# What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress > Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more. URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/crs%3AR44313 ## Record - **Collection:** Congressional research report - **Document type:** CRS Report - **Published:** December 18, 2015 - **Citation:** R44313 ## Text What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress (name redacted), Coordinator Analyst in International Security (name redacted) Section Research Manager December 18, 2015 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R44313 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Summary Since 2001, successive U.S. administrations have increasingly prioritized efforts to build foreign security forces—particularly in weak and failing states—arguing that doing so advances U.S. national security objectives. In turn, the Department of Defense (DOD) has invested billions of dollars in “Building Partner Capacity,” a term that refers to a broad set of missions, programs, activities, and authorities intended to improve the ability of other nations to achieve those security-oriented goals they share with the United States. As a consequence, these efforts and programs have been a growing focus of Congressional attention. Many partner capacity building programs and activities have their roots in the post-World War II period, if not well before, yet today they are implemented more widely, and often with greater resourcing, than efforts prior to September 11, 2001. Indeed, building partner capacity was a central feature of the 2003-2010 Iraq campaign, and is a core component of the ongoing current campaigns both in Afghanistan to counter Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and in Iraq/Syria to counter the Islamic State. Recent events, particularly the battle between the Afghan government and the Taliban over Konduz, the inability of DOD-led efforts to produce more than a “handful” of anti-Assad, antiIslamic State (IS) forces in Syria, and the collapse of U.S.-trained forces in Iraq in the face of the Islamic State, have called into question—including in Congress—whether these BPC programs can ever achieve their desired effects. CRS surveyed the publicly available literature on the subject, and found the debate on the strategic effectiveness of BPC and related programs nascent, at best. While a variety of studies explore programmatic effectiveness, very few explore what the United States sought to achieve when engaging in a BPC effort, and whether or not doing so led to desirable outcomes. The increasing emphasis that the U.S. government is placing on BPC as a means to achieve strategic goals, combined with the paucity of the literature on this subject, prompted CRS to explore the historical track record of BPC efforts to help determine whether they produced outcomes consistent with U.S. strategic objectives. Twenty case studies since World War II were explored; each was grouped according to one of seven strategic goals that U.S. sought to accomplish. These goals included        victory in war/war termination, managing regional security challenges, indirectly supporting a party to a conflict, conflict mitigation, enhancing coalition participation, building institutional and interpersonal linkages, and alliance building. Given that U.S. leaders often argue that a BPC effort could help accomplish more than one of the above goals, determining what constitutes the “primary” strategic objective for a given BPC effort required analytic judgment. CRS organized the cases according to public statements at the time, with particular attention paid to how leaders described the purpose of the BPC effort. Effectiveness was judged based on two criteria: whether the strategic goal was achieved, and whether the effort produced unintended consequences that were obviously and meaningfully damaging to U.S. national interests. Within the case studies explored, BPC was least effective as a tool for allowing the United States to extract itself from conflict (victory in war/war termination). However, it was most effective as a tool for building interpersonal and institutional linkages, and for alliance building. Congressional Research Service What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Contents Introduction: Why Is Building Partner Capacity of Interest to Congress? ...................................... 1 Potential Key Issues for Congress ................................................................................................... 2 Explaining Effectiveness? ......................................................................................................... 3 What Is “Building Partner Capacity”? ............................................................................................ 5 DOD Activities That Build Partner Capacity ............................................................................ 5 BPC in National Strategy .......................................................................................................... 6 How DOD Executes BPC Strategies......................................................................................... 8 DOD and Congressional Interpretations of BPC .................................................................... 12 Is Building Partner Capacity Effective? ........................................................................................ 15 Rationale: BPC as an Exit Strategy from Wars ............................................................................. 17 Case Study: Vietnam (1954-1973) .......................................................................................... 18 Case Study: Afghanistan (2001-2015) .................................................................................... 20 Case Study: Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2010) ................................................................ 23 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 25 Rationale: BPC for Managing Regional Security Challenges ....................................................... 26 Case Study: U.S. Support to the African Union and the African Union Mission in Somalia (2005-Present) ........................................................................................................ 26 Case Study: U.S. Assistance to Mali (2002-2015) .................................................................. 29 Case Study: U.S. Support to the Former Warsaw Pact (1994-Present) ................................... 30 Case Study: U.S. Security Assistance to Pakistan: 2002-Present............................................ 31 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 33 Rationale: BPC to Indirectly Strengthen a Party to an Internal Conflict ....................................... 34 Case Study: The United States and the Philippines (1947-1953)............................................ 34 Case Study: U.S. Intervention in the Soviet-Afghan War (1980-1988) .................................. 35 Case Study: U.S. Assistance to Colombia (2000-2015) .......................................................... 36 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 38 Rationale: BPC for Conflict Mitigation ........................................................................................ 38 Case Study: BPC to Mitigate Conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995-2002) ................... 38 Case Study: BPC to Prevent the Re-emergence of Conflict between Egypt and Israel .......... 39 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 41 Rationale: BPC for Military Coalition Participation ..................................................................... 42 Case Study: Vietnam and the “Many Flags” Initiative ............................................................ 42 Case Study: Coalition Participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom............................................ 43 Case Study: Coalition Participation in Operation Enduring Freedom/International Security Assistance Force .................................................................................................... 44 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 44 Rationale: BPC to Build Institutional and Interpersonal Linkages ............................................... 44 Case Study: The Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (1995-Present) ............................. 45 Case Study: International Military Education and Training .................................................... 47 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 49 Rationale: BPC for Alliance Building ........................................................................................... 49 Case Study: BPC in Greece to Support NATO (1947-1952) .................................................. 49 Case Study: BPC in Korea to Support the United Nations (1948-1950) ................................ 52 Case Study: BPC to Build Alliances in the Former Warsaw Pact (1992-2010) ...................... 53 Congressional Research Service What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 54 Study Results ................................................................................................................................. 54 Effectiveness of BPC by Strategic Rationale .......................................................................... 55 Explaining BPC Success and Failures .................................................................................... 56 Potential Questions and Issues for Congress ................................................................................. 58 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 59 Figures Figure 1. BPC Effectiveness by Strategic Rationale in Cases Explored ......................................... 3 Figure 2. Differing Congressional and DOD Definitions of Building Partner Capacity ............... 13 Tables Table 1. Criteria for Judging Likely BPC Effectiveness ................................................................. 4 Table 2. Key Security Assistance Programs .................................................................................... 9 Contacts Author Contact Information .......................................................................................................... 60 Congressional Research Service What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Introduction: Why Is Building Partner Capacity of Interest to Congress? A number of reasons underlie a growing Congressional interest in the complex national security policy area that has come to be labeled “Building Partnership Capacity,” or “BPC.” First, since 2006 BPC has increased in prominence within U.S. strategy, arguably becoming a central pillar of U.S. national security and foreign policy in recent years. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, successive U.S. and Department of Defense leaders concluded that the traditional set of security assistance and security cooperation tools did not meet the needs of the changed strategic landscape. The term “Building Partnership Capacity” was coined in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. Since then, BPC has become a catchall phrase for a wide array of 1 programs, all underpinned by the assumption that strengthening foreign security institutions in weak and fragile states will have tangible positive benefits for U.S. national security. Activities in which DOD engages toward those ends include (but are not limited to): training, mentoring, advising, equipping, exercising, educating and planning with foreign security forces, primarily in fragile and weak states. BPC is also used to describe a core element of recent U.S. military campaigns—namely, training and equipping foreign security forces—in Iraq (2003-2011), Afghanistan (2001-present) and Iraq/Syria (2014-present). Despite the increasing emphasis on, and centrality of, BPC in national security strategy and military operations, the assumption that building foreign security forces will have tangible U.S. national security benefits remains a relatively untested proposition. This leads to the second reason for growing Congressional interest: neither the policy nor academic communities have explored in great detail whether or not Building Partner Capacity works to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. Recent events, particularly the battle between the Afghan government and the Taliban over Konduz, as well as the collapse of U.S.-trained and equipped forces in Iraq and Syria in the face of the Islamic State, have called into question whether these BPC programs can achieve their desired effects.2 Do BPC programs and activities actually advance U.S. national security interests? If so, when? If not, why not? This leads to the third reason for increased Congressional interest in BPC and related programs: fiscal oversight. The relative intellectual and programmatic ambiguity of these efforts make it difficult to understand what, specifically, the DOD is doing to build partner capacity in fragile states. Answering the question, “what is BPC?” is surprisingly difficult, as definitions of BPC vary across the U.S. government. This uncertainty, in turn, makes it difficult to understand what, specifically, DOD is spending on BPC and related programs. While Congress has authorized over $100 billion toward higher profile BPC missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria since 2001, DOD continues to execute BPC missions in countries around the globe. In some instances, components of DOD have begun augmenting its force structure in order to better conduct current and future BPC missions. As DOD budgets generally reflect inputs rather than outputs or outcomes, these BPC expenditures are difficult to identify and account for; this, in turn, creates challenges in determining whether it constitutes a cost-effective policy option. 