Analysis Of U.s. Foreign Aid Policy Of The Bush Administration

Foreign Aid has long been a significant component of American foreign policy. Although its significance decreased after the Cold War, George·W·Bush Administration (Bush Admin.) identified maintaining national security as the primary and fundamental objective of his government and re-emphasized the importance of foreign aid after 9/11 attack. As a result, Bush Admin. closely aligned foreign aid with promoting transitional development, consolidating fragile states and mitigating global challenges, etc. In terms of focus areas, Bush Admin. combined foreign aid closely with anti-terrorist war, emphasized on bilateral development aid, humanitarian aid and multilateral aid and also implemented certain reforms on foreign aid system of US.Objectively speaking, foreign aid policy of Bush Admin. truly had certain positive effects but also had some deficiencies. For instance, political democracy and economic freedom were over-emphasized in the implementation of foreign aid programs, and conditionality of foreign aid limited the flexibility of decision making and long-term strategy choosing of governments being aided. Nonetheless, no matter how the foreign aid policy of US is adjusted and reformed, the fundamental starting point and stand point are to better maintain US national interests. This is also true with Bush Administration.