What people, especially those outside of the US, are probably most enraged about are the blatant attempts at destabilizing the political situation in foreign countries, with the express aim of overthrowing (even democratically elected) governments. Especially given the public outrage from mainstream politicians and media figures in the West each time somone claims (usually without disclosing any evidence) that another country might have interfered with US elections.
You may want to listen to Mike Benz in his recent interview by Tucker Carlson. This has become a full-blown industry. They are systematically searching for weak points in a society to exploit them in their campaigns. That doesn't mean these efforts always have to be successful. After all, as in any power struggle, success isn't something to be taken for granted. Still, there are enough examples where it did succeed (Ukraine 2014, Bangladesh 2024).
One may debate to what extent these "successes" can be attributed to the foreign interference, things like that are always hard to establish beyond reasonable doubt. But it's a fact that the effort was there and that huge sums of money have been spent with clearly stated objectives.
Yup, once USAID funding got cut off, notice how many "grassroots civil society initiatives" worldwide turned out to be so much astroturf, mewling for an alternative source of funds.
NGOs aren’t funded by private donors, it’s taxpayer money that we want spent at home, or at this point, we don’t want to pay taxes into absolute BS supporting a ton of useless bureaucrats that think they can tell other cultures how to be.
When I read your essays I always have in the back of my mind things like Operation Gladio, the massive surveillance and censorship Western governments want and what looks to be a cover up of a massive blackmail ring run by transnational criminals that our government seems to be running cover for. Epstein was linked to Mossad and “legitimate “ banks like JPMorgan have been convicted for laundering his money.
I’m sorry Aurelian, but the world I think I live in is run by psychopathic mass murdering liars and your essays sound like they are written by a trusting normie who sees governments as non criminal entities.
NGOs are funded by private money in some cases, and a number refuse to take government money as a matter of principle. Medicins sans Frontières is a case in point.
I make it a point to write the Essays--as here--out of personal observation or that of people I know well and trust.
My husband and I enjoy reading and discussing your well written and knowledgeable essays. You have a lot of direct experience with the public face of government taking legitimate and ethical actions in running their country’s affairs.
Unfortunately, human nature can be evil and in this day and age of the internet the unsavory, immoral actions of governments can be more easily exposed to a greater number of people.
The optics look really bad when our government public servants withhold information about massive crimes like JFK and Epstein because it presents threats to “national security “, Biden made that statement.
If you look at the governments partnership with crime, Operation Underworld is when the government officially teamed up with the mafia who were running the east coast seaports in the 40s that the government needed for war ships.
Smedly Butler “ War is a Racket” written in the 30s is another good example of ongoing unethical behavior of the government.
I think the threat to national security is people realizing how much immoral crimes against humanity is committed by our own government.
"banks like JPMorgan have been convicted for laundering his money."
----------
The international financial world is very competitive with ANY edge in profitability of trading and other activities needing to be exploited. In that dog eat dog world, those who do fall behind will be eaten by the winners in whatever fashion, a hostile takeover, (less than equally beneficial) mergers & etc.
Profits from laundering into the
"legitimate" financial world of grey & black market profits, drug cartel and/or intelligence agency funds, conflict bloody money and such have provided that edge.
Essentially, all the remaining multinational financial/investment/holding funds have engaged in taking in at least immoral (and more usually, flat out ILLEGAL) funds, laundering and leveraging such resources & activities directly or through subcontractors/cut outs for debiability (Donald Trump was one such subcontractor in his time).
If major and profitable illegal activity is going to happen (which it inevitably will), any director of central intelligence certainly understands why it most desirable to be tied into the process at the top level where they can exploit those ventures for intelligence and "diplomacy by other means" rather than squeamishly remaining on the outside looking in and playing catch up if undesirable results come to the public attention.
Around 2001 I read a PhD thesis in economics with supporting mathematics describing the advantage available (and then known examples) showing this to be a fast developing trend, enabling and driving winning strategies in corporate mergers & acquisitions. I tried to find that file again a year or two later, it was the first time I observed something being not just "memory holed" but DISAPPEARED & made completely invisible to any search method I could use. Wish I'd known to download/print at the time!
John Titus, a patent attorney, does a stellar job of looking at central Banksters and their racket on his show Best Evidence. He is a an associate of Catherine Austin Fitts who is a whistleblower form back in the 90's trying to bring attention to the missing trillions in HUD where she was in charge of financials.
The original Banksters going back to the Venetians have always been crooks and if they can get away with it they will. S Dakota is the shell capitol company of the world and shell companies = money laundering. An honest bank, on he other hand, can provide much needed valuable services for development. "Punishable by fine" means "legal for a price" and crime that pays is crime that stays.
The CIA is involved in drug and human trafficking, remember when we got a glimpse of the Iran contra scandal? Oliver North never went to jail, he is a talking head on NBC. If think college students should have a course in corporate crimes. A good one is corporate rap sheet, they do the lawsuits and fines for the pHARMa industry, the Banskters and others.
I also doubt if the Epstein files will ever be released because I think it's a blackmail ring, one goes down they all go down. All the tax donkey slaves living on the Truman Show Plantation get to is watch White House Reality TV show politics, Team Red versus Team Blue Smackdown! It's funny watching them come up with new a**covering lies and attacks.
The only way to stop crime in our world is to execute money launderers, drug and human traffickers. Until then, we have laws and nominal fines that allow crime to flourish.
I tend to agree with you although I am by no means an expert. The notion that clandestine elements that seeks to gain influence in a “disruptive” manner is a rare outlier is frankly a bit naive….
The conclusion I gather is that in theory these things exist for a reason but in practice, they are mostly pointless and the governments in the west throw a lot of money away because they are constrained by “PMC values.”
I submit that in the east (ie China) this is probably less of a problem, because their culture is more “results oriented” and if they earmark $5,000,000 to reduce crime in Upper Zambezi (a hypothetical country which they have probably cultivated business interests with, to theoretically mutual economic benefit) the crime will probably be reduced and $3,000,000, instead of $300,000, will actually find its way to the place to solve problems on the ground.
I think most “American conservatives’” objections to USAID et al. could be summed up under a few headers.
A) the massive amounts of money involved and the massive inefficiency -essentially millions and millions of dollars to give egghead “PMC values” experts salaries in the west, rather than actually “fixing” anything overseas
B) the ideological question of whether the problems addressed really needed “fixing” in the first place. (Simply put, should America be spending billions of dollars to promote gay and transgender causes.)
C) A great deal of disillusionment with the American hegemony and the lack of practical benefits for the American in the streets. (“Why promote tourism in Egypt or gay rights in Guatemala when there are large potholes in front of my house?”)
Which leads to D) “You PMC types say neocolonialism is a moral evil. Maybe you’re right. Let’s stop trying to peddle our influence everywhere, live and let live, and when these countries develop on their own enough for air travel to be an attainable luxury, they’re free to come visit Disneyland.” Perhaps a bit shortsighted, perhaps a bit cold, but maybe the lesser of all evils in the present circumstances.
I imagine you think "most “American conservatives’” wouldn't object to USAID's participation in CIA regime change operations. You're probably right there.
All governments work through foundations and intermediaries for this kind of thing, and if I had the space I would have discussed it at length. This is the reality as I have observed it.
Additionally, where do Color Revolutions fit into this perspective? Are we meant to assume that they are organic or somehow the external influence arrives via some other unknown channel. What, no ‘Cutouts?’
I lived in southern Africa for a decade that straddled the release and election of Nelson Mandela and what you say, whilst logical and technically correct, is way too nice. Influence is more blatant, nefarious and sometimes corrupt. There is and has been a net transfer of resources to the north and all that ‘good government’ left behind has helped it along. I think it is a little disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
I really don't think that has anything to do with my point. I was explaining how complex "influence" is, and gave an example I was familiar with where that influence was accepted to be positive by both sides. If you think I have misdescribed that episode, you should say so.
“campaigning journalists” who hate their own country sufficiently to believe anything bad about it,”
This is a breathtaking bit of unjustified slander. ‘Campaigning journalists’ are very often driven by a desire to unearth a portion of that old-fashioned concept: truth. If this ‘truth’ happens to redound badly on their own country, that is hardly their fault, and only a person with no sense of basic morality would expect them to refrain from this. Most of these people work for small, badly paid organisations, so there has to be another reason for their activity - ‘hating their own country’ is hardly sufficient, unless you like to think that they are all mad?
“Propaganda campaigns waged in the media seldom have much lasting effect”.
How then do we explain, for example, the mass support for Hitler among the German population, orchestrated by Goebbels. Of course there were other reasons too, economic and political, the support was not unanimous, and faded as the war went on, but it was an essential element of the Nazis rise to power. And the Nazi rise certainly had a lasting effect.
How do we explain the almost unanimous and widespread support for Ukraine in the UK? Before the war there were numerous articles in the press which pointed out various flaws in Ukranian society and politics, but gradually this shifted until with the SMO there was an outbreak of blue and yellow flags and free accomodation for refugees. Even now an expression of support for Russia will not be published in the mainstream press. Sure, with Trumps intervention this will change, but the propagand was both obvious and effective, and will continue until it eventually becomes unsustainable.
Of course in both these and other cases you could still argue that the effect was not long lasting. OK - but they lasted long enough to do their job.
But take another case - the propaganda campaign by all established governments to persuade thier populations that the country is run in their best interests, and that it is necessary for some to be rich and some to be poor, while simultaneously the poor produce all the material goods and the rich reap the benefits. This example of propaganda is both effective and very long running, (probably since the invention of farming).
The original statement therefore is farcically untrue. If propaganda campaigns have no effect, why are they so widespread and recurring?
