Non-Military Foreign Assistance is Now DoD’s Problem
Current State of Foreign Assistance
In the opening weeks of the Trump administration, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) downsized USAID by approximately 90% in terms of work force and worldwide contracts. At the same time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized on his first day at the Pentagon that “lethality, warfighting, and readiness” will be his focus while in office. Unfortunately, President Trump’s dismantling of USAID, the government’s main non-military foreign assistance arm, will force Department of Defense (DoD) to be the de facto lead agency for Foreign Humanitarian Assistance (FHA) and stabilization activities. This new focus area for the DoD will detract from, rather than improve, the department’s lethality, warfighting capabilities, and readiness. It is unlikely that the Trump administration will completely end non-military aid. This is because doing so would remove an implement of US economic leverage, which is a tool favored by the Trump administration, as demonstrated with the turning on and off foreign military assistance to partners like Ukraine and use of tariffs against Mexico and Canada. While the Trump administration has critiqued USAID’s “decades of institutional drift” and perceived advancement of liberal agendas, it appears that foreign assistance will continue on a reduced scale in line with our perceived national interests.
From the American Relief Administration after WWI to the Marshall Plan after WWII, the US has used military and economic foreign assistance as a tool to implement foreign policy for over a hundred years. Since 1961, with the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act and President John F. Kennedy’s subsequent executive order, USAID has been the lead federal agency for non-military foreign assistance, including humanitarian assistance and disaster response. During these sixty years, the US government has continued to use assistance for a variety of policy aims ranging from countering the appeal of Communism, to post-war stabilization efforts and disincentivizing extremism. While it is true that the US provides a great share (approximately 40%) of the world’s humanitarian aid funding, it is our capacity to do so that makes us a superpower and our willingness to do so that makes us exceptional. Leaders, like the United States, lead; and if we do not, our adversaries will. If U.S. policymakers wish to continue to use non-military foreign aid as a foreign policy tool, it will be DoD who will fill the gap left by USAID’s sudden absence.
Doctrinal Role of USAID and the Military
The US military also has had a long history of involvement in FHA and disaster response but has played a secondary role since the establishment of USAID. Not only did USAID have unique HA funding mechanisms, but it also provided coordination of private sector aid efforts, oversight of its NGO and IO partners, and embedded advisors to combatant commands and Joint Task Forces (JTFs). Joint Publication (JP) 3-29, Foreign Humanitarian Assistance, contains over 150 mentions of USAID and notes that it “plays a vital role in promoting US national security and foreign policy” with work in over 100 developing countries and working relationships with 3,500 companies and over 300 US-based NGOs. JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, adds that where USAID has a presence, it “usually has the strongest network of contacts and information on international organizations”. With the dismantlement of USAID, the US has not only lost significant international economic and social power projection capability, but has also lost institutional memory, processes, physical presence, relationships, cultural acumen, and trust with non-governmental and international partners. In fact, some of those partners no longer exist due to the abrupt funding freeze. The impact of these facts on future military operations will be significant.
In addition to the burden that USAID took off the shoulders of commanders in FHA, joint doctrine also heavily emphasizes its role in stability operations. JP 3-0 notes the importance of planning for the transition from combat to stability operations and is quick to point out that “USAID is the lead implementing agency for non-security US stabilization assistance”. Likewise, JP 3-07, Joint Stabilization Activities, lists USAID scores of times with guidance on how the military should coordinate with USAID individual bureaus and offices that are dedicated to humanitarian assistance, health, education, governance, restoration of essential services, economic growth, contracting, and more. It emphasizes DoD’s reliance on USAID for planning, advising, assessing needs, its unique funding authorities, evaluating project effectiveness, and implementing anti-corruption and counter-trafficking protocols. Most of these offices and capabilities no longer exist.
Recent Historical Example
Since the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, DoD has renewed its focus on large scale combat operations (LSCO), and yet the humanitarian aspect of LSCO will now fall more heavily upon DoD, distracting it from its mission of lethality and warfighting. Two months after the conclusion of the Battle of Mosul in 2017, which was arguably the largest urban siege since WWII, the U.S. Training Doctrine Command (TRADOC)-commissioned Mosul Study Group published What the Battle of Mosul Teaches the Force. Its observation on Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) describes the coordination that took place between the government of Iraq, the United Nations, and NGOs. For coalition forces, it notes that “USAID’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) was a key partner in working with the government of Iraq,” but for future conflict it warns that if host nations are not prepared, the US Army may be the one charged with executing this “resource-intensive task in dense urban environments”. One should add that the same is doubly true in the absence of its key partner, USAID.
As the senior U.S. Civil Affairs officer in the Combined Joint Land Forces Component Command (CJFLCC) in Iraq in 2017-18, I well remember the critical role that USAID played in funding and synchronizing the efforts of dozens of NGOs and IOs to plan and provide for the nearly three million displaced civilians. Due to their NGO network and unique positioning in the humanitarian ecosystem, USAID advisors also played a vital role in notifying DoD of the locations and movement of humanitarian convoys, thus reducing the chances of friendly fire. That mechanism too is now shutdown and the US military cannot count on this capability in current war planning. Without a fully capable and functioning FHA and Disaster Response (DR) lead federal agency, separate from DoD, the hand-waving of civilian and humanitarian problems in training will catch up with commanders in the field. The vastly reduced manpower and capabilities of USAID have produced a critical gap in how DoD doctrinally trains for and expects LSCO to proceed in relation to civilians.
Some may argue that DoD engaged heavily in HA, reconstruction, and development in Iraq and Afghanistan and could be equipped to do so again. The Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) was established to empower commanders for humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts and the military-heavy Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) concept was created in “response to the challenges of nation building in post-conflict intervention zones”. As mentioned earlier, however, DoD has shifted its focus from COIN and stability operations to the core missions of its component forces, namely large-scale combat. That is at least partly due to the mixed results and frustration commanders experienced in trying to use the blunt instrument of military power in Iraq and Afghanistan for something it was ill-suited to do. Furthermore, even in those efforts, commanders could consult and coordinate with USAID professionals in the execution of CERP, and USAID personnel were embedded in the PRTs, provided expertise at the regional levels, funded and coordinated NGO and IO efforts, and led the US response to natural disasters that occurred concurrent to stabilization efforts, such as the avalanches, floods, and earthquakes that periodically struck Afghanistan and surrounding countries in the past 20 years.
Call to Action
The next war, natural disaster, disease outbreak, or call for foreign assistance will surely present itself before this national capability is rebuilt in a new incarnation. In the average year, USAID responded to 65 disasters worldwide. Now that it is on life-support, disasters will continue, but it may be years before funding streams, organizational structures, partnerships, and trust are restored. There is no indication that the organizational restructuring effort of USAID will go smoothly or that the dozens of related lawsuits will play out quickly. In the meantime, there is currently no one at the helm of mobilizing and funding the vast network of NGOs and IOs who are the foreign assistance boots on the ground. Even when, or if, the tasks are allocated to new agencies or are restructured under the Department of State, the loss of an entire workforce, experienced and trained in foreign assistance, will be acutely felt.
Considering these facts, DoD must consider the posture, size, and readiness of its non-lethal capabilities in addition to retooling joint doctrine, training, and professional military education. During stabilization, humanitarian, and disaster response operations, additional special operations, engineer, logistics, and acquisition specialists will be needed to fill the coordinating, oversight, supply chain, and contracting expertise lost in the breakup of USAID. For policymakers, every effort should be made to quickly reestablish this lost civilian capability. Its direction must be in line with the administration’s guidance, of course, but its capability must be robust. The greatest benefactor of doing so would be DoD.
