The Foreign Service Journal, March 2016

54 MARCH 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL M odern analyses of U.S. foreign assistance typically describe it as a post-World War II innovation that began with the Marshall Plan and President Harry Truman’s Point Four aid program in the late 1940s. Following the lead of interna- tional relations theorist Hans Morgenthau, many practitioners believe that foreign aid arose as an instrument of Cold War diplomacy, and that aid as we know it might not now exist without the Cold War. This article presents an alternative view, expanding on an article by Glenn Rogers, “A Long-Term Perspective on U.S. Foreign Development Cooperation” (May 2010 FSJ ). Forei gn aid is deeply rooted in American history, and has evolved over more than 200 years to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people throughout the globe while also supporting vital U.S. interests. Extending the American Revolution Overseas: Foreign Aid, 1789–1850 Foreign assistance is part of America’s cultural DNA, fostered by the country’s revolutionary heritage of a commitment to human rights and individual liberties. BY JOHN SANBRA I LO John Sanbrailo is executive director of the Pan American Development Foundation, an affiliate of the Organization of American States. A former FSOwith USAID, he served as mission director in Ecuador, Peru, Honduras and El Sal- vador, retiring with the rank of Career Minister in 1997. Mr. Sanbrailo is currently working on a history of foreign assistance. Foreign assistance reflects what historian Gordon Wood identifies in his book The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (Penguin, 2011) as a fundamental element of the country’s revolutionary tradition: the desire to spread democracy and development overseas. It is part of the country’s cultural DNA, fostered by its unique revolutionary heritage of a commitment to human rights and individual liberties. Aid expresses the nation’s sense of a universal mission to nurture freedom and prosperity in other countries, a mission that has regularly been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy purposes. The desire to share the principles of the American Revolu- tion with other countries was driven not only by diplomats and government officials, but by missionaries, traders, educators, sci- entists, agriculturalists, academics, progressive reformers, civil society groups, business leaders and the military. These early undertakings were similar to aid programs in recent decades, offering useful comparisons. Earliest Initiatives The Founding Fathers were, above all, what we might call “development philosophers.” The writings of Benjamin Frank- lin, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton explore how societies move toward greater liberty and progress. Franklin’s Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind and Peopling of Countries , etc., published in 1751, outlined one of the first comprehensive development theories. In it, he describes how FEATURE