eradicate terrorism or reduce communal violence but on the ability to provide individuals with a plausible and sustainable alternative to violence. The current reduction in violence through increased security presents a window of opportunity to engage Iraqis in the process of reconstituting a devastated economy. The obligation of the United States and the international community is to open that window by determining ways of proactively promoting further economic development.

Our commitment to Iraq should not simply be based on the absence of violence, but on the presence of opportunity and the materialization of hope.

Ysbrant is with the international consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. At Booz Allen, he focuses on technology driven finance and commercial banking. His engagements include work with the Department of Defense Task Force to Improve Business and Stability Operations in Iraq, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department of the Treasury and the World Bank.

The content is exclusively the personal opinion of the author. Under no circumstances should the content be attributed to CSIS, Next America, or the author's employer, unless explicitly stated.