Postwar U.s. Foreign Economic Assistance

Foreign aid is a complicated and very important issue in contemporary international relation. Looking back on the history of U. S. foreign economic aid, we can find a thoughtprovoking reality---only a small proportion of U. S. foreign economic aid has been given to the least developed countries, it is those relatively developed countries such as Israel that have received majority of U. S. foreign economic aid. This urges us re-consider its motives and essence.This thesis studies U. S. foreign economic aid systematically, focusing on a political discussion of the objectives, operation and effectiveness of U. S. foreign economic aid. During Cold War, U. S. foreign economic aid is subordinated to its Containment strategy to Soviet Union. Accordingly, most of its aid was provided in order to contain Communism. Those with strategic importance, with the same ideology or opposing Soviet camp on the side of U. S. were the main recipient countries. After the end of Cold War, with the disappearance of the threat from Soviet Union, the strategic status of foreign aid has gone down greatly. Thus, aid financing has decreased and its main objective is to advance democracy and freedom. After "9·11", terrorism has become the most important threat to U. S. national security and the Bush Administration put forward a new national security strategy. Foreign economic aid has been attached high importance again and development was ranked as one of the three backbones for U. S. national security.After reviewing the literature of foreign economic aid, Chapter One defines the conception of "foreign economic aid", arguing that U. S. foreign economic aid is political, reflected in its objectives, decision-making process, operation and actual effectiveness. Chapter Two looks back on the development of U. S. foreign economic aid, analyzing its objectives. Chapter Three analyzes the relationship between foreign economic aid and U. S. realistic and idealistic diplomatic traditions, stressing that U. S. foreign economic aid roots in its diplomatic traditions, and it is the best proof of common function of realism and idealism. Chapter Four reviews the influence of interest groups on U. S. foreign economic aid. Chapter Five studies the operation of U. S. foreign economic aid, including selective aid, conditional aid and aid sanctions. Chapter Six is a case study on U. S. foreign economic aid to Israel, discussing its function on bilateral relationship and U. S. global strategy.By detailed analysis, this thesis concludes as follows:U. S. foreign economic aid is not volunteer bestowal like some of us have thought, in contrast, it has been used for strategic and diplomatic purposes. Foreign economic aid provides a useful diplomatic instrument for U. S. and will be there for a long time. But in practice, this instrument is not so effective as U. S. has expected, especially during post-Cold War. In fact, as US is very utilitarian when making foreign aid policies, adding various political and economic conditions, even taking all kinds of means in order to achieve its objectives, which to some extent has aroused alert of the recipient countries. Moreover, the "control—anti-control" relationship on the basis of economic aid is both brief and frail.