The Limits of Security Cooperation by Peter Munson, War on the Rocks.
As the Arab world continues to unravel, violence re-escalates in Iraq, and withdrawal from Afghanistan portends, this appears to be a good time to consider U.S. security cooperation (SC) policy. Security cooperation is a cornerstone of U.S. defense strategy, especially as the Department of Defense looks ahead at attenuated budgets and force structure. Planners imagine that security cooperation is a force multiplier; a way to do more with less. At face value, it extends U.S. influence and enables and influences partners to foster and improve security in their region, forestalling crisis, and replacing U.S. presence with like-minded regional guardians of the international status quo. While the idea makes much sense in the abstract, once it collides with the messy reality of military institutions and domestic politics in the world’s most troubled region, it becomes sometimes comically, sometimes disastrously, out of touch with reality…
Comments
Scott, when I first read your reply I thought you were off base with your realism and liberalism framework for security cooperation, but upon further thought I think you're on to something that is quite important. I think Peter overstated the case that security cooperation is a failed endeavor, but it certainly could be much, much better with some relatively easy changes. Americans are right to question its effectiveness and wonder why we're spending so many tax dollars on it, but arguments can be made it works in many cases. That doesn't excuse our overall ineptness in conducting it as we do. I think most of the viewers have limited experience with this prior to 9/11, and no doubt our security cooperation efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan were and remain deeply flawed largely for the reasons you pointed out. We tried to create mirror image forces.
Roll back to the Cold War our security cooperation efforts were effective in decisive locations. Adjusting our security cooperation processes to adapt to current security challenges and working mostly with non-western nations is something we have failed to do. For example we confuse a counterterrorist capability with a nation's ability to conduct a strike with their SOF or SOF like units. This accomplishes little if they don't have the means to deploy those forces, have the intelligence capacity to target the terrorists, or the legal system and capacity to prosecute them among many other factors. Frankly a lot of what should be priorities today have little to do with traditional military skills. This is one reason I think the Army's regionally aligned Bde's concept falls short. They're not adaptable enough to adjust their training to fit the local culture and its requirements. They'll insist on developing a mirror capability that will most likely have little utility and it will be something the nation we're assisting can't sustain.
We need the flexibility to develop niche capabilities that are appropriate for the nation we're supporting, and a lot of these will cost little more than the per diem required to deploy trainers, or IMET to get their people in our schools. As for social engineering State Department hasn't gotten to the quota system yet, but they're pushing for X% of females to attend these courses, if their militaries hasn't accepted that yet. It won't be long before we have quotas for openly gay members for IMET if we keep going down this track, so you're right we're drifting further and further away from the pragmatic application of security cooperation.
Pete – thanks for this. As you are well aware, the fundamental reason for SC as it is currently envisioned is ideological – or for certain policy and decision making segments who have a certain world view.
The realism perspective (Mearsheimer) would still have us doing SC, but in a much more pragmatic way. The liberal worldview (as defined by Mearsheimer) is basically humanist. If we spend enough money, if we teach enough classes, if we impose a certain amount of semantic censorship and use the “right” words, we can change people in fundamental ways.
There are many problems with this worldview – but the biggest two are; first, this belief system is upheld despite the vast amounts of evidence against it; second, the entire endeavor of “helping,” “better,” and even “good” are awash in cultural relativism. Turning Western Al Anbar into Iowa, or Helmand into New Hampshire does not work…nor to lesser, more passive methods of trying to execute the same thing in SC.
The Egyptian Army is doing what it wants based on its values as it sees itself in its country – no matter that most of the Army is Western trained and educated. The Mali Army beats and rapes its own citizenry – and adding a powerpoint presentation on Western views of human rights is not going to change that.
I would put forth then that the SC conditions you so ably outline are, at root, the result of deeply held ideological, world views and belief systems held by the governing elite. You want to make SC better? We need to teach a one hour powerpoint to our decision makers…or maybe that won’t work…
Good article from Peter.
I've been meaning to post this Zia Mian piece for ages, mostly for some of the historical details. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions or the overall anti-nuke stance. But the details, how pleasing to read such historical information compared to a certain amount of "babyish" pundit writing on South Asia. And the various claims of this or that party abandoning the region or letting it remain on the margin are irritating.
All nations have to take care of themselves, no one is really singled out in this aspect.
www.princeton.edu/sgs/faculty.../zia-mian/Fevered-with-Dreams-of.pdf
<blockquote>Fevered with Dreams of the Future: The Coming of the Atomic Age to Pakistan</blockquote> - Zia Mian
The opening to the paper begins with the following quote:
<em>little attention has been paid to the part which an early exposure to American goods, skills, and American ways of doing things can play in forming the tastes and desires of newly emerging countries.
President John F. Kennedy </em>
A lot in this essay about American military training, especially in the nuclear realm. It will not make for comfortable reading but that is why it is important to read. No one in the region (or China, etc) trusts the US on nuclear non proliferation. This never seems to occur to US type foreign policy mandarins, one of the least self aware group of people on the planet.
So, capacity building is a tricky thing, it turns out, eh?
<blockquote>In addition to its role in planning the economy and advising the government, the Harvard Advisory Group (HAG) was also charged with training Pakistani economic planners. To this end, HAG members worked closely with their Pakistani counterparts to set up a graduate training program for Pakistani economists at leading U.S. universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The result was a group of Pakistani economists who shared the values of the HAG as well as an understanding of planning priorities. These economists became dominant figures in Pakistan’s economic decisions making for the next several decades. One of the most prominent among them, Mahbub-ul Haq, served as Chief Economist of the Planning Commission during 1957-1970 and went on to be Minister of Finance, Planning and Commerce from 1982-1988</blockquote>
Western elites at places like Harvard (and British or European universities) and elites in the South Asian region including Pakistan are so intertwined with one another one wonders if emotional factors are guiding some aspects of capacity building on both sides vice the needs of either party.
This goes triple for the US elites and the Saudis.