A First Responder to the World

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, providing humanitarian assistance to other nations forms an essential part of the U.S. military's mission. Designed to “relieve or reduce endemic conditions such as human suffering, disease, hunger, [and] privation,” the military's humanitarian tasks include such activities as assisting refugees, delivering food and medical equipment to partner nations, and removing unexploded landmines.1 But among the most recognized—and best publicized—of the U.S. Armed Forces’ humanitarian activities are its foreign disaster relief operations. In response to such recent catastrophes as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2011 tsunami in Japan, 2019's Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, and the 2023 earthquakes in Turkey, the Department of Defense launched extensive humanitarian operations. Taking advantage of the U.S. military's vast global footprint, military leaders dispatched ships and aircraft, service personnel, relief supplies, equipment, and other material and logistical aid to the scene of these crises and to many others like them globally.2 Carried out for the humanitarian goals of saving lives and reducing suffering, each of these foreign disaster aid operations also shared a critical diplomatic objective: “generating goodwill” for the United States and creating a “favorable impression” of its armed forces.3 Never purely altruistic, the U.S. military's responses to global disasters also function as a valuable instrument of contemporary U.S. foreign policy.