You attempt to defend this view by saying: “journalists are generally not simple stenographers nor, in most countries, do they faithfully take orders from governments.” Well, of course they are not, and don’t - that would be too obviously stupid. But as has been pointed out by others, newspapers are commercial organisations, usually have rich owners who want to get richer - they depend on newspaper advertising for that. The Editors are tasked with obtaining that, and they in turn ensure that their paid journalists do not rock the boat to any significant extent, so that the advertisers are repelled. Obviously they will extend the same courtesy to governments - Editors and politicians hob-nob with each other regularly, and they have basically the same interests. You only have to read the New York Times from a few months ago to see that they faithfully repeated all the Biden administrations talking points about the SMO. Both these organisations faithfully relied in turn on Ukranian propaganda and studiously ignored any evidence to the contrary.
The odd cases now and then where newspapers rebel merely prove the rule, rather than anything more meaningful. (See link below).
“Reading accounts of the Sudanese Civil Service a hundred years ago suggests that they faced much the same problems as modern international officials do, except that they were much more competent and knowledgeable, and often spent a good part of their lives working in the countries they administered.”
Dearie me. You speak as if the Sudanese Civil Service was some kind of philanthropic organisation, like the Red Cross, perhaps. The Sudanese Civil Service was a branch of (I presume) the British Colonial Office (or some similar organisation). It was not in the Sudan to provide a service to the native people - it was there to facilitate the rule of the British Empire - any benefits to the people were merely necessary costs. And the British Empire was not there to provide a service to the Sudanese people either - it was there to benefit the beneficiarees of the British Empire. This passing it off as an innocuous form of foreign aid is both excessive and redundant.
“embedding intelligence officers in development agencies is a dubious idea, though for all I know it might happen.”
Wikipedia (mandatory - ‘yes, I know’) has a very long entry about US attempts at regime change in various countries, from 1887 to the present. If you believe that widely penetrating organisations such as USAID were somehow excepted from these (later) efforts, well then, I have the proverbial bridge . . . Maybe you “didn’t know”, but I imagine many others did. But it is entirely possible that hard evidence for this may soon be available. Here is one already:
And there’s more, but enough is enough. I have to say that while your essays are very often good and thought provoking, your might benefit by considering whether you spent too much time in the ‘Kafkaesque’ invironment yourself?.
Perhaps the way to address this particular contested concept of national interest is to acknowledge that it's a simplification at best and at worst, which is much of the time, a deceitful phrase trotted out to justify the unjustifiable and disguise the unspeakable.
Yes, abstractions in general—as you'd expect from generalizations—speak to the ideal, which is to say, the nonexistent, so a critique at that level would eliminate a considerable mass of verbiage. To the extent we can get by with grunts and pointing, that might appeal to a certain DOGE-matic Jacobin sensibility. For myself, I say let our sketchy linguistic citizens go about their business, but keep an eye on them, lest they get up to no good.
However in the particular case of national interest we need to look not only at what it represents but how it's used. As a conceptual label it's problematic because it suggests uniformity (it's singular) and generality (it's national); it's more accurate to see the behavior of governments as an amalgam of often conflicting local agendas and interests, with those in ascendance shifting over time. Aurelien rightly describes it as a contested concept; it is, or ought to be, a concept of contestation, from which state policies and actions emerge. From this formulation an otherwise inexplicable state behavior can begin to make sense.
As for the question of use, we can see in national interest, as in national security, what Samuel Johnson said of patriotism: a last refuge of scoundrels.
To suggest that the concept of national interest is neither better nor worse than any other, and that we should accept that it is what the state, that source of the people's legitimacy (/s), determines it to be, seems to me, well, in need of a rethink.
About foreign aid I defer to the writer. This is a field in which he has much experience, and I do not. I will observe that while there are undoubtedly pros and cons, perhaps, when well administered, foreign aid can do some good. So much for generalities. In the case of USAID, it would seem that the government, or rather that element of it fondly described as the "intelligence community," made of it something of what it made of certain susceptible states, above all Ukraine: a tool to weaken and ultimately eliminate perceived adversaries. Sometimes particulars outweigh the principles. To discard the bathwater but not the babies would seem ideal and sensible; whether it will be practicable, or coincide with the "national interest" of the moment, remains TBD.
I'm curious if Aurelien is referring to the United States in his reference to the West and a country's (debatable) national interests.
I'm but a poor American farmer, but I do not see any evidence at all that politicians in the US federal government have the slightest concern about the national interest. They don't even have concern for their own constituents (because re-election is determined by money in 99% of races.)
I think this is why so many Americans like myself feel, as a commenter here is named: hopeless but optimistic. Our politicians have almost completely destroyed the proper functioning of our country, they've completely destroyed the livelihoods of 80% of us, but still we plod on. 'Cause you never know.
I tend not to write about the US because I don't know the country that well. But it's clear that US foreign policy is not conducted randomly, but according to some concept, of the national interest, even if in practice it's little different from the interests of the ruling class. It's been like that for most of history.
