Originally Posted by daniyalahmed

Foreign aid should never be availed.
Reasons :

1. There is a concept of "No free lunch in economics", by availing foreign aid, you jeopardize your sovereignty, integrity and freedom.

2. By taking money from external sources, you show, sign of weakness. Weakness is always exploited by enemy.

3. Accept death over foreign aid. Don't sell yourself. Take example of Pakistan, our resources were limited, right from inception, yet we entered into an arms race with India. Theoretically, we cannot compete with India. India has a population of 1200 Million as against that of 180 Million of Pakistan. India's GDP is 1.80 trillion, it's defense spending is 40 billion dollars and reserves of 200 Billion. What does this mean? India's population is 8 times that of Pakistan, it's economy is 6 - 7 times as big as Pakistan. It's reserves are 30 times, that of Pakistan. In simple words, if we engage with India, in a war, our reserves cannot last more then one week, while India has enough reserves to keep us locked in a conventional war. As far as nuclear war is concerned, we are 10 times, lesser in number, in nuclear warfare, death toll on Pakistan side, would be much highers, considering our lack of "strategic depth". Also, Pakistan is not naturally gifted. Balochistan, Sindh, South Punjab are veritable deserts. We have little resource. India on the contrary has one of the most fertile regions in it's domination. The result is that it can foot the bill of maintaining an army, whereas we cannot afford to sustain an army. Still, we have strategic concerns that warrant the maintenance of standing army. But how can we fund this army? Our major budget outlay is in defense. So, what to do? Remember, Soviet Union had more nuclear weapons, better aircrafts and a more ammunition then US during the height of cold war, but it's economy was fragile. US never landed any bomb in USSR, it simply let it implode. USSR kept on "investing" in arms, at the end, it was broke. Economic difficulties led to break up of Soviet Union. Weak economies, implode nations, a strong economy is a major pre - requisite for maintaining defense etc. Now, in order to fund our expenditures, we had to take loans, aids etc from US, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, but they always compromised our sovereignty. U2 incident during soviet era, clearly showed that we had become a client state of US. Now, even our leadership condemns Drone attacks, but they can't survive a day without foreign aid. End result, we take loans IMF, allow people like Raymond Davis, to roam freely inside Pakistan, kill people and then go away conveniently, we also allow US marines to enter deep inside Pakistan and kill Osama bin laden. What is this? this is called pawning.

Foreign aid, is generally obtained by countries, who have totally wrong priorities. Those countries end up broke and they are then exploited by other countries. Soviet Union, again is a classical example. By engaging in an arms race, with a weak economy, USSR imploded. Had Soviets realized, that they had little funds, they would have reformed themselves. Same goes for Pakistan. We have no schools, No Universities of international repute. We have exceedingly poor health care and education, but we invest in maintaining a huge military force. Poor education, means more talibans, relgious fanatics with little avenues of employment. These either indulge in anti state activities or take up robbing, looting and plundering innocent people. Both, ways people suffer. We have to realize, that we have to curtail our expenditure, stop reliance on foreign aid. How can we fight with india, when we cannot fight with poverty, ignorance and illiteracy.

I would like to summarize my points

1. Nations with skewed, distorted or outrightly wrong priorities end up in "misallocating" their resources.

2. Poor countries, have little resources natural or man - made. The first thing is to realize, that we do not have resources, then work for increasing those resources. For example, we are told that Pakistan is blessed with everything. This is parochial thinking at it's height. Pakistan is a desert. Only North Punjab and KPK are fertile. We have no oil and little gas is left. We have only one resource, that is human resource. We have lots of hands, that if "educated" and provided with skills can become productive resource. But, instead of focusing of education, we are more concerned with defense. Hence, we mis allocate resources. The net result is that we end up with foreign aid. Foreign aid means loss of sovereignty, loss of integrity and loss of repute. As a result, our defense, which siphons all our funds, is also compromised example, drone attacks, OBL incident, U2 incident.

The need is to realize, that foreign aid, means wrong decision making. Wrong decision result from wrong assumptions. Wrong assumption, result from wrong facts, wrong interpretation of reality.