International Relations

When writing an essay and you are given a broad topic like International Relations, you want to focus your essay on a specific part of topic.  For example: United States Foreign Aid.

United States Foreign Aid

During the early existence of the United States, the Constitution didn’t give the government permission to use American’s money for foreign aid but there was private aid for charities, churches, missionaries, and scholarships for students overseas.  Now the United States over one hundred and fifty counties every year with this aid.

Foreign Aid is separated into two categories, economic and military, economic helps people recover from war, helps countries that are important to the US, and helps develop countries.  Almost of economic assistance goes to the United States Agency For International Development (USAID), USAID is responsible for distributing civilian aid.  Military foreign aid comes in two forms military financing, which helps other countries military or peacekeeping operations in foreign countries.

In World War I, government aid was starting to help people in need.  The government sent food and over six hundred millions to Belgium, French, and British governments as loans but most were forgiven.  By World War II, foreign aid increased because of the Lend Lease program.  This is when the government sent military equipment and supplies to countries that helped in the United States defense in the war.  These are just a couple examples of how foreign aid has helped other countries but that is not always the case. Sometimes the aid doesn’t even go to the people that need it the most and in some cases it is even embezzled, leaving large projects undone.  This is the sad part of giving foreign aid but this isn’t always the case.

Foreign aid has helped many countries less fortunate get the supplies that they need to defend themselves or feed them.  It’s hard to think about the bad things that happen when the people in need don’t get the aid that they need but we are able to give so much more than we were able to since the aid was established.  Just in 2004, over seventy billion dollars was used for foreign aid.  That is a lot of help that was given to developing countries.  We are the richest country in the world and we do like to share our wealth with others in need but I do think we need to take a look at how other countries are actually spending our aid.