Opinion: Too Many 'Marshall Plans'

(Feb. 8) – It has become fashionable in foreign policy circles to call for a "Marshall Plan" to fix Haiti. The Haitian ambassador to the United States penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal calling for one. Ditto economist R. Glenn Hubbard in the Financial Times, as well as Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, in The Huffington Post.

And why not? The Marshall Plan, named for then-U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall's $88 billion (in today's dollars) assistance program to get postwar Europe back on its feet, is perhaps history's most successful example of an economic aid package. It implies action that is drastic and decisive, collective and can-do. The triumphant phrase is invoked as well to counter those calling for a more piecemeal or hands-off approach.

But the metaphor has been rolled out to remedy nearly every crisis these days.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, apparently unhappy with the multibillion-dollar check we just cut him, has called for a Marshall Plan for his country. Yemen's prime minister, Ali Mohammed Mujawar, in the wake of all the attention over the attempted Christmas bombing, also demanded a Marshall Plan to develop his poor country and counter terrorism. And ASEAN has dubbed its new development plan to spur greater regional cooperation and integration a "Marshall Plan for Asia."

Going further back, there was the 1990 "global Marshall Plan" for curbing pollution in the developing world. Last year the World Economic and Social Survey asked for a $600 billion Marshall Plan to combat climate change. And a new book on conservation, "Rewilding the World," calls for a "Marshall Plan for the planet." Somewhere out there someone is probably crafting a Marshall Plan for the moon.

A Marshall Plan of sorts may be what's needed for Haiti. But the trouble is the phrase grows ever more meaningless the more it is invoked (I'm pretty sure Yemen circa 2010 does not require the same resources as Europe circa 1948).

Instead of rallying the masses or spurring governments to open their wallets, this boy-cries-wolf buzzword is now met with yawns and glazed eyes abroad. It is a convenient talking point for taking swift and sweeping action but with no real intention of ever following through.

Worse, "Marshall Plan" has emerged as a trump card aid officials play to paint their opponents as do-nothing, cold-hearted misers, yet without considering the ramifications of such a massive dispersal of economic aid (few articles calling for a Marshall Plan outline in great detail how such an outpouring of aid would be monitored, much less paid for during a global recession).

Its use today also glosses over the fact that the original Marshall Plan was as much about boosting trade and spurring investment as it was about administering aid, and leaves vague what role the private sector should play.

Whenever the world's foreign policy gurus get fixated on a phrase recycled from the history books (e.g., calls for the "containment" of Iran), I'm always wary. There may come a day when a new Marshall Plan tantamount to the original is required to rescue a country or continent from post-conflict ruin – and Haiti, given its devastated status, may indeed qualify.

But unless we are willing to, yes, marshal the necessary resources, we do the world a disservice by crying "Marshall Plan" after every disaster or near-disaster.
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Lionel Beehner is a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations.