Last week, Rajiv Shah, the Obama administration's pick for USAID Administrator, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as part of his confirmation process. His testimony focused on the need to strengthen human resources at the agency as well as typical development challenges such as emergency relief, agricultural development and public health.  He did offer a few nuggets for the "development as security" crowd as well:

In particular, [USAID] need[s] to carry out effective development that addresses national security priorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq where the Agency's scale up must be executed quickly and effectively, and other priority countries such as Sudan.

The issue of USAID's growing role in stabilization and development activities in conflict zones was also addressed by Senator John Kerry in his opening remarks:

...we have to ask tough questions about whether USAID's growing national security mission is compatible with its development aims. For example, we must consider whether USAID can participate effectively in counterinsurgency and stabilization operations while maintaining a credible humanitarian presence, or whether these functions demand a new approach altogether.

The fact of the matter is that USAID is not doing a good job of promoting either security or development in today's conflict zones, as I noted in a post last week on the situation in Afghanistan.  Part of this is the nature of development aid generally: An influx of aid money, contractors/USAID staff and their security details often exacerbates corruption, thus frustrating development and undermining security. (Of course, the Obama administration doesn't appear to be paying attention to this well-documented phenomenon as it is planning a "civilian surge" to accompany the military surge in Afghanistan.) The other part is USAID-specific: U.S. development workers do not, for the most part, have the skills, manpower or security they need to carry out strong development projects in insecure environments. That is part of the reason why the military has taken over many reconstruction and development projects in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

USAID is not, at its core, a national security agency and the Obama administration should not seek to make it one.  A focus on aid as a tool primarily to promote national security not only overlooks how poorly aid tends to perform in this area but also draws attention away from actual core development issues such as global health and food security.  It's time to start thinking realistically about what aid can and cannot do.