When any exceptionally bad dictatorship is in charge, a country fails and becomes utterly incapable of even providing food for its population. If this situation went on, millions would starve to death, the country would grind to a total halt and some form of revolution would be the sole outcome.
Providing food aid prevents the starvations but thus also prolongs the dictatorship.
Is it unethical to not be proactively giving aid, with the intent of letting a country’s government cause its own collapse?
The specific case I have in mind is that of North Korea, where someone expressed horror at my view that food aid should be stopped to North Korea (though NK should be allowed to purchase food at normal market prices - I’m not proposing an embargo).
The NK’s government’s current economic and commercial policies lead to mass starvation, which is currently prevented only by food aid (much of which is going to the Army anyway to stop soldiers from being unhappy). In this way, the West is prolonging Little Kim’s rule.
I suggested that letting his people and army starve is the only way to depose him without risking a devestating war, because eventually the starving masses, or someone with some power and influence who cares about them, will replace Little Kim with a more competent ruler. Either that, or the communist north will become so depopulated as to basically become incapable of functioning as a country.
A similar problemis occuring in Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe, who’s policies of seizing white-owned farms has caused agricultural output to plummet below that needed to support the population. Again, I expressed the view that only when his supporters starve is there any chanc that they will be dissatisfied enough to turn on him and replace him.