1. "To continue with the example of Syria, western states believed that Syria would follow the example of Tunisia and Egypt, and that Assad would fall quickly. Thus, there was a natural rush to position themselves alongside the putative new rulers of the country, by providing them with arms and training. Had this judgement been correct, the “national interest” argument might have been sustainable, but in fact as the civil war went on, the armed opposition became unduly dominated by Islamist groups. Yet because the West was by that stage totally committed to getting rid of Assad, it pre-emptively excused and embraced all opposition groups and, as I know from personal contacts, didn’t enquire too closely into the antecedents of those it armed and trained."
The West's goal was to do to Syria what it did to Iraq and Libya, that is, turn these countries into failed states and therefore no threat to Israel or the gulfie tyrannies.
2. "It’s not impossible that some of those who carried out the murderous terrorist attacks in Europe in 2015-16 were western-trained, which counts as a disastrous own-goal under the rubric of “national interest” if ever there was one."
The fact that nobody mainstream wanted to enquire too closely into the funding and training of terror groups shows that they knew that they would not like what they found out.
Terror attacks, however, were also quite useful to Western governments as an excuse to deepen their involvement in the Middle East.
An enormous amount is known about how these attacks were planned and conducted, by whom, how, and when, and there is a massive official and unofficial literature on the subject. My point was that, in the rush, it's quite possible that some of those involved in the planning (though probably not the operations) had been through foreign-funded training at some point. Hence the need to be careful when citing national interest.
I am prepared to accept that there is a non-negligible proportion of "foreign aid" which operates precisely as Aurelien outlines -- but that is not the same as accepting that ALL of it functions that way, nor that other less scrupulous actors aren't piggybacking upon the legitimate operation for any number of nefarious reasons, both foreign and domestic. If this makes me a swivel-eyed loon, so be it ...
Aid is just the smokescreen that wealthy countries use to hide their theft of resources from and tactical occupation of other countries there is no well meaning at ita core , not long ago the UK cut its aid in order to wage war and the USA is doing the same.Here in the UK we have great discussion about who the UK will align with now that it looks as if the USA / UK special relationship is dust. See this https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/03/09/80713/ .
I think it crazy that some people actually think that the UK has a responsibility to help Canada fight USA because King Charles England is also king of Canada the thing is i am Scottish and do not see King Charles as my king he is an english king an english construct .Typically Richard Murphy and those who survive to comment on his website that i have lnked here , talk very much in an aggressive manner its never about stepping back from disagreement and threats its always about who they are going to fight who they are going to partner in the fight , thats the english way , the majority in Scotland are against war and do not want to be involved in what is happening between Ukraine and Russia.Personally i agree Russia should have held back a bit longer but i fully understand why they did not they attacked because Ukraine allowing USA control of NATO to site nuclear missiles on its border just 400 miles from Moscow was clearly a threat and an aggression that could not be tollerated.So many english people just dont get that ? weird , they appear to think Russia should have just allowed Ukraine to site nuclear missiles on its border with Russia just 400 miles from Moscow , as if they would allow Ukraine to do the same to London , just imagine it Ukraine make a trade agreement with Belgium to site Ukraine or Chinese or Russian missiles on the Belgian coast facing London.
I can't really understand the people who say that the concept or idea of development was invented after WWII. It has been with us since the renaissance at least. Giovanni Botero preached it in the 16th century and his books were reprinted in most countries in Europe, Germans like Veit von Seckendorff agitated in the 17th century for methods to emulate the Dutch in Germany. And so on. Mercantilism was no other thing with its focus on industry instead of just agriculture.
And then we have Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List in the 19th century. And the Japanese and the Russians in the early 20th. They all believed in industry and at least the Russians went to any length to promote that, in order to develop and be as rich as the old industrial centers of the world.
Perhaps they just changed the word, so what used to be called industrialization was suddenly called development? No matter, the thought was the same – that only industrialization could bring wealth.
Why this continuous trope? "the newly independent states of Eastern Europe had in many cases no tradition of parliamentary democracy or multiparty government at all." This is a trope and a bit misplaced, coming from a Brit that historically has experienced only duopoly, whereas Europeans from the moment parliaments were established (including in authoritarian Czarist Empire) had always more than two parties.
And there was development in the eastern block, despite the fact that it was socialist led and under quasy economic embargo, and that those countries suffered the most destruction after WWII. And the present day development of China (communism with Chinese characteristics) is such a bone in the throat of the west, that they are all like Smeagol becoming Golum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjzS8j8PII
What people, especially those outside of the US, are probably most enraged about are the blatant attempts at destabilizing the political situation in foreign countries, with the express aim of overthrowing (even democratically elected) governments. Especially given the public outrage from mainstream politicians and media figures in the West each time somone claims (usually without disclosing any evidence) that another country might have interfered with US elections.
You may want to listen to Mike Benz in his recent interview by Tucker Carlson. This has become a full-blown industry. They are systematically searching for weak points in a society to exploit them in their campaigns. That doesn't mean these efforts always have to be successful. After all, as in any power struggle, success isn't something to be taken for granted. Still, there are enough examples where it did succeed (Ukraine 2014, Bangladesh 2024).
One may debate to what extent these "successes" can be attributed to the foreign interference, things like that are always hard to establish beyond reasonable doubt. But it's a fact that the effort was there and that huge sums of money have been spent with clearly stated objectives.
