The Christian Realist Case for Humanitarian Aid 

A study last year estimated that the steep budget cuts, if retained, could result in 14 million additional deaths through 2030. The discursive battle surrounding the Agency’s shuttering revealed the distinction between “humanitarian aid” and “development assistance” in the Agency’s international development mission, a distinction rarely made by USAID’s critics and sometimes downplayed by its defenders. While the two types of aid cannot always be neatly divided, humanitarian aid or relief is targeted, generally short-term, broadly lifesaving, and provided before, during, and after natural or manmade disasters and crises. Development assistance is everything else. I wish to focus on the former from a Christian realist perspective. So, what is a Christian realist to make of international humanitarian aid? In many cases, the “Christian” half of the equation is more likely to approve of such endeavors than the “realist” element. One of humanitarian aid’s selling points is its principally limited scope, to “alleviate human suffering, and reduce the physical, social, and economic effects of disasters.” It aims to save lives that, without outside action, would be at risk of loss due to imminent circumstances. This humanitarian instinct arises from charity toward our neighbor, and we see its domestic cousin exercised whenever a hurricane strikes or 100-year floods inundate our own communities. Christian realists should embrace humanitarian aid as a way for their countries to be morally engaged agents against evil, both natural and manmade. In the unique context of the United States, the heightened responsibility for (moral) leadership should mean seeking to do more than merely realist-approved power balancing and national-interest maximization. After all, if war is meant to be a last resort in pursuit of peace, justice, and mercy, that means the toolbox needs to have some other options. Christian realism does not provide specific policy doctrine or dogma and thus does not prescribe humanitarian aid as a vital tool of soft power or as a noble imperative of Christian charity in all circumstances. In the same vein, Christian realism would not prescribe war or peace without prudential consideration of the particular circumstances. Humanitarian efforts are, however, a praxis where prudentially applied Christian values can nudge state policy toward justice and charity while simultaneously deflating utopian delusions. The history of humanitarian intervention starts, after all, with Christian charity, missions, and appeals for relief on behalf of far-flung peoples. While exact estimates vary, at least half of international humanitarian organizations are faith-based. In past years, and to a lesser extent today, a plethora of Christian humanitarian NGOs, such as World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, World Relief, and Samaritan’s Purse, received grants to implement humanitarian assistance worldwide. Humanitarian aid workers face both human evil and natural evils (floods, famine, earthquakes, tsunamis, and disease) as they enter into crises and failed states to alleviate the suffering of innocents. The problems and quandaries faced by humanitarian interventions are clear opportunities to practice Christian prudence. Interventions can function on a sliding scale. A more straightforward case may involve airdropping food, water, and tents to communities cut off by typhoons, or dispatching search and rescue teams to cities wracked by earthquakes. A more complex case would be a campaign to alleviate famine conditions in the case of a regional drought, or crop failure. Yet more complex might be the overlapping factors of partial drought, flooding, ethnic conflict, and the aftereffects and displaced persons resulting from recent civil war. And more complex still, a country with active conflict, war zones, or governments that only grudgingly accept foreign NGO or UN presence. A discerning Christian realist likely has objections at this point. What is the likelihood of success versus the potential for unintentional harm? What are the competing costs and goods? And finally, what is the compelling national interest? The risk of dependency and other unintended consequences are not unique to humanitarian aid—all similar money transfers (charity, tax breaks, UBI, or otherwise) face this issue. Humanitarian relief responding to discrete, clearly defined problems caused by natural phenomena with clear exit criteria can, for the most part, avoid or mitigate risks of creating dependency. Manmade evil and overlapping social, political, and economic crises are less easily handled. The scandal of U.S. relief in Somalia in the early 1990s, where aid became fuel for violence, or the 2023 aid diversions in Ethiopia in the midst of the Tigray conflict, demonstrate that bad actors get a say too. Despite these complications, the possibility of negative outcomes does not negate all humanitarian intervention, especially when the good to be accomplished can be concretely demonstrated in verifiable human lives saved. Estimating these goods, costs, and lives is a difficult task, as is weighing the objectivity of humanitarian principles against national interest and ever-unsolved domestic problems. A Christian realist, though, would easily find an impossibly long list of undesirable expenditures to roll back before humanitarian aid reached the top of the pile. The strict trade-off between humanitarian aid and domestic issues is illusory. As Providence’s Marc LiVecche pithily put it, “There is no silly binary choice to be made between ‘bread’ or ‘bombs.’” Finally, despite having earlier said that humanitarian aid has more to do with the “Christian” side of “Christian realism,” there are in fact practical, non-altruistic reasons for some humanitarian interventions. The goodwill and soft power they generate provide access, information, and relationships with allies, as well as insight into potential friends and enemies. Targeted relief can act as regional stabilization and country-specific fire control, preventing issues from becoming worse or spilling across borders to more concrete interests. Immediate relief for allies facing natural disaster demonstrates U.S. capability and confidence. Employing America’s agricultural base as a global breadbasket is a form of international insurance against famine. It also buys, relatively cheaply, the best marketing a country could hope for: the primary interaction many in this world have had with the United States, aside from Hollywood, is a branded bag of lentils, or a health clinic with a weathered metal sign reading “From the American People.” That China and Russia are competing with the U.S. in the developing world for influence only makes the case for American soft power stronger. Ultimately, when it comes to government-administered international humanitarian aid, Americans must ask themselves: what is the point of U.S. global hegemony if not to make the world a better place? There will always be realpolitik considerations from now until the eschaton, and so to permanently disregard international aid as unimportant compared to military and economic matters misses that American power, hard and soft, is not an end unto itself but a means to express Christlike love across all of Creation.