Introduction

Franklin Reyes/Associated Press

Earlier this month, The Associated Press revealed that in 2010 the United States Agency for International Development secretly deployed a social-media network in Cuba in the hope of bringing about political change. In testimony before Congress last week, the agency’s administrator, Rajiv Shah, denied that the program was a plot, saying “these programs are part of our mission to promote open communications.”

Is the United States justified in using assistance to promote democracy and other political changes abroad?