World War II and its aftermath forced U.S. leaders to recognize their country's preeminent world role and to identify the foreign policy necessary to preserve that role. Underlying their deliberations was a consensus that long-term U.S. security ultimately depended on events overseas. As the Cold War set in and extended across Asia, this assumption would have profound implications for developing countries.

U.S. foreign policy makers rarely address the country's world role without reference to its perceived moral responsibilities (Spanier and Hook, 1995). After World War II they had such confidence in these values that they attempted to transfer them wholesale to other countries through many instruments of foreign policy (Bellah, et al., 1991). This practice would include the worldwide distribution of foreign assistance, both economic and military, to nearly every LDC that sided with the United States in the Cold War. For as long as the competition lasted, the United States held the distinction of being the world's foremost aid donor.

For a brief period in the early 1990s, it appeared the United States would retain this status while redirecting its aid programs toward transnational problems and sustainable development in the world's poorest and most densely populated regions. USAID (1994: 1) reflected and encouraged this optimism, noting, "With the end of the Cold War, the international community can now view the challenge of development directly, free from the demands of superpower competition."

Contrary to expectations that the peace dividend would be directed toward an expanded foreign-aid program, however, the 1990s have witnessed a fundamental reappraisal of U.S. foreign aid and major cutbacks in bilateral aid flows. Efforts to shift attention to transnational issues reflecting the priorities of the United Nations, World Bank, OECD, and many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have given way to a struggle for the very existence of the U.S. aid program. Foreign leaders in both rich and poor states have closely watched this political showdown, a result of the 1994 congressional elections, which brought the Republican Party to power. In the absence of an assertive U.S. role, the global development-aid regime, which the United States has led since World War II, is in peril.

Congressional Republicans followed the lead of Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the 1994 midterm elections. Helms held hostage much of U.S. foreign policy—including nearly 400 foreign-service nominations and several important treaties—and pressed his own demands for major changes in U.S. foreign policy. "At the heart of the matter is his long-standing disdain for foreign aid," Phillips (1995: 7A) observed. "His reorganization proposal strikes at the core of foreign aid." Specifically, Helms sought to bring three autonomous agencies--USAID, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (USACDA), and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA)--under the direct control of the State Department. He encountered strong resistance from the Clinton administration, the agencies themselves, other parts of the federal bureaucracy, and many of his congressional colleagues. All of these parties felt the agencies should remain independent and hence less political. The dispute reflected profound differences over the role of the United States in the post--Cold War world, disrupting its bilateral and multilateral relations and creating a dangerous void in global leadership.

The forces of change the United States helped set in motion not only have obscured a recognition of what has been achieved but also have dissolved the national consensus regarding the country's world role. From this paralyzing dissensus must come an appreciation of the country's immense potential as a partner in global development. Thus far, unfortunately, a new vision for global collaboration has failed to supplant the security concerns that previously governed U.S. aid allocations. A historic opportunity may be lost if the United States fails to live up to its commitment to improve the living conditions of the world's poor. . .