1 Dafna H. Rand and Stephen Tankel, Security Cooperation & Assistance: Rethinking the Return on Investment, Center for a New American Security, Washington, DC, August 5, 2015, p. 2, http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/ publications-pdf/CNAS%20Report_Security%20Cooperation_FINAL.pdf. 2 See, for example, Rosa Brooks, “The Hard Lessons of Kunduz and Syria,” Foreign Policy, October 2, 2015, and Lawrence Korb, “Why the U.S. Military Can’t Succeed in Training Foreign Armies,” Reuters, October 5, 2015. Congressional Research Service 1 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress In short, despite the centrality of BPC in U.S. national security strategy and military operations, it remains unclear whether building the capacity of foreign security forces is an effective way to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives. It also remains unclear exactly how much DOD allocates toward BPC and related programs. These issues both individually and collectively present considerable oversight challenges for Congress, especially as it weighs the relative strengths and weaknesses of training and equipping programs in Iraq and Syria today as well as the need for future programs. The complexity of BPC and related programs makes analyzing these programs’ effectiveness a challenging endeavor. This report is therefore intended to accomplish two interrelated purposes. It first seeks to build a common understanding of what, exactly, constitutes BPC by illuminating the various ways in which different USG components define it. In so doing, it charts the evolution of BPC in national strategy documents since the term was first coined in 2006. With that intellectual baseline established, it then explores whether BPC has proven an effective means by which the United States has accomplished its strategic objectives to which such programs have directed since World War II. It concludes with questions and issues for Congress to consider. It is important to note that this is not an exhaustive study of all U.S.-led BPC efforts, which is beyond the scope of this research. This report differs from many other CRS products, as it is intended to assist Congress with its oversight responsibilities by helping it think critically about BPC and related programs. Accordingly, it raises more questions than it answers. Among the most important: are BPC shortcomings due to execution issues? Or are they due to BPC being an inappropriate way to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives? While RAND and CRS scholarship illuminates some criteria for judging whether a BPC effort is likely to be effective (found on page four), ultimately, there are no clear-cut answers at present; further analysis is needed. Potential Key Issues for Congress CRS research offers the following potential key takeaways for Congress:    “Building Partner Capacity” (BPC) is difficult to define. Since the term’s introduction in 2006, it has been used to describe DOD programs, a strategic rationale for building the security forces of weak and failing states, and broader DOD cooperative activities with a variety of actors, including the State Department, U.S. state and local governments, security institutions in foreign countries, private companies, and nongovernmental organizations. This report focuses on BPC’s use as a strategic rationale for building security forces of weak or failing states. Determining exactly how much DOD currently spends on BPC-related activities across its enterprise is difficult. This oversight challenge appears to have increased in recent years due to DOD’s increased emphasis on, and prioritization of, cooperation on security matters with other countries. Cooperative security activities, including those that build capacity in weak and failing states, are diffuse across the DOD enterprise, and therefore difficult to trace to a particular budget activity or line item. The conceptual and programmatic complexity of BPC activities has compounded the analytic challenge of determining whether BPC programs are effective. Therefore, this report takes a “back to basics” analytic approach to understanding BPC effectiveness by identifying what kinds of strategic goals the United States Congressional Research Service 2 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress sought to accomplish since World War II when deciding to build a partner’s capacity. These goals included  victory in war or war termination;  managing regional security challenges;  indirectly supporting a party to a conflict;  conflict mitigation;  building institutional and interpersonal linkages;  enhancing coalition participation; and  alliance building. This report examines between two and four case studies for each strategic-level rationale, for a total of 20 cases.3 The overall results are depicted in Figure 1 below: Figure 1. BPC Effectiveness by Strategic Rationale in Cases Explored Source: Congressional Research Service. Figure 1 suggests that in the case studies CRS researched, BPC efforts have been the least effective—relative to the strategic goal the United States sought to achieve—when used as a war exit strategy. BPC efforts have been most effective when used to build interpersonal and institutional linkages with other states and to build alliances. With respect to alliance building, several nations have, in a sense, “graduated” from being considered relatively weak and fragile states (particularly after the cessation of major wars) to strong U.S. allies; South Korea, Poland, and Japan are such examples. Explaining Effectiveness? The case studies CRS explored provide vignettes to illuminate questions associated with evaluating BPC activities rather than in-depth explorations. Perhaps the most critical of those questions is: why does, or does not, BPC work? Considerable debate exists in the policy and scholarly communities about why BPC efforts have a mixed track record. Two primary schools of 3 To determine whether a BPC effort was “effective,” CRS asked two questions. First, did the BPC effort contribute to achieving the stated U.S. goals? Second, did the BPC effort materially and obviously undermine U.S. interests in the long term? While it would be an analytic stretch to presume that failures or successes were a direct result of BPC efforts rather than other external or internal factors, one can make judgments based on the overall trends as to whether BPC meaningfully contributed (or did not contribute) toward accomplishing stated U.S. strategic objectives. Congressional Research Service 3 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress thought bear on this question: (1) those who blame BPC failures on execution issues, and (2) those who argue that, from a strategic perspective, BPC can never work. Although CRS research for this report was focused on whether BPC worked rather than why, our findings suggest that according to the case studies selected, neither explanation may be fully accurate. For BPC to be effective a host of factors need to be taken into account and many of these factors are beyond the United States’ ability to control. As a starting point, Congress may wish to consider the criteria below (see Table 1) when judging whether BPC is likely to be an appropriate tool toward accomplishing strategic objectives. Table 1. Criteria for Judging Likely BPC Effectiveness Factors Within U.S. Control What does the United States want to achieve? Is there a demonstrable record of U.S. strategic-level success in accomplishing those objectives? Are U.S. objectives clear and consistent across U.S. government (USG) agencies (e.g., State, USAID, DOD)? Are U.S. programs across USG agencies organized, designed, managed and executed in a coherent and consistent manner? Are U.S. programs designed in a manner that will actually benefit the partner in the short, medium and long term? Are U.S. programs executed consistently over time (measured in years rather than months)? Is the United States prepared to conduct the BPC effort over longer durations (measured in years rather than months)? Are U.S. programs designed and implemented in a manner that is coherent with international community efforts? Factors Outside U.S. Control Are U.S. and partner interests aligned in the short, medium, and long term? If not, can the United States mitigate risks associated with diverging interests? If so, how? Does the partner have legitimate institutions of governance and effective political structures? Has the partner invested its own funds or other resources to build its security capacity? In other words, has it demonstrated it has “skin in the game?” Does the partner have sufficient systems and processes in place to translate U.S. assistance into durable capabilities? Do key actors in the international community support U.S. strategy? Are their efforts reinforcing those of the United States? Source: The RAND Corporation and CRS. CRS research points to the following additional observations:   A common denominator in most of the successful cases is that the recipient of assistance was a legitimate, relatively effective institution of governance. Many of the least effective BPC efforts were conducted either during conflicts and wars (situations in which governance is contested by opposing parties) or in countries where legitimate governance was relatively nascent. Further, corruption and graft in a partner can significantly inhibit BPC effectiveness. Little evidence exists to suggest that BPC will be effective without a willing and capable partner on the ground. An alignment of interests between the United States and recipients of security assistance in the short, medium, and long term appears to be important for overall Congressional Research Service 4 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress   BPC success. This implies, of course, that recipients of BPC assistance are politically legitimate enough to formulate and articulate their interests, and execute their strategies accordingly. BPC programs may lead to unintended consequences that create new, often equally significant strategic challenges. For example, U.S. partnership activities in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War have been used by Moscow as a political pretext for interventions along its periphery. Partnership comes with long-term U.S. responsibilities that are not immediately obvious. Although the United States may build partner capacity to help partners help themselves, those partners are likely making a different, longer-term calculation. On the ground, accepting U.S. assistance is essentially making a de facto political and strategic choice that in some instances is tantamount to strategic alignment with the United States. This alignment can lead states to make assumptions about U.S. support in the event of a crisis that might not be in line with broader U.S. interests. What Is “Building Partner Capacity”? The breadth and scope of the different activities and programs that fall under DOD’s catchall term “Building Partner Capacity” (BPC) has made analyzing these programs—and their overall efficacy—difficult. This difficulty arises in part because the term “building partner capacity,” based on recent DOD usage, has been used to capture DOD’s wide variety of engagements with an extensive range of non-DOD actors. As a recent report from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) notes, “the term building partner capacity (BPC) has become a catchall for a wide array of programs, only some of which actually pertain to enhancing the capabilities and capacity of a partner’s military and civilian institutions.”4 Indeed, as a RAND study noted, BPC is more a “term of art” than a specific program or capability. Moreover, like many other terms of art, BPC means different things to different people.5 Regardless of how the term BPC is used, it is primarily associated with a fundamental assumption: that enhancing the security capabilities of partners in less capable, weak, and/or failing states will ultimately advance U.S. national security interests. DOD Activities That Build Partner Capacity Illustratively, in no particular order, BPC includes the following activities:   Establishing senior-level personal relationships between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Combatant Commanders and the Chiefs of Defense of other states. Holding bilateral military exercises like the annual African Lion exercise conducted by the United States Marine Corps and the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces. 4 Rand & Tankel, p. 4. Christopher Paul, Colin Clarke, Beth Grill, Stephanie Young, Jennifer Moroney, Joe Hogler, Christine Leah, What Works Best When Building Partner Capacity, and Under What Circumstances? (Arlington, VA: The RAND Corporation, 2013) p. 8. 5 Congressional Research Service 5 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress        Conducting multilateral exercises such as NATO’s annual Combined Endeavor communications interoperability exercises involving NATO Allies and Partnership for Peace countries. Engaging in multilateral military planning and discussion of capabilities development, for example as practiced by NATO allies and “Partnership for Peace” countries. Including foreign military officers as students at U.S. military schools, as well as the participation of U.S. military officers as students at foreign military schools such as the National Defense University of Pakistan. Training and equipping of foreign military and security forces. Fostering specific capabilities in a country or given region of the world, such as the maritime capability-focused Africa Partnership station. Preparing foreign security forces to participate in multilateral military operations, such as training Burundian battalions to support their deployment to Somalia as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia. Embedding advisors into foreign military and security ministries, such as in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan (plans exist to send advisors to Yemen, Indonesia, Botswana, and Ukraine). BPC in National Strategy6 The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (9/11 attacks) and the subsequent global war on terror provided the impetus for expanding DOD’s security cooperation and assistance tools under the rubric of BPC.7 The term “Building Partner Capacity” first came into use in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which argued, Long-duration, complex operations involving the U.S. military, other government agencies and international partners will be waged simultaneously in multiple countries around the world.... Maintaining a long-term, low-visibility presence in many areas of the world where U.S. forces do not traditionally operate will be required. Building and leveraging partner capacity will also be an absolutely essential part of this approach, and the employment of surrogates will be a necessary method for achieving many goals. 