The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants from America--and What We Need in Return

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Following the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, the Bush administration pledged more than $500 million for earthquake relief and sent American helicopters and soldiers to help. Immediately afterward, polls showed that the number of Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the United States had doubled to more than 46 percent. The Prosperity Agenda argues that this may be the best foreign policy moment of the entire Bush administration—at the cost of what we spend in Iraq every day—and should become a model for future action. In this provocative, ingenious book, Soderberg and Katulis make one of the most controversial arguments that foreign policy circles have seen in years: no more putting all our eggs in the basket of promoting democracy or market reforms, or even diplomacy, sanctions, or cash handouts to faltering governments. Instead, they argue, we should go right to the citizens of troubled nations and give them what they need most. People in the Congo, Iraq, Pakistan, and North Korea all have the same concerns, and the right to vote is far from the top of the list. They need freedom from war, good food and shelter, basic health care, and the reasonable hope that tomorrow will be better. It's not only the right thing to do; it's likely to do more for American interests than the policies we've been relying on for years. Why have seven years of President Bush's "freedom agenda" failed to achieve freedom or democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else? When democracy starts to sound like a code word for advancing U.S. interests, it backfires. Latin America provides an excellent example of why freedom's march has stalled, in large part due to quality-of-life issues. A 2004 survey showed that a majority of people in Latin America would rather have a government that provided economic gains than a democracy. The Prosperity Agenda embraces a new and compelling strategy for overcoming that problem and dealing with the world. Giving money, weapons, and loans with lots of strings attached doesn't do it. But handing out vaccines, disaster relief, and $100 laptops does. Working to improve the basic lives of people will, in the end, help defeat terrorism, increase America's leverage against its enemies, weaken dictatorships, and, most importantly, save the lives of millions. Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who are the Islamists? International Crisis Group, Middle East Report N°31, 21 September 2004. “World Bank study: rising sea levels could displace millions of world’s poor,” AP, February 16, 2007, see http://simontay78.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/world-bank-study-rising-sea-levels-could-displace-millions-of-world%E2%80%99s-poor/. Pakistan has become the world’s most dangerous country. As one terrorism expert puts it, “All of the transnational problems that threaten global peace and security come together in Pakistan: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, poverty, and narcotics.” Pakistan has fought four wars with its neighbor India, sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran, and Libya, and acquired its own bomb from technology stolen in the Netherlands. Bin Laden and the rest of the al Qaeda leadership are believed to be hiding there. Most of the recent attacks and terror plots in Europe have direct links to the Al Qaeda leadership and training camps in Pakistan. Conventional military approaches – “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” – became a central organizing principle for the Bush administration. U.S. military operations also became one of al Qaeda’s biggest recruiting tools. As terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman points out, al Qaeda's ability to continue its struggle is “predicated on its capacity to attract new recruits” by highlighting U.S. military actions. We must make a clear distinction between the core al Qaeda terrorists and their potential sympathizers. For the former, military defeat is the only way to win; for the latter, we must get at the reasons they consider joining al Qaeda or other terrorist groups in the first place. That means our approach must be smarter, broader, and use the full range of our superpower strengths to stop al Qaeda in its tracks, make progress in the simmering conflicts that fuel al Qaeda’s recruitments efforts, and put America once again on the side of progress and prosperity. Once the world sees that America is working to address its concerns, the terrorist recruiting pool will be seriously diminished. Since the initial setbacks from the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, al Qaeda has regrouped, adapted, and expanded its reach. By the summer of 2007, top U.S. government intelligence analysts concluded that al Qaeda was the strongest it had been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. And it still has America in its crosshairs. The July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Al Qaeda is “the most serious threat to the Homeland,” and that the United States will “face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years.” Al Qaeda remains intent on “producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the U.S. population.” The al Qaeda threat has metastasized like a cancer—spreading throughout the Muslim world, where it has developed a large cadre of operatives, and in Europe, where it can claim the support of some disenfranchised Muslim locals. Because of the global al Qaeda movement’s decentralized nature, estimating its size is difficult, but it is believed to range from several hundred to several thousand members. Recognizing the U.S. military cannot shoulder this burden alone, the Bush administration has begun to pull together the various U.S. government agencies into an integrated regional effort that will be more flexible and effective in fighting terrorist groups. These “Regional Strategic Initiatives” seek to establish America’s own regional networks to counter those of terrorist groups. In addition to the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, the State Department is in the process of forming regional networks in the eastern Mediterranean to counter Hezbollah, the PKK, and Al Qaeda, and in Southeast Asia to tackle the Islamist terror groups plaguing the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries. While the budget of $1 million is hardly adequate to the challenge, the effort recognizes the need to combine all of the United States’ assets – political, economic, and military – to make progress on terrorism. Only an effort that includes making the lives of people in these countries more prosperous will meet today’s challenge. And while it is a world-wide challenge, progress is Afghanistan will be key. The Unfinished Job in Afghanistan. More than six years after the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power and destroy al Qaeda’s safe haven, improvement in the daily lives of average Afghans has been disappointing on virtually all fronts. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Life expectancy at birth is 46 years old, the adult literacy rate is only 28 percent, and about 20 percent of Afghan children die before their fifth birthday. Reconstruction and economic development have stalled, opium production has skyrocketed, and the Afghan government is weak, lacking in capacity, often corrupt, and in many areas of Afghanistan, simply not present.