As we have been discussing, one of the assumptions regarding the effectiveness of “Disaster Diplomacy” is that the US wins friends and influences foreign government behavior by the disaster assistance it provides. What about the reverse? Do foreign governments expect a change in our behavior when they provide assistance to us?
And yes, other countries do send us aid. Let’s use the Hurricane Katrina response as an example. Within months, foreign governments had pledged no less than $854M in aid to the US, a circumstance that received almost no media coverage. Russia was one of the first countries to offer assistance.
In fact, most of this aid went unclaimed. The US generally accepted cash but rejected most goods and services. One offer they accepted ultimately turned into an international embarrassment. Some 400,000 MREs were accepted from the UK which then sat in a warehouse in Arkansas after it was learned they contained beef. UK beef was banned in the US at the time because of a mad-cow disease outbreak although UK troops were eating these same MREs in Afghanistan during this period.
The US report on Katrina lessons-learned stated that “the Department of State, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, should review and revise policies, plans, and procedures for the management of foreign disaster assistance.” Critics maintain that such fiascos constituted disaster diplomacy in reverse and adversely affected international relations. Is there truth in such views? Or is this politics as usual?
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