8 According to the 2006 QDR, BPC was, in essence, a maximalist interpretation and employment of a concept normally executed by Special Operations Forces when working with partner forces on the ground—“by, with and through.”9 Over time, BPC became a preferred, if not primary, 6 In 2013, the Obama Administration announced a U.S. Security Sector Assistance policy, designed to coordinate USG activities to build the capacity of those institutions within partner nations that promote security and the rule of law. BPC, to include security cooperation and security assistance activities, constitutes the DOD contribution to interagency security sector assistance. http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/ssa.pdf. 7 DOD initially used “BPC” to describe efforts the Department would undertake to strengthen its relationships with a wide variety of actors, to include state and local governments; other agencies and departments within the U.S. executive branch; nongovernmental organizations; private businesses; and the security institutions of foreign countries. See Department of Defense, Building Partnership Capacity: QDR Execution Roadmap (May 2006), p. 4. 8 Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review 2006 Report, February 6, 2006, p. 23 9 After the QDR’s publication, DOD issued an Execution Roadmap for Building Partner Capacity. In it, it argued that, “The nation’s strategic objectives are unattainable without a unified approach among capable partners at home and with key friends and allies abroad.... The Department of Defense requires a long-term, focused approach to build the capacity and capability of its mission-critical partnerships.” The roadmap defined BPC as “targeted efforts to improve (continued...) Congressional Research Service 6 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress means by which the United States could secure its interests—as well as a national security objective in its own right. As the argument goes, much like Afghanistan before 9/11, the collapse of fragile states into conflict zones could ultimately create areas in which terrorist groups could plan and execute attacks against the United States and its allies. As then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued, Building the governance and security capacity of other countries was a critical element of our strategy in the Cold War. But it is even more urgent in a global security environment where, unlike the Cold War, the most likely and lethal threats – an American city poisoned or reduced to rubble – will likely emanate from fractured or failing states, rather than aggressor states.10 Gates went on to note that, “in these situations, the effectiveness and credibility of the United States will only be as good as the effectiveness, credibility, and sustainability of our local partners… [BPC] is in many ways the ideological and security challenge of our time.” Over time, BPC became primarily associated with DOD’s activities to enhance the capabilities of, and cooperation with, international partners characterized by weakness, instability, or fragility. In the QDR reports between 2006 and the current 2014 version, DOD seemed to emphasize BPC as a concept distinct from traditional security assistance and security cooperation, with the latter more geared toward building linkages with U.S. allies. Together, the QDR reports could be interpreted to make the following distinctions regarding BPC:       BPC should help the United States maintain a long-term, low-visibility presence in parts of the world where U.S. forces do not traditionally operate (2006 QDR); BPC should focus on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations (2006 QDR); BPC should deal with threats that emanate from state weakness rather than state strength (2010 QDR); BPC authorities apply in situations without a neat divide between defense, diplomacy, and development (2010 QDR); Security Force Assistance (SFA) operations are an increasingly critical element of BPC (2010 QDR); and BPC includes improving partners’ peacekeeping and counterterrorism capabilities and applies especially in fragile states (2014 QDR). The 2010 QDR draws out the idea that the U.S. government widened its aperture when discussing when, whether, and how to build partner capacity. Rather than using “traditional” security cooperation programs exclusively to help its allies, the United States would help weaker states, thereby preventing conflicts stemming from non-state actors from becoming serious or even beginning in the first place. This approach could be seen as using BPC as a state-building tool for partner countries. In the context of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, though, perhaps the key phrase is using BPC to “reduce risk to U.S. forces and extend security to areas we cannot (...continued) the collective capabilities and performance of the Department of Defense and its partners,” and took a very wide approach to defining what, specifically constituted DoD partners. These included other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, state and local governments, allies, coalition members, host nations, and other nations, multinational organizations, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. 10 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Remarks as Delivered to the Nixon Center, February 24, 2010, http://archive.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1425. Congressional Research Service 7 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress reach alone.” Using this approach, this broadly conceptualized notion of BPC may be seen as a means of achieving U.S. strategic objectives at a lower cost without necessarily using U.S. military forces to achieve the same ends. Perhaps in response to events in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere, recent DOD strategy documents appear to be re-expanding BPC’s aperture. The 2015 National Military Strategy appears to link building partner capacity efforts both to counterterrorism (generally conducted in fragile states) and alliance/coalition building (a task normally applied to more durable states and U.S. allies): As we look to the future, the U.S. military and its allies and partners will continue to protect and promote shared interests. We will preserve our alliances, expand partnerships, maintain a global stabilizing presence, and conduct training, exercises, security cooperation activities, and military to military engagement. Such activities increase the capabilities and capacity of partners, thereby enhancing our collective ability to deter aggression and defeat extremists. 11 Altogether, BPC appears to have moved from a post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy applied to fragile states to a key means through which the United States seeks to accomplish “traditional” and “non-traditional” national security objectives. Recently, some scholars have argued that this emphasis on BPC constitutes a grand strategy in its own right—one of “sponsorship”—that counsels strategic patience and working with partners to achieve mutual objectives. As their logic goes, “proponents of sponsorship strategies recognized that they are likely to achieve acceptable results at a lower cost and with greater long-term legitimacy to the policy being implemented.”12 How DOD Executes BPC Strategies Programmatically speaking, within the DOD context, BPC is most frequently associated with security cooperation and security assistance programs administered by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DCSA).13 According to DOD Directive 5105.65, DSCA: Under the authority, direction and control of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD(P)) directs, administers and provides DOD-wide guidance to the DOD components and DOD representatives to U.S. missions abroad for the execution of DOD security assistance and security cooperation programs over which DSCA has responsibility. 14 According to DSCA, security cooperation refers to those activities undertaken by the Department of Defense to encourage and enable international partners to work with the United States to achieve strategic objectives. It includes all DOD interactions with foreign defense and security establishments, including all DOD-administered security assistance programs that (1) build defense and security relationships that promote specific U.S. security interests, including all international armaments cooperation activities and security assistance activities; (2) develop allied and friendly military capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations; and (3) 11 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, The National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2015: The United States Military’s Contribution to National Security, June 2015, p. 9, http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/ Publications/2015_National_Military_Strategy.pdf. 12 Peter Dombrowsky and Simon Reich, “The Strategy of Sponsorship,” Survival (57:5, October-November 2015) p. 123. 13 Other related programs are managed by the State Department, as directed in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended. 14 Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency Directive 5105.65, October 26, 2012, p. 1. Congressional Research Service 8 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress provide U.S. forces with peacetime and contingency access to host nations.15 Security cooperation is a core aspect of DOD’s key planning processes, to include the Guidance for the Employment of the Force and Guidance for the Development of the Force.16 Security assistance, by contrast, is defined as a group of programs authorized by Title 22 of the U.S. Code, as amended, or other related statutes by which the United States provides defense articles, military training, and other defense-related services by grant, loan, credit, cash sales, or lease, in furtherance of national policies and objectives.17 Security assistance is a subset of security cooperation,18 and BPC, in its current formulation, appears to be associated with those security cooperation and assistance activities designed to enable weakened or fragile states to manage their own security challenges. Although all DOD aspects of security assistance programs are administered by DSCA, the agency is not responsible for the department’s broader strategy and non-programmatic elements of security cooperation or building partner capacity.19 As with all federal agencies, DSCA allocates its resources according only to the authorities Congress has provided. The authorities associated with security cooperation and security assistance are often described as a “patchwork” of authorities and programs, only some of which are exclusively within DOD’s purview. Others are either (1) managed by the State Department, (2) managed by the State Department and executed by DOD (such as Foreign Military Sales programs), or (3) jointly managed by the State Department and DOD, requiring both departments’ concurrence to authorize specific activities. Table 2 depicts some of the key programs and authorities in the security assistance toolkit, including from where each program derives its legal authority. Table 2. Key Security Assistance Programs Program Major Security Assistance and Cooperation Programs Before 9/11 (“Traditional Assistance”) Legal Authority Foreign Military Financing (FMF) Title 22 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Title 22 International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INCLE) Title 22 Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) Title 22 Excess Defense Articles Title 22 International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance (ICITAP) DOJ program funded and authorized by interagency agreements with State, USAID and DOD 15 Department of Defense, DOD Policy and Responsibilities Relating to Security Cooperation Directive 5132.03, October 24, 2008, p. 11 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 11. 18 Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Security Assistance Management Manual, Chapter 15. http://www.samm.dsca.mil/chapter/chapter-15. 