Yup, once USAID funding got cut off, notice how many "grassroots civil society initiatives" worldwide turned out to be so much astroturf, mewling for an alternative source of funds.
NGOs aren’t funded by private donors, it’s taxpayer money that we want spent at home, or at this point, we don’t want to pay taxes into absolute BS supporting a ton of useless bureaucrats that think they can tell other cultures how to be.
When I read your essays I always have in the back of my mind things like Operation Gladio, the massive surveillance and censorship Western governments want and what looks to be a cover up of a massive blackmail ring run by transnational criminals that our government seems to be running cover for. Epstein was linked to Mossad and “legitimate “ banks like JPMorgan have been convicted for laundering his money.
I’m sorry Aurelian, but the world I think I live in is run by psychopathic mass murdering liars and your essays sound like they are written by a trusting normie who sees governments as non criminal entities.
NGOs are funded by private money in some cases, and a number refuse to take government money as a matter of principle. Medicins sans Frontières is a case in point.
I make it a point to write the Essays--as here--out of personal observation or that of people I know well and trust.
My husband and I enjoy reading and discussing your well written and knowledgeable essays. You have a lot of direct experience with the public face of government taking legitimate and ethical actions in running their country’s affairs.
Unfortunately, human nature can be evil and in this day and age of the internet the unsavory, immoral actions of governments can be more easily exposed to a greater number of people.
The optics look really bad when our government public servants withhold information about massive crimes like JFK and Epstein because it presents threats to “national security “, Biden made that statement.
If you look at the governments partnership with crime, Operation Underworld is when the government officially teamed up with the mafia who were running the east coast seaports in the 40s that the government needed for war ships.
Smedly Butler “ War is a Racket” written in the 30s is another good example of ongoing unethical behavior of the government.
I think the threat to national security is people realizing how much immoral crimes against humanity is committed by our own government.
@Disillusioned But Optimistic
(Quote)
"banks like JPMorgan have been convicted for laundering his money."
----------
The international financial world is very competitive with ANY edge in profitability of trading and other activities needing to be exploited. In that dog eat dog world, those who do fall behind will be eaten by the winners in whatever fashion, a hostile takeover, (less than equally beneficial) mergers & etc.
Profits from laundering into the
"legitimate" financial world of grey & black market profits, drug cartel and/or intelligence agency funds, conflict bloody money and such have provided that edge.
Essentially, all the remaining multinational financial/investment/holding funds have engaged in taking in at least immoral (and more usually, flat out ILLEGAL) funds, laundering and leveraging such resources & activities directly or through subcontractors/cut outs for debiability (Donald Trump was one such subcontractor in his time).
If major and profitable illegal activity is going to happen (which it inevitably will), any director of central intelligence certainly understands why it most desirable to be tied into the process at the top level where they can exploit those ventures for intelligence and "diplomacy by other means" rather than squeamishly remaining on the outside looking in and playing catch up if undesirable results come to the public attention.
Around 2001 I read a PhD thesis in economics with supporting mathematics describing the advantage available (and then known examples) showing this to be a fast developing trend, enabling and driving winning strategies in corporate mergers & acquisitions. I tried to find that file again a year or two later, it was the first time I observed something being not just "memory holed" but DISAPPEARED & made completely invisible to any search method I could use. Wish I'd known to download/print at the time!
John Titus, a patent attorney, does a stellar job of looking at central Banksters and their racket on his show Best Evidence. He is a an associate of Catherine Austin Fitts who is a whistleblower form back in the 90's trying to bring attention to the missing trillions in HUD where she was in charge of financials.
The original Banksters going back to the Venetians have always been crooks and if they can get away with it they will. S Dakota is the shell capitol company of the world and shell companies = money laundering. An honest bank, on he other hand, can provide much needed valuable services for development. "Punishable by fine" means "legal for a price" and crime that pays is crime that stays.
The CIA is involved in drug and human trafficking, remember when we got a glimpse of the Iran contra scandal? Oliver North never went to jail, he is a talking head on NBC. If think college students should have a course in corporate crimes. A good one is corporate rap sheet, they do the lawsuits and fines for the pHARMa industry, the Banskters and others.
https://www.corp-research.org/corporaterapsheets
I also doubt if the Epstein files will ever be released because I think it's a blackmail ring, one goes down they all go down. All the tax donkey slaves living on the Truman Show Plantation get to is watch White House Reality TV show politics, Team Red versus Team Blue Smackdown! It's funny watching them come up with new a**covering lies and attacks.
The only way to stop crime in our world is to execute money launderers, drug and human traffickers. Until then, we have laws and nominal fines that allow crime to flourish.
Funny, I read the essay and thought of Gladio as well.
I tend to agree with you although I am by no means an expert. The notion that clandestine elements that seeks to gain influence in a “disruptive” manner is a rare outlier is frankly a bit naive….
The conclusion I gather is that in theory these things exist for a reason but in practice, they are mostly pointless and the governments in the west throw a lot of money away because they are constrained by “PMC values.”
