Senator Lugar's effort to drive home the point that the U.S. Armed Forces are a valuable, finite resource is well taken. The military can be a more valuable and flexible resource than we imagine, perhaps.

This weekend I met a co-founder of Give to the World, an NGO with a simple mission: "provide for families who need even the most basic human services and infrastructure for daily survival." This is perhaps not the area where one imagines a Marine and counter-insurgency specialist spending his time. But as I talked through Give to the World's mission with him, there was no doubt about his passion for meeting basic needs as an end in itself. What's particularly interesting is the organization's distribution network: the military.

In many areas of the world, it is too hostile for traditional Non-Governmental Organizations to assist the local populace. Give to the World is directly linking charitable contributions stateside with the men and women of the US and NATO Armed Forces serving overseas. From the hills of Afghanistan to the deserts of Iraq, your donation to Give to the World will defray the costs of shipping these goods to the people who truly need your assistance through the hands of the women and men in uniform serving on the ground.

Our mission also extends beyond these war-torn regions to other susceptible areas of the world where prosperity is fleeting and the opportunity to make a difference is enormous… before their situation also becomes one of complete desperation.

That last paragraph suggests the military's work in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere to preventively tamp down on the factors that give rise to militant threats. Let's be clear that that argument is nowhere an explicit driver for Give to the World's work on its site. But we have an interesting confluence of worlds here: private donations -- given strictly to ease the plight of the poor -- distributed by men in uniform, who happen to be located in the most dangerous and problematic areas of the world.

Welcome to foreign aid in the 21st century.