A growing literature emphasizes the significant benefits associated with the provision of “global public goods” (see Kaul, Grunberg and Stern 1999; Kaul et al. 2003a). Like traditional public goods, global public goods are defined by the characteristics of non-rivalry and non excludability. However, global public goods have the additional spatial characteristic of extending “…across countries and regions, and across rich and poor population groups, and even across generations” (Kaul et al. 1999b: 3). Examples of global public goods include disease prevention; environmental sustainability; information; political, economic and social stability; and international communication and transportation networks. As these examples indicate, global public goods can be both tangible (e.g., infrastructure or the environment) and intangible (e.g., economic, political and social stability).

A central conclusion of this literature is that the concerted efforts of international organizations (the IMF, regional development banks, NGOs, UN, World Bank, World Trade Organization, etc.) and governments from around the world are required for the adequate provision of global public goods. This includes foreign interventions in the forms of foreign aid and foreign military interventions to correct “global public bads.”

There is an interesting dichotomy in the dialogue about the use of foreign assistance in the pursuit of domestic economic and strategic interests. It is clear that self interest and security arguments have often represented little more than cynical efforts to generate support for the foreign assistance budget. There have been serious efforts to examine the theoretical foundations of the economic self-interest argument. There have also been increasingly serious attempts to evaluate the economic and social impacts of economic assistance in developing countries. In addition to a large professional literature, the U.S. Agency for International Development has conducted and published more than 100 Project Evaluations, Evaluation Special Studies, and Program Evaluation Reports. The World Bank has an Operations Evaluation Department that engages in a major program of project completion evaluation studies.

The security rationale has not, however, been subject to nearly as rigorous theoretical or empirical analysis. 1 8 The single background paper on the effectiveness of military assistance prepared for the Carlucci Commission asserted a positive linkage between U.S. security assistance expenditures and security interests while admitting that the evidence to support the assertion is "elusive."19 This is not to suggest that empirical support cannot be provided to support the political and strategic self-interest arguments. It is simply to argue that, in spite of Huntington's assertion that the results of security assistance have been at least as successful as efforts to promote economic development,20 little convincing evidence has appeared in the professional literature on development assistance.