19 Within DSCA, a BPC directorate is tasked with managing and integrating a variety of security assistance and cooperation programs in a manner that advances partner nation capacity and capabilities through the provision of training and equipment, and includes a series of Title 10 humanitarian-based programs that provide DOD with the ability to accomplish national security objectives through military-civilian engagement. Congressional Research Service 9 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Program Major Global Security Assistance and Cooperation Programs after 9/11 Congressional Research Service Legal Authority Cooperative Threat Reduction Title 10 Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs (NADR) Title 22 International Military Education and Training (IMET) Title 22 Counter-Drug Assistance (Two authorities: Section 1004, Section 1033) Title 10 Joint Combined Exchange Trainings (JCET) Title 10 Combatant Commanders Initiative Fund (CCIF) Title 10 Training and Education Programs Title 10 and 22, depending upon program Warsaw (now Wales) Initiative Fund Title 10 Train & Equip (Section 1206) Reauthorized as Building Capacity of Foreign Security Forces (Section 2282) Title 10 Global Lift & Sustain Title 10 Support to Foreign Forces (Section 1208) Title 10 Logistics Support to Foreign Forces (Section 1210) Title 10 Counterterrorism Partnership Fund (CTPF) Title 10 Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP) Title 10 Exercise-related programs (e.g., developing country combined exercise program [DCCEP]), Exercise-Related construction [ERC]) Title 10 Ministry of Defense Advisors (MODA) Program Title 10 Coalition Support Funds (CSF), including Coalition Readiness Support Program (CRSP)— technically reimbursement, not assistance Title 10 Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF) Pooled State/DOD Fund Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) Title 22 Complex Crises Fund (CCF) Title 22 10 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Program Major Country & Region-Specific Security Assistance and Cooperation Programs after 9/11 Legal Authority Afghan Security Forces Fund (ASFF) Title 10 Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF) Title 10 Authority to Provide Assistance to the Vetted Syrian Opposition (Section 1209) Title 10 European Reassurance Initiative Title 10 Asia Pacific Regional Initiative Title 10 Source: Dafna H. Rand and Stephen Tankel, “Security Cooperation & Assistance: Rethinking the Return on Investment,” Center for a New American Security, August 2015, p. 5. Examining Table 2, one could make two observations. First, after the 9/11 attacks, the number of security assistance programs proliferated. Of the 31 programs listed above 17 were created after 9/11, suggesting that the United States government believed that its traditional, pre-9/11 security assistance portfolio was necessary but insufficient to meet the challenges of an increasingly interdependent and complex world. Second, the majority of these programs established after 9/11 were additional authorities given to the Department of Defense, suggesting that DOD plays a greater role in security cooperation today than the one it historically played. The latter observation is borne out by the current manifestations of BPC across the DOD’s activities. Although the programs and authorities listed above are the focus of most analysis and discussion with respect to BPC, they do not capture the full extent of DOD’s activities and expenditures in this area. This is because DOD has integrated BPC—in its various guises and manifestations (security cooperation, assistance, foreign internal defense, security force assistance, and so on)—across a wide range of its operations and activities (see “DOD Activities That Build Partner Capacity”). In order to do so, different DOD components utilize a variety of funding sources. For example, according to a 2013 RAND study, rather than using DSCAearmarked funds for specific activities with partners, Most [BPC] programs are funded by other, less narrow [funding] sources, such as operations and maintenance funds. Examples include exercises overseen by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and military-to-military contacts, which are often (but not always) funded by Traditional COCOM Activity Authority. In each of these cases, DoD uses a specific authority to use its operations and maintenance funds for a given security cooperation activity. In some cases, these funds are then reimbursed, but more often than not, the security cooperation activity comes at the expense of another defense priority. 20 DSCA, with its relatively narrow mandate, oversees only a smaller subset of DOD’s overall BPC activities. This has financial oversight implications, as it is difficult to determine what, specifically, DOD spends on non-DSCA BPC programs. BPC is also beginning to manifest in force structure. One example is the U.S. Army’s initiative to build “Regionally Aligned” forces (i.e., augment its force structure to ensure that divisions and brigades both plan and prepare for operations to support a designated geographic combatant commander). To prepare U.S. forces to support a Combatant Commander’s area of responsibility, units are required to train and exercise with counterparts in the region and help build a partner’s 20 Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, Beth Grill, Stephanie Young, Jennifer D.P. Morony, Joe Hogler, Christine Leah, “What Works Best when Building Partner Capacity and Under What Circumstances?” (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation) 2013, p. 13. Congressional Research Service 11 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress capacity in the process.21 The Regionally Aligned Force concept is to be paid for by using a variety of different “pots” of money, to include Title 22 funds, Combatant Commander Funds, joint exercise funds, and special authorities such as the Global Security Contingency Fund.22 Looking forward, the Department of the Army is planning for a 25% increase in its security cooperation budget, which, according to Army planners, will have to be offset from elsewhere within the Army budget.23 The U.S. Army is also contemplating building new “Train, Advise and Assist” units within its force structure, ostensibly to better prepare itself to accomplish BPC tasks.24 DOD and Congressional Interpretations of BPC Comparing DOD and legislative perspectives on partnership strategy, important conceptual distinctions seem to exist between how the two approach BPC. In DOD, especially in the QDRs, BPC appears to be a strategic concept allowing the Department and the military services to rationalize and make sense of a wide range of potential missions and tactics, including fixing the security institutions of failed states, creating like-minded security partners, facilitating interagency cooperation, and, recently, shoring up deficiencies in allies’ defense capabilities for deterrence and defense purposes. DOD’s 2006 BPC execution roadmap, for example, places the “Strengthen Interagency Planning and Operations” task above the “Enhance the Capabilities of, and Cooperation with, International Partners” task, stating that the QDR recognized that the Department of Defense cannot meet many of today’s complex challenges alone. Success requires unified statecraft: the ability of the US government to bring to bear all elements of national power at home and to work in close cooperation with allies and partners abroad.25 In contrast, Congress, in legislation, has presented BPC as a narrower concept. The FY2006 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), P.L. 109-163, §1206, gave the President limited authority to direct DOD to “conduct or support a program to build the capacity of a foreign country’s national military forces in order for that country to (1) conduct counterterrorist operations; or (2) participate in or support military and stability operations in which the United States Armed Forces are a participant.”26 21 “Pacific Pathways” is how the U.S. Army is preparing its soldiers to operate in the Pacific theater. Kimberly Field, James Learmont and Jason Charland, “Regionally Aligned Forces: Business Not as Usual,” Parameters (vol. 43, no. 3) Autumn 2013, pp. 55-63. 23 Field et al., p. 62. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/Parameters/issues/Autumn_2013/5_Field.pdf. 24 Sydney J. Freeberg, “Army Mulls Train, Advise & Assist Brigades: Gen. Milley,” Breaking Defense, December 14, 2015, http://breakingdefense.com/2015/12/army-mulls-train-advise-brigades-gen-milley/. 25 Department of Defense, Building Partnership Capacity: QDR Execution Roadmap, May 22, 2006, p. 5. 22 See CRS Report RS22855, Security Assistance Reform: “Section 1206” Background and Issues for Congress, by (name redacted) . 26 Congressional Research Service 12 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Figure 2. Differing Congressional and DOD Definitions of Building Partner Capacity Source: Congressional Research Service Notes: This figure depicts the different definitions of BPC, as used by different components of the U.S. government. DOD tends to use BPC to describe both strategies and programs, some—but not all—of which are managed by DSCA. Congress, by contrast, in legislation tends to focus on DSCA-managed programs (in the white circle) when considering BPC activities. Figure 2 illustrates the difference of definitions between Congress and DOD when it comes to BPC. Congress tends to view BPC as a narrow set of programs (global train and equip and so on, as outlined in Table 2), managed by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. This definition is depicted by the orange circle in the middle. The white circle depicts DOD’s overall security cooperation activities that are led by DSCA - which include DSCA’s security, security sector, and BPC activities; the white circle depicts how Congress tends to view DOD’s role in security cooperation and assistance. However, as the Regionally Aligned Forces example demonstrates, in DOD’s view security cooperation, and by extension BPC, is much broader than those programs DSCA manages. The green circle depicts the wide array of programs, activities, and even force structure decisions designed to support the overarching rationale of building partner capacity. Essentially, DOD has infused BPC across its activities and operations, not just in DSCA-managed programs and activities. DOD does not presently capture the level of granularity necessary to identify the full scope of expenditure on BPC programs, particularly those represented in the green circle. Thus, identifying how much money DOD actually spends on BPC activities is nearly impossible at present. The final component of the diagram is the grey shaded circle in the background. This represents the use of building partner capacity as a strategic rationale in its own right, and is used as a justification for many of the activities captured in the other circles of the diagram. As the diagram suggests, the term BPC is used to represent a variety of different programs activities, as well as Congressional Research Service 13 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress the intellectual rationale for undertaking those activities. These varying definitions—alternately using “BPC” to describe ends, ways and means—add to the ambiguity surrounding BPC and therefore compounding the oversight challenge associated with these programs. Views are mixed regarding the efficacy of the “patchwork” system of security cooperation authorities. Some analysts argue that the ad-hoc manner in which these programs were formulated and executed created overlaps in some areas and gaps in others, leading program managers to find multiple sources of funding for a single activity.27 Others, by contrast, maintain that these overlaps create flexibility, allowing program managers to organize activities that are more tailored to their individual requirements.28 Regardless, successive administrations have sought to bring greater coherence to security cooperation and BPC efforts. Most recently, in 2013, the Obama Administration tried to make these programs and activities more coherent through Presidential Policy Directive 23 (PPD 23), which instructs national security agencies to improve, streamline, and better organize all U.S. security assistance and cooperation efforts.29 What Does “Building Partnership Capacity” or “Train and Equip” Mean on the Ground? Given that BPC is a term of art, a number of programs, capabilities, and activities fit under its umbrella. On the ground, this heterogeneity manifests itself in several different ways. The U.S Army, in its Field Manual 3-22: Army Support to Security Cooperation, outlines the main tasks that U.S. ground forces would use to conduct what it terms “security force assistance.” This is an operationalization of both DOD BPC efforts and congressionally authorized “1206 Train and Equip” programs. It also applies to more traditional forms of security cooperation, especially “Foreign Internal Defense” missions performed by Special Operations Forces. The mission to equip is often tailored to different situations in specific countries. Individual Training. In this task, U.S. forces train foreign security forces on “military occupational skills appropriate to their organization and equipment.” That is, U.S trainers provide individual members of partner nation security forces with basic instruction in how to shoot their weapons, move in a tactical environment, and communicate with members of their unit. This training may also involve instructing officers and leaders in principles of military leadership, as well as tactical mission planning and execution. Collective Training. In this task, U.S. forces train foreign security forces on “collective tasks at the battalion level and below.” That is, units (from a squad of approximately 10 individuals to a battalion of up to approximately 500 individuals) that perform the same type of missions (infantry, reconnaissance, logistics) learn to fight and conduct operations as a unit, increasing in complexity from squad patrolling to battalion-sized maneuvers. Staff Training. In this task, U.S. forces train the staffs of foreign security forces in their functions, encompassing “staff training from company level troop leading procedures through military decision-making at the task force level.” That is, staff officers and noncommissioned officers learn how to plan tactical operations and obtain decisions and guidance from commanding officers and noncommissioned officers in leadership positions. Such training could range from planning and synchronizing fires and movements in a platoon defense to coordinating company maneuver and artillery fire in a battalion-sized attack. Institutional Training. In this task, U.S. forces train the staff of a foreign nation’s “force generation structure and ministerial or departmental staff.” It may focus on force generation, budgeting, and oversight.30 While largely limited to Army and Marine Corps units (along with Special Operations Forces), the method of conducting basic military training and weapons training, moving along in complexity to unit training, is applicable to all military and security force “train and equip” programs. 27 Rand & Tankel, p. 3. Jennifer D.P. Moroney, David E. Thaler and Joe Hogler, Review of Secuity Cooperation Mechanisms Combatant Commands Utilize to Build Partner Capacity, Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 2013. 29 The White House, Fact Sheet: U.S. Security Sector Assistance Policy, April 5, 2013, September 15, 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/05/fact-sheet-us-security-sector-assistance-policy. 