Foreign Aid, Intervention, and Influence

Abstract

Foreign aid can be “related” to intervention in many ways. Some argue, with Senator J. W. Fulbright, that aid tends to precede intervention and to increase the probability of intervention.1 Others would say that aid follows intervention, contending, for example, that American aid to Vietnam was evidence of a prior diplomatic commitment. Still others see aid as an alternative to intervention—if we give aid now we are less likely to have to intervene in the future. Another group would contend that the aid-giving process may constitute intervention. It is with the views of this last group that most of this article deals. In examining them, we shall focus on three topics: (i) the links between foreign aid and influence; (2) the links between particular types of aid and what is often called intervention; and (3) the possibility of functional equivalents for aid that do not involve intervention. There are some conceptual problems, however, that we must address first.