Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Department
International Relations
Keywords
Counterinsurgency, Aid, Development
Abstract
The repercussions of September 11, 2011 have been felt worldwide and have drastically changed the paradigm in which countries operate today. They have justified two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and incursion into sovereign territories in pursuit of terrorists and insurgents. As insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan have continued to thrive, Coalition countries have been forced to adjust their approach to defeating non-conventional forces that they are largely not trained to fight. This has resulted in tactics that utilize what scholars have called “Smart Power,” a mixture of both hard and soft power. Foreign aid and its distribution in COIN operations has sparked a major debate amongst scholars, soldiers and aid industry workers as to who should distribute foreign aid and what relationship the military and aid workers should have.I hypothesize that the traditional relationship between aid workers and the military in the distribution of foreign aid in COIN operations is inadequate and dysfunctional. I will argue that while both parties are important vehicles in the distribution of aid, because of the lack of coordination between them, COIN has been much less effective. Therefore, this thesis aims to study the ways in which aid is distributed by aid workers and the military, in order to uncover evidence to support my thesis and draw conclusions as to what are the best practices in aid distribution, when dealing with insurgencies and winning hearts and minds.Traditionally, military and aid workers have tried to operate separately from one another, in order to maintain impartiality. However, COIN has called for aid workers to work with troops to implement development projects and in some cases troops have been responsible themselves for implementing projects. This has resulted in protests from the development community, arguing that soldiers are unqualified to distribute aid and separation of the military and aid workers is essential to security. Using Iraq and Afghanistan as case studies, this thesis looks at how foreign aid has been utilized in COIN. In the conclusion, based on my research, I make recommendations for ways in which countries can improve distribution of foreign aid in the COIN context.
Recommended Citation
Schickel, Gabriel, "Effective Utilization of Foreign Aid in Counterinsurgency Operations" (2014). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/316