18 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL SPEAKING OUT Brendan Wheeler served 17 years as a USAID Foreign Service officer in Washington, D.C., Addis Ababa, Cairo, Amman, Tunis (Libya), and Kigali. Before joining the Foreign Service, he worked on Capitol Hill and served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad and the U.S. Embassy Regional Embassy Office in Kirkuk. A year ago, my 17-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service ended when the United States closed USAID. Since then, many former colleagues have penned poignant memorials to the agency and their careers. Others have made serious attempts to imagine what comes next for U.S. foreign assistance, including a thoughtful “Open Letter on the Future of Foreign Assistance” signed by 72 former senior development diplomats and humanitarians. That letter brought me to my keyboard. Instead of eulogizing my career, I want to mark this unfortunate anniversary by sharing my thoughts on how the United States can make foreign assistance even more powerful—if we are thoughtful and patient enough to see it through. What Went Wrong The Open Letter’s 10 recommendations endeavor to answer the question of how we should rebuild. What emerges is an approach to the next generation of development that is indistinguishable from USAID’s approach. But reaching that conclusion now, as comforting as it may be, overlooks an important question: Why was USAID so easy to dismantle? We all watched in disbelief as USAID was closed with striking speed and almost no resistance. At posts around the world, consoling words were offered as careers and commitments were shattered, and the United States became less capable in the world right before our eyes. When it mattered most, the agency had too thin a constituency among Americans and in Congress to defend itself effectively. Would it be wise to recreate such a vulnerable entity? Carl von Clausewitz described strategic strength as a trinity: government support, popular will, and institutional capability. USAID had the third element—a talented corps of professionals who did inspiring work tackling the world’s hardest problems. At some point during its more than 60 years, it lost the other two. An institution in that condition is not ready to be rebuilt. It is ready to be examined. Understanding why USAID’s trinity was so out of balance should be the point of departure for any effort to rethink the agency and U.S. foreign assistance more broadly. Tell the Story—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly What would an examination look like? We saw one in 1975. Launched in response to blockbuster reports of abuses at agencies including the CIA and FBI, the Church Committee conducted a sustained, sweeping public investigation into U.S. intelligence operations—the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was a painful process, but the work laid the foundation for reforms and oversight that made those agencies more effective and better understood by Americans. In its final weeks, USAID faced a sustained campaign of misrepresentation that provided the rhetorical cover for what came next. The agency, now prostrate, is ripe for the Church Committee treatment. Not a memorial. Not a defense. An honest, clinical reckoning that exposes weaknesses and strengths by telling Americans the full story. Do that, and two things will happen: First, Americans will come away immensely proud of the generations of good they financed across the world since President John F. Kennedy founded USAID in 1961, and second, they will agree that the United States must continue to invest in the stability of Before We Rebuild, We Need to Reckon BY BRENDAN M. WHEELER Understanding why USAID’s trinity was so out of balance should be the point of departure for any effort to rethink the agency and U.S. foreign assistance more broadly.
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