A Different Path Toward Greatness
Cathy Nguyen, former USAID Senior HIV Strategy Advisor, on why greatness is defined not by what you take, but by what you give.
Cathy Nguyen is the Managing Editor of Global Development Interrupted. Her many proud and prior roles in the international development sector include Senior HIV Strategy Advisor for USAID, Country Coordinator for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Cote d’Ivoire, and Community Health Extension Agent for the U.S. Peace Corps in Mali.
There is something about the phrase, Make America Great Again, that always made me wince. It’s partly the underlying sense of hubris, the need to show the world how great the U.S. is, whether it be our economy, our military, or our ballrooms.
With this administration, it seems that a lot of making the U.S. great (again) involves threats, aggression, and bullying. Veiled and not so veiled threats if people don’t do “what’s right” or “the easy way”. Military and trade aggression that demonstrates both U.S. might and myopia. Bullying of a range of perceived foes and traditional allies when they challenge that march of greatness.
But there are other ways to demonstrate greatness - helping other countries be better versions of themselves, for instance. It’s what USAID used to do. It’s a powerful aspect of greatness, and of global engagement - but, apparently, strength to lift others up is not as great as strength to beat them down.
Moving from three dimensions to one
American foreign policy has long followed the approach of the three Ds: defense, diplomacy, development. American imperialism throws around its global weight through the first D, and the second D gets all the glamor, while the third D is where American humanity can provide a counterweight to the Machiavellian geopolitics of the first two.
In development work, Americans work hand in hand with host country counterparts to achieve goals that directly benefit the host country - not necessarily to advance the needs and desires of the U.S. Both USAID and the Peace Corps were President John F. Kennedy’s answer to Soviet influence, through a soft power, development approach. In both cases, the work meant Americans working closely alongside host country counterparts, eventually building something harder to quantify than military gains: trust and soft influence. Soft influence is probably not strong enough for the kind of American greatness this administration seeks.
The current administration only respects one D of foreign policy: defense. Their idea of diplomacy is to belittle other countries and their representatives, allies or not. Their low opinion of development work was clear when President Trump discarded USAID, while the Peace Corps remains grateful for the crumbs of funding that continue to sustain it.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made this plain following the U.S.-Israel airstrikes on Iran on February 28, declaring that the military operation would not be a “nation building quagmire, a democracy building exercise.” As if nation building and democracy building were, frankly, just a waste of time.
An ounce of prevention
This administration seems to believe that they can descend into a country (take your pick, they do), eliminate all obstacles to democracy through military action, and then leave the country for nation rebuilding to flourish organically among the citizenry. Nation building exercises serve a purpose. Democracies do not rise up on their own. In fact, at times, democracies and democratic institutions founder. We are seeing it happen in our own country: the inability to speak critically about the government without retaliation or harassment, the dismissal without cause of an entire Federal office. This reliance on one dimension of U.S. foreign policy without the balance of the other two, doesn’t eliminate conflict. It invites it.
In both Marian Ostertag’s conversation with Leah Petit last week and in mine back in September 2025, we intimated that USAID’s work served as the ounce of prevention to avoid the pound of cure meted by the Department of Defense and other agencies. The logic model was: if USAID helped countries fulfill the basic needs of their citizens - in health, education, civic rights, food security, personal security - then there would be less potential for the very crises the current administration claims to want to solve: unsanctioned migration, radical conflict, drug trafficking.
The intended spillover effects of any USAID project have almost always been about health, writ large: not just a healthy population, but a healthy economy, a healthy democracy, healthy infrastructure. To be healthy is to be well-functioning, productive - and self-sufficient. USAID worked to help countries be better, healthier versions of themselves, so they would reach the day when they would no longer need foreign assistance in their countries.
But if nation building isn’t an interest, then neither is health or self-sufficiency. So what was destroyed with USAID was not just an agency but a particular theory of power and greatness.
Greatness, Again
Development work is not often dangerous, like defense. It’s not usually high stakes, like diplomacy. But it’s difficult because there are no immediate gains. It takes the long view. Good development work requires patience, cooperation, and respect - traits that are not typical of the current administration. Or of young children.
The shuttering of USAID makes perfect sense when we consider all that came after. An administration uninterested in helping other countries stand on their own feet turns out to be very interested in something else entirely: taking.
Another characteristic of children, and of the current administration, is an unquestioned sense of entitlement. From Panama to Canada to Greenland to Venezuela to Gaza, this Manifest Destiny 2.0 demonstrates an embarrassing Take Take Take attitude that does not reflect the best of humanity, or of the U.S. This is not the kind of greatness I want to stand behind.
Which is why the other part of MAGA that I never understood was the need to make America great…again. The U.S. was pretty great to begin with. It has problems and weaknesses, as every country does. If it weren’t great, I - and many of my former colleagues - would not have chosen to work for a Federal agency that proudly delivered its work under the banner of From the American People.
In Marian’s episode, she mentions that her Department of Defense colleagues were consistent champions of USAID. They recognized the agency’s value. There are countless participants of USAID programs with stories of how the agency’s work saved their lives, changed their lives for the better. That sounds pretty great to me. The American greatness that USAID represented was defined not by what it took, but by what it gave, while quietly gaining in return. That is the U.S. that I want to make great again.
"So what was destroyed with USAID was not just an agency but a particular theory of power and greatness." This line in particular struck me. I recently saw Trevor Noah perform. Part of his set was talking about "soft power" and how many Americans have no clue just how impactful America's soft power is around the world. He gave examples such as musician Louie Armstrong and the ubiquitous "Happy Birthday" song. But he was also touching on something deeper, something GREATER in fact: our nation's ability to influence, to build trust, to gain buy-in through art, through relationships, through shared values and goals. That is the power and greatness that we fostered at USAID and that is what we lost when it was destroyed. Thank you Cathy for highlighting this!