30 Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-22, Army Support to Security Cooperation, p. 4-6, http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/fm3_22.pdf. See also CRS Report R41817, Building the Capacity of Partner States Through Security Force Assistance, by (name redacted) . 28 Congressional Research Service 14 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Is Building Partner Capacity Effective? Despite the increasing importance and priority placed upon BPC by senior figures in the U.S. government, the assumptions that BPC is actually effective—and that the unintended consequences of BPC efforts are manageable—appear to have remained relatively untested. To the extent that BPC has been evaluated by government and nongovernment analysts, studies have tended to focus either on whether programs have been successfully executed (was equipment package X delivered to country Y), or on the difficulties of executing BPC programs due to the hodgepodge architecture of the security cooperation/security assistance enterprise. Arguments for or against the application of BPC strategies and programs tend to be anecdotal (it worked/did not work in country A; therefore, it could work/could not work in country B). Almost none of them systematically explore whether BPC programs achieved their intended strategic-level effects.31 Understanding whether, and when, BPC programs actually deliver intended strategic effects (as listed above) is an inherently tricky analytic endeavor. This is due to a variety of reasons. In the first instance, as a 2013 RAND study argued, data limitations, lack of assessments, and the long time horizons for partnership efforts make assessments of effectiveness difficult. In some instances, these dynamics are exacerbated by the fact that those institutions tasked with monitoring a given BPC program’s effectiveness are often those charged with executing the program. Furthermore, RAND observes that in some instances, program managers lack sufficient longevity—or institutional memory—to understand the efficacy (or lack thereof) of programs. The study also observes that the relationship between improving the effectiveness of security forces and reducing the necessity for U.S. combat forces to intervene is, “is not a straightforward endeavor.”146 Another analytic challenge pertains to what, exactly, constitutes a BPC effort. While Congress and the State Department tend to think of BPC as a relatively narrow foreign assistance tool, the DOD is de facto conceptualizing BPC as a strategy to address a broad range of challenges. Indeed, DOD is including engagement with foreign forces across the full spectrum of its activities—doctrine, organization, training, materiel, logistics, personnel & facilities (“DOTMLPF”)—which go beyond the more tightly scoped foreign assistance programs and authorities. A further complication to understanding BPC effectiveness is determining what, precisely, the strategic objectives are for a given program. Determining effectiveness requires understanding what the BPC effort was intended to do in the first place. BPC programs are, almost by definition, longer-term activities spanning multiple years, if not decades. During these times, events on the ground, as well as changes of leadership in Washington, often lead to strategic-level shifts of emphasis or priorities. While at the strategic level these are often shifts of degrees, on the ground this can have real resource implications—and therefore real impact on the overall effectiveness of the mission. Complicating matters further, rationales are often conflated with each other when justifying a particular BPC program or mission. For example, in Iraq, the argument for building Iraqi security 31 A noteworthy exception: Mara E. Karlin, “Training and Equipping is Not Transforming: An Assessment of U.S. Programs to Build Partner Militaries,” Johns Hopkins University Doctoral Dissertation, Baltimore, MD, September 2012. Surveying U.S. efforts in Greece following World War II, South Vietnam throughout the 1950s and Lebanon in the 1930s and mid-2000s, Karlin maintains that if the United States “gets deeply involved in the partner state’s sensitive military affairs, and if unhelpful actors play a diminishing role, then the partner state is more likely to establish internal defense” (p.2). Still, the United States seeks to build partner capacity to fulfill a variety of different requirements including, but not limited to, internal defense, which this study seeks to explore. Congressional Research Service 15 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress institutions was about alliance building (creating a stable Iraq that is friendly to the United States) as well as war termination (allowing U.S. and coalition forces to withdraw). Which goal mattered more? What were the resource implications of prioritizing one over the other? Without a solid strategic-level understanding of why these BPC programs were initiated, it becomes extremely difficult—if not impossible—to truly judge whether they were effective. Still, all this does not necessarily argue that an analysis of BPC’s effectiveness—relative to strategic-level aims for a given program—should not (or cannot) be undertaken. Given how many billions of dollars have been spent on these programs, a study of BPC’s overall efficacy is necessary, even if it only serves as a starting point for other, more in-depth analytic work in this area. CRS therefore sought to understand whether, at a strategic (versus programmatic) level, BPC has been an effective way to achieve strategic goals? If so, when? CRS reviewed the historical record and developed a list of objectives that the United States sought to accomplish through building partner capacity activities.32 This list included        victory in war or war termination, managing regional security challenges, indirectly supporting a party to a conflict, conflict mitigation, building institutional and interpersonal linkages, enhancing coalition participation, and alliance building. CRS then selected 20 case studies since World War II, organized by strategic rationale, to determine whether a given BPC effort had its intended strategic effect (an explanation of the methodology can be found in the text box below).33 While it would be an analytic stretch to presume that failures or successes were a direct result of BPC efforts rather than other external or internal factors, one can make judgments based on the overall trends whether BPC meaningfully contributed (or did not contribute) to the accomplishment of stated U.S. strategic objectives. Methodology: Determining BPC Effectiveness This report uses stated rationales for building partner capacity activities as its analytic starting point. This is for two reasons. The first is definitional. As described earlier in this report, the Department of Defense is increasingly using “BPC” as a term describing (as well as justification for) a broad range of military-to-military activities across the spectrum of its planning and operations (“DOTMLPF”). By contrast, Congress—as well as the State Department— understands BPC in narrower, programmatic terms that pertain to specific authorities in support of broader foreign assistance objectives. Because of these definitional differences, using traditionally defined security cooperation authorities and programs as a starting point for analysis excludes the broader range of activities in which DOD is engaging. This broader range of activities, which spans across authorities, budget categories, and time, is not neatly captured by programmatic or budgetary assessments; a more fundamental conceptual starting point is needed. The 32 Although “Building Partner Capacity” is a relatively new umbrella term, the “toolkit” comprises a number of programs and activities that the United States has conducted with relative frequency over its history. 33 Between two and four cases were explored per strategic-level rationale. Given that each individual case could fill multiple volumes, each case is a cursory “wave tops” survey. In other words, neither the case selection, nor the cases themselves, are intended to be exhaustive; rather, they are designed to help identify broader trends in the historical record. See the Appendix for an explanation of the research methodology. Note that NATO’s Partnership for Peace/Warsaw Initiative Fund is explored in two case studies because the participation in these programs was so wide that the strategic-level objectives varied significantly. Congressional Research Service 16 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress second reason this report uses rationales as the starting point for analysis is that determining “did it work?” requires understanding what “it”—in this case, a given BPC effort—was supposed to accomplish in the first place. BPC efforts exploring how effective these programs were, relative to the primary strategic aim they were intended to accomplish. Cases were therefore selected based on the major goals that the BPC effort intended to accomplish. All were selected from the post-World War II period and beyond, due to the fact that relatively reliable data do not exist prior to this time frame. Additional criteria for case selection included (1) significant U.S. participation in, or leadership of, the BPC effort, and (2) sufficient literature and primary source material discussing the effort, by which to develop a reasonably clear sense of how the effort progressed. To develop more generalizable analytic conclusions, between two and three cases were selected for each stated rationale (war termination, conflict prevention, and so on). Given that this is not an exhaustive history of BPC efforts, this report by necessity omits some BPC cases that scholars and practitioners might consider key. Those cases should be considered in future research. Determining the “primary” strategic aim is, of course, a somewhat subjective exercise, as rationales for engaging in a particular program are often conflated with each other. In those instances, the CRS team collaboratively determined which primary strategic rationale a given BPC effort was intended to advance based on the available historical record. Changes to those rationales over time, if any, are explored in case studies, as is the outcome of the BPC effort. “Effectiveness” was judged according to two criteria: (1) that the BPC effort accomplished its strategic objectives in the long term, and (2) that effects of the given BPC effort did not materially and obviously undermine U.S. national security interests in the long term. Case studies themselves are not intended to be detailed chronologies of a diplomatic relationship, military campaign, or program. Rather, their purpose is to situate BPC efforts within their respective strategic contexts, to understand how that context may have changed over time, and to understand whether or not BPC programs enabled the United States to achieve its objectives. The case studies therefore, by necessity, omit details in diplomatic—or military— relationships that may be important, but less salient for the purposes of this report. Furthermore, case studies are not intended to be audits of a given BPC program. While many BPC programs undoubtedly meet their programmaticlevel criteria for success, this report is more interested in whether BPC programs helped the United States achieve its intended strategic-level objectives – a heretofore relatively unexplored question in the academic and policy literatures. The following sections of this report delve into the case studies used to support the analysis in Figure 1. The sections are organized according to BPC rationale. After outlining the logic behind a given rationale (war termination, proxy warfare, etc.), each section explores whether those strategic objectives were met and concludes with an overall assessment of the efficacy of BPC toward accomplishing that rationale. Rationale: BPC as an Exit Strategy from Wars In many instances, the United States has built or expanded partner militaries with the goal of curtailing its involvement in wars. Particularly in those instances in which U.S. forces were engaged in a conflict, but with limited interests, the United States has dedicated significant resources to training and equipping host nation forces. As the logic goes, enabling a host nation and transitioning security responsibility from the United States to the partner creates conditions whereby American forces are able to withdraw. Put differently, at times the United States has sought to create an environment in which the level of conflict, even if it continued, could be handled by local forces, thereby creating a path to extricate U.S. forces. Further, as many senior officials argued during the counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, local forces and governments must ultimately be responsible for maintaining security after military coalition members depart. Thus, constructing durable security institutions has been a key component of post-9/11 military campaign strategies. In the post-World War II period, large-scale capacity building missions designed to enable U.S. withdrawal from a particular theater of operations occurred in three countries: Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Congressional Research Service 17 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Case Study: Vietnam (1954-1973) After World War II, the Pacific theater of operations became progressively challenging. Communists took over China and aligned with the Soviet Union, the situation in Korea was escalating, an insurgency was brewing in the Philippines, and anti-colonial movements were emerging in French Indochina. Fearing a communist takeover of the entire region, the United States began a modest military support effort in 1950, called the Military Assistance Advisory Group-Indochina (eventually renamed the MAAG-Vietnam). The MAAG was initially composed of some 128 personnel and had the narrow mission focus of sending military equipment to French and Vietnamese forces. After France withdrew from the theater of operations in 1954, the United States took on the responsibility of training and equipping