I submit that in the east (ie China) this is probably less of a problem, because their culture is more “results oriented” and if they earmark $5,000,000 to reduce crime in Upper Zambezi (a hypothetical country which they have probably cultivated business interests with, to theoretically mutual economic benefit) the crime will probably be reduced and $3,000,000, instead of $300,000, will actually find its way to the place to solve problems on the ground.
I think most “American conservatives’” objections to USAID et al. could be summed up under a few headers.
A) the massive amounts of money involved and the massive inefficiency -essentially millions and millions of dollars to give egghead “PMC values” experts salaries in the west, rather than actually “fixing” anything overseas
B) the ideological question of whether the problems addressed really needed “fixing” in the first place. (Simply put, should America be spending billions of dollars to promote gay and transgender causes.)
C) A great deal of disillusionment with the American hegemony and the lack of practical benefits for the American in the streets. (“Why promote tourism in Egypt or gay rights in Guatemala when there are large potholes in front of my house?”)
Which leads to D) “You PMC types say neocolonialism is a moral evil. Maybe you’re right. Let’s stop trying to peddle our influence everywhere, live and let live, and when these countries develop on their own enough for air travel to be an attainable luxury, they’re free to come visit Disneyland.” Perhaps a bit shortsighted, perhaps a bit cold, but maybe the lesser of all evils in the present circumstances.
Yeah, but how else are the Grievance Studies grads supposed to find jobs?
I imagine you think "most “American conservatives’” wouldn't object to USAID's participation in CIA regime change operations. You're probably right there.
Unfortunately most of them probably think regime change is one of the few useful or laudable ends pursued from USAID funds.
Good point.
Reads a bit like a whitewash.
COVID and all of the narrative manipulation gives a lie to most of these arguments.
The Westminster Foundation for Democracy run out of the UK Foreign Office is another.
Most of the independent writers I read don't 'hate their nations' , but they might dislike what the uniparty stands for. Big difference.
All governments work through foundations and intermediaries for this kind of thing, and if I had the space I would have discussed it at length. This is the reality as I have observed it.
Additionally, where do Color Revolutions fit into this perspective? Are we meant to assume that they are organic or somehow the external influence arrives via some other unknown channel. What, no ‘Cutouts?’
I lived in southern Africa for a decade that straddled the release and election of Nelson Mandela and what you say, whilst logical and technically correct, is way too nice. Influence is more blatant, nefarious and sometimes corrupt. There is and has been a net transfer of resources to the north and all that ‘good government’ left behind has helped it along. I think it is a little disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
I really don't think that has anything to do with my point. I was explaining how complex "influence" is, and gave an example I was familiar with where that influence was accepted to be positive by both sides. If you think I have misdescribed that episode, you should say so.
Apologies if I misunderstood.
“campaigning journalists” who hate their own country sufficiently to believe anything bad about it,”
This is a breathtaking bit of unjustified slander. ‘Campaigning journalists’ are very often driven by a desire to unearth a portion of that old-fashioned concept: truth. If this ‘truth’ happens to redound badly on their own country, that is hardly their fault, and only a person with no sense of basic morality would expect them to refrain from this. Most of these people work for small, badly paid organisations, so there has to be another reason for their activity - ‘hating their own country’ is hardly sufficient, unless you like to think that they are all mad?
“Propaganda campaigns waged in the media seldom have much lasting effect”.
How then do we explain, for example, the mass support for Hitler among the German population, orchestrated by Goebbels. Of course there were other reasons too, economic and political, the support was not unanimous, and faded as the war went on, but it was an essential element of the Nazis rise to power. And the Nazi rise certainly had a lasting effect.
How do we explain the almost unanimous and widespread support for Ukraine in the UK? Before the war there were numerous articles in the press which pointed out various flaws in Ukranian society and politics, but gradually this shifted until with the SMO there was an outbreak of blue and yellow flags and free accomodation for refugees. Even now an expression of support for Russia will not be published in the mainstream press. Sure, with Trumps intervention this will change, but the propagand was both obvious and effective, and will continue until it eventually becomes unsustainable.
Of course in both these and other cases you could still argue that the effect was not long lasting. OK - but they lasted long enough to do their job.
But take another case - the propaganda campaign by all established governments to persuade thier populations that the country is run in their best interests, and that it is necessary for some to be rich and some to be poor, while simultaneously the poor produce all the material goods and the rich reap the benefits. This example of propaganda is both effective and very long running, (probably since the invention of farming).
The original statement therefore is farcically untrue. If propaganda campaigns have no effect, why are they so widespread and recurring?
You attempt to defend this view by saying: “journalists are generally not simple stenographers nor, in most countries, do they faithfully take orders from governments.” Well, of course they are not, and don’t - that would be too obviously stupid. But as has been pointed out by others, newspapers are commercial organisations, usually have rich owners who want to get richer - they depend on newspaper advertising for that. The Editors are tasked with obtaining that, and they in turn ensure that their paid journalists do not rock the boat to any significant extent, so that the advertisers are repelled. Obviously they will extend the same courtesy to governments - Editors and politicians hob-nob with each other regularly, and they have basically the same interests. You only have to read the New York Times from a few months ago to see that they faithfully repeated all the Biden administrations talking points about the SMO. Both these organisations faithfully relied in turn on Ukranian propaganda and studiously ignored any evidence to the contrary.
