Better a strong military than more foreign aid The Prime Minister has indicated that he is open to the idea of diverting hundreds of millions of pounds from the Department for International Development (DfID) to ease the impact of cuts on the Armed Forces. On paper, the proposal makes a lot of sense. Thanks to the Government's decision to ring-fence international aid from cuts, spending at DfID is due to increase by an astonishing 32 per cent in a single year, even as the military budget is being slashed. Shuffling money from a generously funded department to an overstretched one allows the Government to plug financial gaps while keeping its fashionable pledge to protect foreign aid. But the very need to rob Peter in order to pay Paul reflects the absurdity of ring-fencing international development in the first place. It was the product of a political strategy of rebranding the Conservative Party as compassionate as well as competent, but it has had decidedly mixed results. It is right in principle that Britain should spend money to help nations develop, but the abuse that occurs in practice is shocking. For example, the Indian government launched an Education For All programme designed to improve its schools. Britain poured £388 million of taxpayers" money into the project and DfID claimed that "remarkable progress" was made. But a report released by the Indian government in May 2011 revealed that £70 million of Britain's donation had been stolen or lost. Some went on officials" cars, some to schools that did not even exist. A paper released last month by the think tank Civitas catalogued the many abuses of the UK's generosity. It claimed that Britain's donation of £300 million to Ethiopia has been used by the regime to demand political support from its citizens in exchange for food. One third of Britain's aid is apparently swallowed up by the EU, which has used it to promote tourism in Iceland, finance a French tourist resort in Morocco and bankroll a Turkish TV station. Of course, much good has been done, too. But the Civitas report argued that the ring-fencing of foreign aid has given it the reputation of a "morally reprehensible con-job." Its recommended solution? To divert money from DfID to the Ministry of Defence. Such a move would be a welcome concession that the ring-fencing of DfID was a mistake. But it is no replacement for properly financing the kind of military that we need in a fast-changing, dangerous world. The deployment of French troops in Mali - with British assistance - has been a stark reminder that a strong military not only increases security at home, but can help those abroad in a far more direct and effective way than an inefficient splurge of foreign aid.