May 26, 2017
CNAS CEO Michèle Flournoy in The Washington Post
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps general, said recently, “America has two fundamental powers, the power of intimidation and the power of inspiration.”
We couldn’t agree more. We’ve spent our entire careers on the “hard power” side of the ledger. Yet we know that U.S. humanitarian assistance, the keystone of the U.S. “power of inspiration,” is critical to U.S. national security. Americans understand that the U.S. military acts as a deterrent to those who would otherwise do us harm, but they should also understand that the United States’ extraordinary history of alleviating suffering and fighting extreme poverty around the globe is a major asset in securing our nation.
Yet the Trump administration has inexplicably proposed a package of extreme budget and staffing cuts to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development that would lay waste to many humanitarian and development programs. The administration’s budget proposal would cut overall development funding in half, slash international disaster assistance by 43 percent and completely eliminate the leading U.S. food-aid program.
Read the full piece in The Washington Post.
More from CNAS
-
Sharper: Defense Tech
Commentary
The prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, the growing centrality of information warfare, and threats to traditional command and control are redefining combat in ...
By Jennie Matuschak, Ainikki Riikonen & Anna Pederson
-
United States can improve deterrence by posing dilemmas to China and Russia
Video
Chris Dougherty, Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joins Government Matters to discuss strategy for multi-domain information warfare. Watch the full in...
By Chris Dougherty
-
The Pentagon needs a plan to get punched in the mouth
Commentary
The Pentagon should aim for degradation dominance: operating effectively enough with degraded systems. Put simply, the Pentagon needs a plan for getting punched in the mouth....
By Chris Dougherty
-
More than Half the Battle
Reports
The DoD needs to embrace, rather than fight against, the changes in the character of warfare and learn to thrive within its chaos in ways that China and Russia may be unable t...
By Chris Dougherty