The odd cases now and then where newspapers rebel merely prove the rule, rather than anything more meaningful. (See link below).
“Reading accounts of the Sudanese Civil Service a hundred years ago suggests that they faced much the same problems as modern international officials do, except that they were much more competent and knowledgeable, and often spent a good part of their lives working in the countries they administered.”
Dearie me. You speak as if the Sudanese Civil Service was some kind of philanthropic organisation, like the Red Cross, perhaps. The Sudanese Civil Service was a branch of (I presume) the British Colonial Office (or some similar organisation). It was not in the Sudan to provide a service to the native people - it was there to facilitate the rule of the British Empire - any benefits to the people were merely necessary costs. And the British Empire was not there to provide a service to the Sudanese people either - it was there to benefit the beneficiarees of the British Empire. This passing it off as an innocuous form of foreign aid is both excessive and redundant.
“embedding intelligence officers in development agencies is a dubious idea, though for all I know it might happen.”
Wikipedia (mandatory - ‘yes, I know’) has a very long entry about US attempts at regime change in various countries, from 1887 to the present. If you believe that widely penetrating organisations such as USAID were somehow excepted from these (later) efforts, well then, I have the proverbial bridge . . . Maybe you “didn’t know”, but I imagine many others did. But it is entirely possible that hard evidence for this may soon be available. Here is one already:
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/15/when-is-foreign-aid-meddling/secret-programs-hurt-foreign-aid-efforts.
And there’s more, but enough is enough. I have to say that while your essays are very often good and thought provoking, your might benefit by considering whether you spent too much time in the ‘Kafkaesque’ invironment yourself?.
Note:
'redundant' is used in the sense of 'not applicable' - not in the sense of 'goes without saying'
Perhaps the way to address this particular contested concept of national interest is to acknowledge that it's a simplification at best and at worst, which is much of the time, a deceitful phrase trotted out to justify the unjustifiable and disguise the unspeakable.
Yes, abstractions in general—as you'd expect from generalizations—speak to the ideal, which is to say, the nonexistent, so a critique at that level would eliminate a considerable mass of verbiage. To the extent we can get by with grunts and pointing, that might appeal to a certain DOGE-matic Jacobin sensibility. For myself, I say let our sketchy linguistic citizens go about their business, but keep an eye on them, lest they get up to no good.
However in the particular case of national interest we need to look not only at what it represents but how it's used. As a conceptual label it's problematic because it suggests uniformity (it's singular) and generality (it's national); it's more accurate to see the behavior of governments as an amalgam of often conflicting local agendas and interests, with those in ascendance shifting over time. Aurelien rightly describes it as a contested concept; it is, or ought to be, a concept of contestation, from which state policies and actions emerge. From this formulation an otherwise inexplicable state behavior can begin to make sense.
As for the question of use, we can see in national interest, as in national security, what Samuel Johnson said of patriotism: a last refuge of scoundrels.
To suggest that the concept of national interest is neither better nor worse than any other, and that we should accept that it is what the state, that source of the people's legitimacy (/s), determines it to be, seems to me, well, in need of a rethink.
About foreign aid I defer to the writer. This is a field in which he has much experience, and I do not. I will observe that while there are undoubtedly pros and cons, perhaps, when well administered, foreign aid can do some good. So much for generalities. In the case of USAID, it would seem that the government, or rather that element of it fondly described as the "intelligence community," made of it something of what it made of certain susceptible states, above all Ukraine: a tool to weaken and ultimately eliminate perceived adversaries. Sometimes particulars outweigh the principles. To discard the bathwater but not the babies would seem ideal and sensible; whether it will be practicable, or coincide with the "national interest" of the moment, remains TBD.
I'm curious if Aurelien is referring to the United States in his reference to the West and a country's (debatable) national interests.
I'm but a poor American farmer, but I do not see any evidence at all that politicians in the US federal government have the slightest concern about the national interest. They don't even have concern for their own constituents (because re-election is determined by money in 99% of races.)
I think this is why so many Americans like myself feel, as a commenter here is named: hopeless but optimistic. Our politicians have almost completely destroyed the proper functioning of our country, they've completely destroyed the livelihoods of 80% of us, but still we plod on. 'Cause you never know.
I tend not to write about the US because I don't know the country that well. But it's clear that US foreign policy is not conducted randomly, but according to some concept, of the national interest, even if in practice it's little different from the interests of the ruling class. It's been like that for most of history.
