J. Michael Waller, Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy, is no desk pilot. He has been on the ground in some of the most intense situations the US was ever involved in, both officially and unofficially, from supporting the contras in Nicaragua to aiding the mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He watched the USSR collapse from the grounds of the Kremlin itself. And he saw for himself the good work that USAID once accomplished as a tool to spread the ideals of liberty and democracy abroad. But once the Cold War ended, the agency quickly devolved into a slush fund for Beltway ideological factions to promote their own agendas instead of the nation’s. Now, with the second Trump administration taking a figurative chainsaw to fiscally irresponsible projects, Waller details his dealings with the project and why this austerity policy is necessary to refocus USAID, and the government as a whole, on its proper policy targets.