>>>Clinton is right. I think the gradual democratization of the world over the past two centuries points up to that. OTOH, geopolitics is not a beauty pageant and I frankly don't think we should give too much weight to how the rest of the world "thinks" about us as long as we stick to our principles. As long as we're the first there in time of trouble, offering help, feeding vast populations, leading the fight against world disease and hunger I'd rather be unpopular and effective than otherwise.
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>>Do you really think the US is a leader in this respect? Seems a bit out of touch of reality to me.
>>http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_eco_aid_don_pergdp-economic-aid-donor-per-gdp
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>I then thought it must be much in the absolute, if the vast amounts of aid are tossed around as the gift to the world. So I clicked the link for totals, and got $6.9 billion (someone please check, I still can't believe my eyes). That's one order of magnitude below allowable clerical error in any civilian branch of government (HUD was defrauded for $59 and that was not persued), or about three orders of magnitude below the allowable unaccounted expenditures for DoD's subcontractors (i.e. more than a trillion evaporates and nobody is indicted; on the contrary, the same guys get the contracts next year, and the next).

The US ranks #4 on (absolute) economic aid, after the UK, France and Japan. There is much to be said about forreign aid BTW, esspeically on its efficiency.

>And that much aid buys that much cooperation, of course.