the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Eventually, the MAAG became so significant in size and scope that it was the only U.S. military advisory effort commanded by a three-star general. Further, of the more than $2 billion in aid distributed to South Vietnam up to 1960, 80% of that aid was directed to military capacity building efforts.34 The efforts initially appeared successful; South Vietnam was relatively politically stable until around 1957. Eventually, however, the Viet Cong returned to the guerilla tactics it had employed against the French.35 The ARVN, with its conventional focus and insufficient manpower, was unsuited to waging a counterinsurgency campaign. By 1960, the United States began reconsidering the nature of its support to the Vietnamese government, in favor of a strategy that reflected its somewhat rudimentary understanding of counterinsurgency principles. In 1961, a “limited partnership” strategy was implemented, which expanded the scope of the MAAG to include advising ARVN counterparts down to the battalion level and in each provincial capital. Furthermore, beginning in 1962, the United States and the ARVN engaged in a “Strategic Hamlet” program intended to pacify the local population by providing security as well as improving Vietnamese lives economically, politically, socially, and culturally. Unfortunately, according to the Pentagon Papers, the Strategic Hamlet program failed in its objectives: The Strategic Hamlet Program soon became the unifying vehicle to express the pacification process. The theory was that of physical security first, then government programs to develop popular allegiance. The fact was over-expansion, counter-productive coercion in some areas, widespread mismanagement, and dishonesty.36 Ultimately, the American expectation at the time was that the government of Vietnam would reform itself to eradicate local concerns about injustice that were breathing life into the insurgency in the first place. The latter did not take place. Challenges of Executing BPC Programs During the Vietnam War The Pentagon Papers—the name of a secret study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945-1967 commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara—identifies several execution issues associated with U.S. BPC efforts: U.S. “mirror imaging.” The United States focused on training a conventionally oriented ARVN force capable of repelling an overt invasion by North Vietnam, despite the fact that intelligence assessments suggested that an overwhelming conventional attack from the north was unlikely.37 34 National Archives, Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force (The Pentagon Papers), Part IV, B-3, p. ii. 35 http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/comm-control/ch01.htm. 36 National Archives, Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force (The Pentagon Papers), Part IV, B-3, p. v. 37 Ibid, part IV, A-4, p. 1.1 Congressional Research Service 18 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Insufficient attention to “means” in strategy development. The decision to undertake and enhance the training mission was largely political, without due consideration of resource and capability limitations. Insufficient mission focus. The ARVN was in “extremely poor condition in 1954; its prospects were worse.” ARVN was tasked with internal and external security responsibilities that it was not capable of addressing due to resource and manpower limitations. Questionable host nation “ownership” of the mission. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, “Unless the Vietnamese themselves show an inclination to make individual and collective sacrifices required to resist Communism, which they have not done to date, no amount of external pressure and assistance can long delay complete communist victory in South Vietnam.”38 Lack of Alignment between U.S. and Vietnamese Interests. Other parts of the Pentagon Papers question the degree to which there was sufficient alignment of interests between the United States and Vietnamese governments. While “Diem [the Vietnamese leader] needed the U.S. and the U.S. needed a reformed Diem,” the papers note “It is a matter of record that he did not reform his government.... What remains in issue is whether he could have done so. If he could not, the U.S. plan to end the insurgency was foredoomed from its inception, for it depended on Vietnamese initiatives to solve a Vietnamese problem.”39 Source: National Archives, Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force (The Pentagon Papers), Part IV, A-4, pp. 1.1-5.1, https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/. After the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, U.S. attention on its BPC efforts were diverted; instead, the United States deployed additional forces of its own to escalate its campaign against the North Vietnamese. Eventually, a division of labor between the United States and its Vietnamese counterparts emerged, whereby the former took responsibility for offensive operations against North Vietnamese forces, and the latter focused on internal pacification.40 Exacerbating matters, the conventional buildup occurred without the commensurate fundamental reforms to the South Vietnamese government that had been, at least in theory, agreed. The United States found itself waging a counterinsurgency campaign on behalf of a partner that was increasingly at odds with its own population. Despite calls within the military to escalate the campaign even further,41 after the Tet Offensive— in which communist Vietnamese forces demonstrated their ability to mount surprise military operations in South Vietnam—and the election of President Nixon, the political tide turned against the war. Seeking to extricate the United States from the conflict, in 1969 U.S. strategy shifted to one of “Vietnamization,” that is, the progressive transfer of security responsibility from American to South Vietnam forces as a vehicle to allow U.S. military forces to withdraw by 1973.42 The training mission was therefore reprioritized to build the AVRN capability to a level sufficient to allow it to shoulder more of the military burden. In tandem, U.S. forces began withdrawing from Vietnam, backfilled by their ARVN counterparts. According to President Nixon in his November 3, 1969, speech: Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.… We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South 38 Memorandum for SecDef from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Indochina,” 17 November 1954, as cited in The Pentagon Papers, Part IV, A-4, p. 3.1 39 The Pentagon Papers, Part IV, B-3, p. iii. 40 Pentagon Papers, Part IV, B-3, p. vii. 41 According to Melvin Laird, General Westmoreland proposed raising the number of U.S. forces in Vietnam from 500,000 to 700,000. 42 Laird also describes “Vietnamization” as “de-Americanization.” Congressional Research Service 19 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. 43 However, two years after the withdrawal of American troops, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnam in 1975. According to former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird: Vietnamization represented a formula for withdrawing our forces with honor from Vietnam while supplying the South Vietnamese themselves with indigenous combat capabilities, provided they had the will and resolve to fight for their freedom. Time, however, was not on our side. The years of neglect of South Vietnam’s own combat effectiveness, and the limited time available for our withdrawal, made the tasks of Vietnamization formidable. In the end we bought some time for both Saigon and Washington to adjust to the painful realities of our not so much having fought the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, as having fought this war wrongly in the first place.44 In part due to the systemic problems in South Vietnam, as well as the rapid timetable of transitioning to a force unprepared to take on security responsibility, the strategy of “Vietnamization” failed to create a government capable of repelling the North Vietnamese after U.S. forces withdrew. Case Study: Afghanistan (2001-2015) In response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States launched an offensive in Afghanistan designed to eradicate the Al Qaeda terrorist group and depose the Taliban-run government, which hosted Al Qaeda on its soil. Subsequent to the initial military campaign, the international community met in Bonn under the auspices of the United Nations to establish an interim government for Afghanistan. The resulting Bonn Agreement outlined how the international community would support the newly created Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, to include providing security for the capital city, Kabul.45 According to RAND, the international community’s interest in immediately establishing an Afghan-led security presence was no accident: Coalition commanders … did not want a Bosnia-like long-term occupation of Afghanistan. Soon after the invasion, the blanket term “security sector reform” began to be bandied about in Kabul as the tool for extracting coalition forces. The initial U.S. plan for the Afghan Security Force was to co-opt existing ethnically and geographically based militias by providing uniforms and equipment while integrating them into legitimate government institutions. Under power-sharing arrangements, faction leaders became Generals and militia leaders became officers in the Afghan National Army (ANA), which initially numbered 50,000 troops. Yet this approach quickly proved difficult to implement, as “local 43 President Richard M. Nixon, November 3, 1969 speech. http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forkids/speechesforkids/ silentmajority/silentmajority_transcript.pdf. 44 Melvin Laird, “Nixon-Ford Defense Policy,” International Security, Vol 10, No. 2 (Fall, 1985) p. 11. 45 United Nations, Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Reestablishment of Permanent Government Institutions, Bonn, 2001. Congressional Research Service 20 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress politics often trumped national interests during operations.” 46 The decision was subsequently taken in 2003 to build an ANA from scratch, with a target end-strength of 70,000.47 In 2003, NATO assumed responsibility for commanding the International Security Assistance Force. By 2006, it became clear that the Taliban—once thought to be on the retreat—had instead regrouped, orchestrating a series of “spring offensives” each year designed to challenge the reach and legitimacy of the Afghan government in Kabul. By 2008, the Afghan National Army endstrength was increased to 122,000. While problems existed with respect to attrition and overstretch, generally speaking the ANA was considered by Afghans to be a legitimate, respected Afghan institution. Still, forces opposed to the Kabul government grew in strength, necessitating the continued presence of U.S. and coalition forces. The Afghan National Police, by contrast, had considerably more difficulty becoming an effective security provider. At the time, DOD and Government Accountability Office (GAO) officials determined that the police had significant shortcomings; in 2008, no ANP units were capable of performing their security responsibilities.48 Several months after the inauguration of President Obama, the White House conducted a strategic-level review of the mission in Afghanistan. Ultimately, the United States departed slightly from the Bonn strategy by recalibrating its strategic objectives for Afghanistan and Pakistan to focus on the “core” goal to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”49 In his address to the nation, President Obama noted: At the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan security forces, so that they can eventually take the lead in securing their own country. That’s how we will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security, and how we will ultimately be able to bring our troops home (CRS emphasis added).50 In 2010, at the Lisbon Summit, NATO Allies, ISAF partners, and the Afghan government agreed to a plan to transition security responsibility to Afghan security forces and ensure they were in the lead by 2014: The process of transition to full Afghan security responsibility and leadership in some provinces and districts is on track to begin in early 2011, following a joint Afghan and NATO/ISAF assessment and decision. Transition will be conditions-based, not calendardriven, and will not equate to withdrawal of ISAF-troops. Looking to the end of 2014, Afghan forces will be assuming full responsibility for security across the whole of Afghanistan (CRS emphasis added).51 According to the plan, on December 31, 2014, the ISAF mission ended; on January 1, 2015, the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission (RSM) began. This mission change signaled NATO’s transition from a combat role to that of training, advising, and assisting Afghan forces. Simultaneously, Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan (which to that point had been largely focused on conducting counterterrorism operations) was redesignated Operation Freedom’s 46 Obaid Younossi, Peter Dahl Thruelsen, Jonathan Vaccaro, Jerry M. Sollinger and Brian Grady, The Long March: Building an Afghan National Army, The RAND Corporation: 2009, p. 14 47 Ibid, p. 15. 48 Robert M. Perito, “Afghanistan’s Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform,” USIP Special Report, United States Institute of Peace: August 2009, p. 6. 49 The White House, “Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” March 27, 2009. 50 Ibid. 51 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Lisbon Summit Declaration, November 2010. