The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2017

12 JULY-AUGUST 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Two Separate Things President Donald Trump recently admonished many of our NATO allies for not meeting the target of spending 2 percent or more of GDP on military expenditures. But the shoe is on the other foot when it comes to economic and social development expenditures (foreign aid). The United States is among the worst in not meeting the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Devel- opment’s target of 0.7 percent of GDP for such expenditures. We are only at 0.17 percent, ranking 20 out of 28 member countries. Our rep- resentatives at OECD, including myself some years ago, attempt to justify our poor record partly by stressing that we meet our military obligations. But our friends invariably reply that these are “two separate things.” Military expenditures represent hard power. Development expenditures, along with diplomacy, are soft power. It is the latter—backed up from time to time by the former—that are the best tools for dealing with the conflicts of our times. The bulk of our politicians and citizenry do not understand that. Raymond Malley Senior FSO (State and USAID), retired Hanover, New Hampshire CORRECTION The June Talking Point on the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan mis- takenly states that Secretary of State George C. Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949. He received that award in 1953. We regret the error. n