we had a civilian Agency that did development well and cooperated well with DoD elements -- it was founded to do just that following on to the earlier Marshall Plan, FOA and ICA organizations.

US Aid.

Unfortunately, it got subsumed into State under the Clinton administration and destroyed because it was often too good at what it did and was sucking budget dollars away from State. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the really rather effective US Information Agency were likewise emasculated at about the same time for pretty much the same reason. Madeleine Albright has a lot to answer for...

The required fix is to reconstitute US Aid and USIA as separate agencies and adequately fund 'em. Realistically, that's unlikely to happen for several reasons -- not least the venality of Congress. So, we're stuck in Neverland.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program...