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/ natolive/official_texts_68828.htm#afghanistan. Congressional Research Service 21 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Sentinel (OFS), with two tasks: contributing to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission and continuing U.S counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda. Presently, the overall U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan is approximately 9,800;52 some 6,834 of those troops are assigned to Resolute Support (the total multinational force’s troop strength is 13,223), while the remainder are assigned to Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.53 According to public estimates, approximately 500 of those are conducting day-to-day training with Afghan forces outside of Kabul.54 The end-strength goal for the Afghan National Police is now 157,000. As of April 2015, 154,263 of those positions had been filled.55 The goal for the Afghan National Army is 195,000, and the Air Force goal is 7,800. As of April 2015, 169,984 of the ANA positions and 6,533 of the Air Force positions had been filled. As of June 30, 2015, the United States appropriated more than $686 billion to combat operations in Afghanistan and $65 billion to programs supporting the training and equipping of Afghan Security Forces since 2001.56 On August 26, 2015, Musa Qala, a key district in Helmand Province and a focal point for ISAF and Afghan security efforts, fell to the Taliban.57 In October 2015, the northern Afghan city of Konduz was temporarily seized by the Taliban. These incidents occurred against a broader backdrop of increasing instability. As the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) noted in his July 30, 2015, report, “conflict-related violence increased in Afghanistan as the ANDSF sought to contain insurgent activity whose intensification resulted in record-high levels of civilian casualties, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.” Further, “incidents per-day average was higher in this [reporting] period than in the same periods in 2014 and 2013.”58 SIGAR also reports that, “DoD and RS officials acknowledge that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has spread into Afghanistan, although they added that the group was ‘nascent and relatively small.’”59 The DOD itself notes that significant challenges to ANP effectiveness remain: The ANP continues to perform traditional policing as well as counterinsurgency operations in the face of significant casualties. Challenges remain in force protection, command and control, training, maintenance, medical, force management and personnel attrition, and corruption. 60 Although increased instability was, to some extent, expected to occur in the wake of the withdrawal of most U.S. and coalition forces, events in Konduz arguably necessitated a reconsideration of President Obama’s strategy to withdraw all but 1,000 troops by the end of 2016. On October 15, 2015, President Obama announced that he would retain 9,800 troops in Afghanistan until late 2016 and then 5,500 troops thereafter. A presence of 5,500 troops is 52 U.S. Department of Defense, Report on Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan, June 2015, p. 11. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Resolute Support Placemat,” June 2015, http://www.nato.int/ nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2015_02/20150227_1502-RSM-Placemat.pdf. 54 General John Campbell, Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, October 8, 2015. 55 U.S. Department of Defense, Report on Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan, June 2015, p. 86. 56 Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2015, p. 93. 57 Mohammad Stanekzai, “U.S. Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan, Taliban Grab District,” Reuters, August 26, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/26/us-afghanistan-attack-idUSKCN0QV13E20150826. 58 Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2015, p. 94. 59 Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2015, p. 96. 60 U.S. Department of Defense, Report on Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan, June 2015, p. 5. 53 Congressional Research Service 22 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress anticipated to cost approximately $15 billion per year, approximately $5 billion more than the smaller Kabul-based force was projected to cost.61 While it is difficult to assess whether efforts to train and equip the Afghan Security Forces have been successful, it is worth recalling the history of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Three years after the Soviet campaign concluded, the Moscow-sponsored government in Kabul abruptly fell in 1992. Case Study: Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2010) Shortly after the campaign in Afghanistan commenced, the United States turned its focus to Iraq. At the time, U.S. Administration officials assumed that the entire campaign would take between two and four years—a time frame predicated on the assumption that the regime of Saddam Hussein could be “decapitated,” leaving the rest of the government capable of assuming authority after an appropriate transition period. During the transition, an interim U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), in consultation with anti-Hussein Iraqis (both expatriate and local),62 would set the conditions to create a stable, democratic, and free Iraq.63 These assumptions were further amplified in military campaign planning at the time; U.S. Central Command believed that coalition forces would be able to draw upon existing Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and structures to help provide security before responsibility was transitioned to a new Iraqi government. By late 2003, training and equipping of the new Iraqi Security Forces was being implemented as part of a strategy to transition security and governance responsibility to the Iraqis. As President Bush noted at the time: Our strategy in Iraq has three objectives: Destroying the terrorists; enlisting the support of other nations for a free Iraq; and helping Iraqis assume responsibility for their own defense and their own future.... We are helping to train civil defense forces to keep order and an Iraqi police service to enforce the law, a facilities protection service, Iraqi border guards to help secure the borders and a new Iraqi army. In all these roles, there are now some 60,000 Iraqi citizens under arms, defending the security of their own country. And we are accelerating the training of more.64 (CRS emphasis added.) Efforts to execute this training program were somewhat fragmented in 2003 and 2004. While the Coalition Provisional Authority was responsible for reconstituting the Iraqi Security Forces, its ability to do so was stymied, at least in part, by a combination of a lack of resources and ambitious training objectives. In August 2003, the CPA directed the creation of the New Iraqi Army, with the goal of training and fielding 27 Iraqi battalions in two years—a goal subsequently revised to one year, likely in accordance with emerging plans to transition governing responsibility to the Iraqis in 2004. Meanwhile, efforts to create an Iraqi police force were called into question by the CPA’s limited resources. Military commanders at the time began establishing their own police training programs for their respective areas of responsibility, because CPA’s “throughput” of police personnel was not sufficient to meet immediate requirements. 61 Greg Jaffe and Missy Ryan, “Obama expected to announce new plan to keep 5,500 troops in Afghanistan,” The Washington Post, October 15, 2015. 62 OSD Policy, “Iraqi Interim Authority Implementation Concept—Summary,” March 30, 2003; OSD Policy, “Iraqi Interim Authority Action Plan,” March 30, 2003. 63 Donald Rumsfeld, “Principles for Iraq – Policy Guidelines,” The Rumsfeld Papers, May 13, 2003. 64 President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, September 7, 2003, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/ white_house-july-dec03-bush_iraq_speech/. Congressional Research Service 23 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress On May 11, 2004, President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 36, which streamlined the training of Iraqi security forces by giving responsibility for the effort to United States Central Command. Despite this improvement in the coherence of the ISF training effort— and despite the transition of governing authority from the CPA to Iraqi control in June 2004— violence across the country continued escalating. Recognizing the deteriorating situation, in November 2005 the White House issued a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” which stated: A “Security Track,” carrying out a campaign to defeat the terrorists and neutralize the insurgency, developing Iraqi security forces, and helping the Iraqi government: Clear areas of enemy control by remaining on the offensive, killing and capturing enemy fighters and denying them safe-haven; Hold areas freed from enemy influence by ensuring that they remain under the control of the Iraqi government with an adequate Iraqi security force presence; and Build Iraqi Security Forces and the capacity of local institutions to deliver services, advance the rule of law, and nurture civil society (CRS emphasis added). While the need to build Iraqi security institutions was never in doubt—it was always a key component of the United States’ exit strategy65—differences of opinion existed as to the priority the effort ought to have relative to other missions, such as counterterrorism and stability operations. As violence continued to escalate, voices inside and outside the Administration began arguing that the United States needed to prioritize the ISF capacity building effort more meaningfully. In early 2007, Congress mandated the creation of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq (P.L. 110-28, $1314 (e) (2)), which published its findings during September of that year. It concluded that: The Iraqi Armed Forces – Army, Special Forces, Navy and Air Force – are increasingly effective and are capable of assuming greater responsibility for the internal security of Iraq; and the Iraqi police are improving, but not at a rate sufficient to meet their essential security responsibilities. The Iraqi Security Forces will continue to rely on the Coalition to provide key enablers such as combat support (aviation support, intelligence, and communications), combat service support, (logistics, supply chain management, and maintenance), and training. The Commission assesses that in the next 12 to 18 months there will be continued improvement in their readiness and capability, but not the ability to operate independently. Evidence indicates that the ISF will not be able to progress enough in the near term to secure Iraqi borders against convention military and external threats.”66 By 2009, violence across Iraq had decreased significantly, and the ISF demonstrated some capability and capacity to take the lead for Iraq’s security.67 In the judgment of the Obama Administration, therefore, the United States could begin its withdrawal from Iraq, redeploying all its combat brigades by August 31, 2010. The United States completed its withdrawal from Iraq in December of 2011, at the conclusion of its Status of Forces Agreement authorizing U.S. troops on Iraqi soil. According to DOD and Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reporting, over the course of their involvement in Iraq, U.S. and coalition forces trained and equipped 65 Ibid. Center for Strategic & International Studies, Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, September 6, 2007, p. 12, http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/isf.pdf. 67 Starting in 2005, Congress required DOD to submit “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” reports on a quarterly basis (P.L. 109-13). Reports included assessments of the capability and capacity of Iraqi security forces. 66 Congressional Research Service 24 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress roughly 950,000 Iraqi Security Forces.68 The United States spent upwards of $815 billion on its combat operations, of which approximately $25 billion was allocated to the Iraqi Security Forces Fund.69 Although Iraq remained unstable after the withdrawal of U.S. forces, many leaders believed that the levels of violence were manageable. Yet rather than decrease—or plateau—in the years after the U.S. departure, violent incidents increased. Aggravating matters, remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq (a formidable adversary prior to the surge) reemerged after the U.S. departure. Furthermore, Syria descended into unrest, which then turned into a brutal civil war. These and other factors, including the exacerbation of sectarian divisions by the Maliki government, combined to create a uniquely challenging security environment. In in early 2014, the Iraqi Security Forces proved unable to repel the Islamic State. As the New York Times noted in June 2014: The stunning collapse of Iraq’s army in a string of cities across the north reflects poor leadership, declining troop morale, broken equipment and a sharp decline in training since the last American advisers left the country in 2011, American military and intelligence officials said Thursday. Four of Iraq’s 14 army divisions virtually abandoned their posts, stripped off their uniforms and fled when confronted in cities such as Mosul and Tikrit by militant groups, principally fighters aligned with the radical Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the officials said. 70 In August 2014, the United States began Operation Inherent Resolve, a coalition effort to build the capacity of Iraqi and Syrian forces while degrading its military effectiveness. The effort is currently ongoing; however, assessments regarding the campaign’s progress are mixed. Given that another BPC effort was initiated in 2014, the 2003-2011 training and capacity building effort in Iraq does not appear to have produced security institutions capable of managing local security challenges. Analysis Despite significant investments of money, time, and personnel, U.S. efforts to build partners’ capacity as a means to enable withdrawal from wars in which it was directly engaged did not prove successful in two—possibly three—out of three cases. In all three examples, the host nation forces that were to assume responsibility for waging a military campaign, in order to allow a U.S. departure from the theater, initially demonstrated some proficiency. Yet in both Vietnam and Iraq, those forces proved unable to secure their respective countries in the long term; in Afghanistan, the Obama Administration has chosen to retain almost 10,000 U.S. troops due to concerns about the ANDSF’s ability to fend off Taliban incursions. Execution challenges throughout significant portions of these campaigns were manifest in all three cases. Yet a number of scholars and practitioners have questioned whether strategic issues—namely, whether host nation and U.S. goals can ever be sufficiently aligned to enable a durable security transition71—were the root cause of these BPC challenges. These questions deserve greater analytic scrutiny. 