1. "To continue with the example of Syria, western states believed that Syria would follow the example of Tunisia and Egypt, and that Assad would fall quickly. Thus, there was a natural rush to position themselves alongside the putative new rulers of the country, by providing them with arms and training. Had this judgement been correct, the “national interest” argument might have been sustainable, but in fact as the civil war went on, the armed opposition became unduly dominated by Islamist groups. Yet because the West was by that stage totally committed to getting rid of Assad, it pre-emptively excused and embraced all opposition groups and, as I know from personal contacts, didn’t enquire too closely into the antecedents of those it armed and trained."
The West's goal was to do to Syria what it did to Iraq and Libya, that is, turn these countries into failed states and therefore no threat to Israel or the gulfie tyrannies.
2. "It’s not impossible that some of those who carried out the murderous terrorist attacks in Europe in 2015-16 were western-trained, which counts as a disastrous own-goal under the rubric of “national interest” if ever there was one."
The fact that nobody mainstream wanted to enquire too closely into the funding and training of terror groups shows that they knew that they would not like what they found out.
Terror attacks, however, were also quite useful to Western governments as an excuse to deepen their involvement in the Middle East.
This is something like Operation Gladio, here.
An enormous amount is known about how these attacks were planned and conducted, by whom, how, and when, and there is a massive official and unofficial literature on the subject. My point was that, in the rush, it's quite possible that some of those involved in the planning (though probably not the operations) had been through foreign-funded training at some point. Hence the need to be careful when citing national interest.
I see foreign aid as the means to do to others that which has been done to me.
Capture the political system, assume control of resources, rig the justice system and create a discourse that describes the priors as ennobling.
I am prepared to accept that there is a non-negligible proportion of "foreign aid" which operates precisely as Aurelien outlines -- but that is not the same as accepting that ALL of it functions that way, nor that other less scrupulous actors aren't piggybacking upon the legitimate operation for any number of nefarious reasons, both foreign and domestic. If this makes me a swivel-eyed loon, so be it ...
Oh, I didn't suggest it all functioned like that. I can only talk about what I know, like all of us.
Thanks Aurelien, very illuminating and very interesting.
Aid is just the smokescreen that wealthy countries use to hide their theft of resources from and tactical occupation of other countries there is no well meaning at ita core , not long ago the UK cut its aid in order to wage war and the USA is doing the same.Here in the UK we have great discussion about who the UK will align with now that it looks as if the USA / UK special relationship is dust. See this https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/03/09/80713/ .
I think it crazy that some people actually think that the UK has a responsibility to help Canada fight USA because King Charles England is also king of Canada the thing is i am Scottish and do not see King Charles as my king he is an english king an english construct .Typically Richard Murphy and those who survive to comment on his website that i have lnked here , talk very much in an aggressive manner its never about stepping back from disagreement and threats its always about who they are going to fight who they are going to partner in the fight , thats the english way , the majority in Scotland are against war and do not want to be involved in what is happening between Ukraine and Russia.Personally i agree Russia should have held back a bit longer but i fully understand why they did not they attacked because Ukraine allowing USA control of NATO to site nuclear missiles on its border just 400 miles from Moscow was clearly a threat and an aggression that could not be tollerated.So many english people just dont get that ? weird , they appear to think Russia should have just allowed Ukraine to site nuclear missiles on its border with Russia just 400 miles from Moscow , as if they would allow Ukraine to do the same to London , just imagine it Ukraine make a trade agreement with Belgium to site Ukraine or Chinese or Russian missiles on the Belgian coast facing London.
I can't really understand the people who say that the concept or idea of development was invented after WWII. It has been with us since the renaissance at least. Giovanni Botero preached it in the 16th century and his books were reprinted in most countries in Europe, Germans like Veit von Seckendorff agitated in the 17th century for methods to emulate the Dutch in Germany. And so on. Mercantilism was no other thing with its focus on industry instead of just agriculture.
And then we have Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List in the 19th century. And the Japanese and the Russians in the early 20th. They all believed in industry and at least the Russians went to any length to promote that, in order to develop and be as rich as the old industrial centers of the world.
Perhaps they just changed the word, so what used to be called industrialization was suddenly called development? No matter, the thought was the same – that only industrialization could bring wealth.
Why this continuous trope? "the newly independent states of Eastern Europe had in many cases no tradition of parliamentary democracy or multiparty government at all." This is a trope and a bit misplaced, coming from a Brit that historically has experienced only duopoly, whereas Europeans from the moment parliaments were established (including in authoritarian Czarist Empire) had always more than two parties.
And there was development in the eastern block, despite the fact that it was socialist led and under quasy economic embargo, and that those countries suffered the most destruction after WWII. And the present day development of China (communism with Chinese characteristics) is such a bone in the throat of the west, that they are all like Smeagol becoming Golum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjzS8j8PII
The blinds are though a clear result of British education and overall system, well explained here by War Nerd: https://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-newsletter-100-amateurs-talk-cancel-pros-talk-silence/
But one should take the not that much chaff with the good wheat, eh?!
My usual italian translation:
"Tutto sugli aiuti.
Beh, probabilmente più di quanto volevate sapere, comunque."
https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2025/03/tutto-sugli-aiuti-beh-probabilmente-piu.html