What About Us?
Allison Silberberg's Plain Talk
What About Us?
By Allison Silberberg
August 7, 2025
A friend recently lost his job at the State Department. He has expertise in counter terrorism and had worked at State for 12 years. He and the whole terrorism prevention team were fired from State. Read that sentence again. The whole terrorism prevention team is gone from the State Department. Poof!
On top of that, almost all terrorism prevention experts at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been fired as well. Really?
So does that mean that we no longer need these officials who work on terrorism prevention? Have all the bad guys suddenly become the good guys?
This is serious business. Very serious. Wake up, America.
While we sleep at night, many civil servants across the federal government stay up and keep watch. Many of them have been let go as the administration has fired legions of federal employees.
I would argue that we need them more than ever. So many federal employees have dedicated their lives to ensure that our homeland and our nation’s interests abroad are secure. We the people should never take that for granted.
While on a personal level, I am deeply concerned about friends who have lost their jobs, I am also deeply concerned about the impact on our national security and resilience. Clearly, there is now irreplaceable loss of institutional knowledge. How can we be safer when our terrorism prevention experts who focus on the rise of political extremism, polarization, authoritarianism, and hate groups have been summarily fired?
The Trump administration also dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
You may not think that the elimination of USAID is a big deal. Or you may believe that its elimination won’t have any impact on terrorism prevention. Or perhaps you believe the State Department was bloated. Here is what I believe: our nation’s outreach efforts abroad are crucial to a safe nation at home. A strong defense at the Department of Defense is buoyed by a strong effort from the State Department, DHS, and USAID, among other departments and agencies.
Soft power is crucial. When we give humanitarian aid, including food, water, and medicine, to other countries, it creates a bond of trust between our country and those in need. That is classic soft power, and it works. It is the right thing to do and exemplifies what it means to lead with a moral compass.
Now that we have ended our outreach efforts, China and Russia are already moving into areas of Africa and beyond where we had life-saving and humanitarian aid delivered by USAID.
This change is not in our national interest. USAID is the vehicle through which we have been providing aid to those in need around the world for 60 years. USAID made a critical difference. And now it is gone. Adults and children in Africa have already died as a result.
Our country has been serving a special role in the world in terms of humanitarian aid to those in need for decades, which further cemented our position as a world leader and expanded our sphere of influence. Humanitarian aid is part of our national security policies. In fact, the food that we sent overseas to those in desperate need provided American farmers with a stable source of income. Now those farmers are at risk.
One tragic outcome of dismantling USAID is the loss of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provided medicine for those with HIV/AIDS and was started under President George W. Bush. PEPFAR has saved over 25 million lives in Africa. It is considered one of President Bush’s greatest accomplishments.
Think of the enormous difference this one program has made in those African nations, thereby helping create stability for them, as well as forging alliances for us. That one program cost us relatively little but was a massive success. What a senseless decision. The Trump administration should never have cut PEPFAR. Just as fighting terrorism is not red or blue, PEPFAR is not red or blue. It is inconceivable that this vital, life-saving program was slashed. And PEPFAR is only one example of such a cut.
The greatest concern for all of us should be the impact of these cuts and what it means for the people in need on the ground and what it means for our national security and standing in the world.
We must connect the dots of these decisions. What is occurring is deeply disturbing. And it’s dangerous.
Just because the public could not see all that is being done to shore up our national security does not mean it was not there. To the contrary, it means that it was not always visible.
So what about us? What about all of us and our loved ones? Do we feel safer today?
Once again, the question is: what is the role of government in keeping our country safe?
We need an effective government, not one that is shooting from the hip and doing so without most of our terrorism prevention and national security experts. We have also lost our humanitarian aid programs that have helped countless lives and forged important alliances throughout the world. Has this made us safer?
Allison Silberberg is a writer and public affairs/public policy consultant. She served as mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, 2016-2019. Her work includes working on staff on Capitol Hill for Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen (D-TX). She is the author of “Visionaries In Our Midst: Ordinary People who are Changing our World,” which hit #1 on Amazon’s List for Philanthropy & Charity. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, on PBS.org. To learn more, please visit: www.allisonsilberberg.com
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