68 Figure compiled by CRS using Department of Defense, United States Central Command, and U.S. State Department sources. 69 CRS Report RL33110, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, by (name redacted) 70 Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon, “The Iraqi Army Was Crumbling Long Before its Collapse, U.S. Officials Say,” The New York Times, June 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/americanintelligence-officials-said-iraqi-military-had-been-in-decline.html. 71 Rosa Brooks, “The Hard Lessons of Kunduz and Syria,” Foreign Policy, October 2, 2015 Congressional Research Service 25 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Rationale: BPC for Managing Regional Security Challenges The logic for this strategic rationale is that building the security capability of states might prevent, or roll back, the ability of terrorist groups and other hostile forces to launch attacks against U.S. interests or those of its allies. Doing so might also prevent the outbreak of hostilities among warring factions that might otherwise lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and/or U.S. military intervention, as well as empower nations to participate in regional military operations that might benefit U.S. national security interests. As President Bush argued in 2004, the world “must create permanent capabilities to respond to future crises,” in particular, “a more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious violence and ethnic cleansing.”72 The 2015 National Security Strategy builds on this logic, arguing that mitigating state fragility and preventing, containing, and resolving armed conflict are all in the national security interests of the United States.73 Thus, military-to-military engagements in this context are envisioned to be part of risk-mitigation strategies; a mechanism through which the local, “friendly” governments can be empowered to manage internal or regional security challenges with minimal U.S. involvement, if any. BPC in this context has therefore evolved into a set of programs and authorities designed to better allocate the security burden among concerned countries, particularly in regions in which the United States has less direct interests. These BPC programs to manage regional security challenges tend to be more preventive in nature; they are designed and implemented as a bulwark against instability rather than with a specific crisis or conflict in mind. As such, these programs are designed to strengthen partners’ ability to manage their own security responsibilities, whatever they may be.74 Case Study: U.S. Support to the African Union and the African Union Mission in Somalia (2005-Present)75 The African Union (AU), a regional grouping of all countries in Africa except Morocco, was established in 2002 as the successor to the now-defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU). Despite funding and capacity shortfalls, the AU routinely becomes involved in internal and interstate armed conflicts and political crises. Support to the African Union, and African peacekeeping capabilities more generally, has been a key component of both the Bush and Obama Administrations’ Africa policies. At the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in 2014, President Obama announced the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership (APRRP) to strengthen the crisis response capabilities of African forces. Since 2009, the United States has committed to provide over $1 billion to develop African peacekeeping capacity and strengthen African 72 U.S. Department of State, Address to the United Nations General Assembly by President George W. Bush, September 21, 2004. 73 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, February 2015. 74 Recently, Peter Dombrowski and Simon Reich have described these kinds of activities as a “Strategy of Sponsorship.” See, Peter Dombrowsk & Simon Reich, “The Strategy of Sponsorship,” Survival (vol 57, no. 5) OctoberNovember 2015, pp. 121-148. However, while Dombrowski and Reich describe a concept of employment for U.S. and partner forces, this paper is more concerned with whether those partner forces are effective. 75 Much of the material contained within this section is derived from work by CRS analysts Nicholas Cook and (name r edacted). Congressional Research Service 26 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress institutions. Further, the United States has trained and equipped more than a quarter-million African troops and police for service in UN and AU peacekeeping operations, many of which have ultimately been trained through the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI).76 Global Peace Operations Initiative According to the U.S. State Department website, the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) is a U.S. governmentfunded security assistance program “intended to enhance international capacity to effectively conduct both United Nations and Regional peace support operations by: building partner country capabilities to train and sustain peacekeeping proficiencies; increasing the number of capable military troops and formed police units available for deployment to stability operations contingencies; and facilitating the preparation, logistical support, and deployment of military units and FPUs to peace support operations.”77 GPOI was launched at the 2004 G8 Sea Island Summit as the U.S. contribution to the broader G8 Action Plan for Expanding Global Capability for Peace Support Operations. GPOI is funded through the Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) account, which is managed by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, although the U.S. military plays a role in implementing GPOI programs, particularly outside of Africa. During the first five-year phase of GPOI’s existence (2005-2010), the program focused on directly training peacekeepers; it met its goal to train upwards of 75,000 troops. While GPOI’s scope is global, the bulk of these troops have come from African countries. GPOI has since expanded its programs from the direct training of peacekeepers in many countries to helping partner countries efforts to build their own sustainable, indigenous peacekeeping training capacity. GPOI has also sought to expand its efforts to Asia, Europe, and Latin America. In addition, GPOI is the primary foreign sponsor of the Italian-run Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units, which uses Italian Carabinieri to teach constabulary policing skills to participants. According to the State Department, GPOI has facilitated the deployment of more than 197,000 peacekeepers from 38 countries to 29 peace operations around the world.78 Source: CRS Report RL32773, The Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress, by (name re dacted) . Although much of the U.S. assistance to African countries is bilateral, the United States has allocated significant resources toward building the capacity of the African Union to manage multilateral peacekeeping operations. To this end, since 2005, the United States has stationed a peace and security advisor at the AU headquarters, provided assistance to the AU’s Peace Support Operations division, given training on defense resource management and control, and supported training exercises to enhance partners’ interoperability. In 2014, the United States committed to delivering $70 million worth of equipment to African peacekeepers, including for AU forces in Somalia and the Central African Republic. With respect to East Africa, instability and conflict have plagued Somalia for over 30 years. After Somali dictator Mohamed Said Barre was ousted in 1991, power struggles among clans and warlords overtook the country. In an attempt to ameliorate the situation, the United States, under the auspices of the United Nations, deployed troops to Somalia in 1992. However, after forces allied with warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed shot down a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter and killed several U.S. Army Rangers, the United States withdrew from Somalia six months later. Despite attempts to form a federal government in early 2000s, Somalia remained unstable. A Transitional Federal Government, backed by the international community, was established, but it was rejected by many of the warlords and militias in Somalia. In 2006, the Union of Islamic Courts—with its militant wing, al-Shabaab (with linkages to al Qaeda)79—established control in 76 The White House, Fact Sheet; U.S. Support for Peacekeeping in Africa, August 6, 2014. U.S. Department of State, Global Peace Operations Initiative Overview, November 10, 2015, http://www.state.gov/t/ pm/ppa/gpoi/. 78 U.S. Department of State, Global Peace Operations Initiative Factsheet, November 10, 2015. http://www.state.gov/r/ pa/prs/ps/2015/06/243940.htm. 79 The U.S. National Strategy for Counterterrorism highlights East Africa as a region of concern because of al Shabaab (continued...) 77 Congressional Research Service 27 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress Mogadishu. By mid-2006, al-Shabaab had taken much of central Somalia, prompting Ethiopian military intervention with U.S. support in December 2006. In January of 2007, the African Union launched the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which quickly found itself embroiled in a brutal civil war. AMISOM supported the Transitional Federal Government on one side and al-Shabaab and the UIC waged an insurgency campaign on the other. Al-Shabaab and the UIC gained momentum among many Somalis, fed by historic anti-Ethiopian sentiment among Somalis and a lack of TFG capacity to secure its territory. As one scholar notes: The ongoing conflict produced an escalating spiral of violence, not least because Ethiopian, TFG, and later AMISOM forces were often heavy handed in responding to these attacks. The resulting collateral damage among the civilian population produced a huge wave of displacement (in 2007, 400,000 of Mogadishu’s population of approximately 1.3 million fled the city) and generated intense levels of anti-Ethiopian and also anti-American feeling.80 Through 2009-2010, AMISOM and al-Shabaab fought bloody battles on the streets of Mogadishu, with neither side achieving a decisive advantage. During that time, Al Shabaab conducted its first terrorist attacks outside Somalia, with simultaneous bombings in the capital of one of AMISOM’s main troop contributors, Uganda, in 2010. By 2015, al-Shabaab appeared to be in retreat—although still potent. U.S. strikes were responsible for the deaths of several key figures responsible for coordinating terrorist operations outside Somalia, and a number of other notable figures have defected.81 As of September 2015, the strength of AMISOM uniformed personnel stood at 22,126, comprising both troops and police. Along with the current Force Headquarters staff of 81, the military component has 5,432 troops from Burundi, 1,000 from Djibouti, 3,664 from Kenya, 850 from Sierra Leone, 4,395 from Ethiopia, and 6,223 from Uganda.82 With respect to AMISOM specifically, in 2014 the White House publically reiterated its commitment to “build capacity to counter al-Shabaab in Somalia and provide space for political progress. This includes predeployment training, provision of military equipment, and advisors on the ground.” Based on State Department and DOD notifications, CRS estimates that the United States has allocated more than $800 million in bilateral logistics, equipment, and training for AMISOM troop contributors since 2007, and almost $300 million for Somali Forces. The United States has also provided more than $500 million to the UN Support Offices for AMISOM.83 The United States also maintained a small contingent of military personnel, including Special Operations Forces. These forces were augmented by a small team of military advisors in 2013, known as the Mogadishu Coordination Cell. Given that Somalia is now diplomatically recognized by the United States, and that al-Shabaab’s territory has been decreased and its capabilities have reportedly been degraded, the White House (...continued) and its connections with al Qaeda. See http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/al_shabaab.html. 80 Paul D. Williams, AMISOM’s Five Challenges, November 10, 2015, http://csis.org/story/amisom%E2%80%99sfive-challenges. 81 Congressional Research Service. 82 The African Union Mission in Somalia Website, “Frequently Asked Questions,” October 15, 2015, http://amisomau.org/frequently-asked-questions/. 83 Statement of (name redacted) Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Hearing: U.S. Security Assistance in Africa, June 4, 2015. Congressional Research Service 28 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress views U.S. efforts to build the capacity of the African Union, and AMISOM, as a success. Others argue for caution, pointing out that AMISOM’s track record is more fraught than a cursory glance might suggest. First, after over 30 years of war, challenges to rebuilding the Somali state remain substantial. Islamist militants continue to control territory in some rural areas, making it difficult for Somali and AMISOM forces to secure main supply routes. Second, although al-Shabaab is degraded, it remains potent. It has continued striking targets in Kenya, and in late February 2015, it released a video on social media—in English—calling for jihadists to attack Western targets. Some analysts are concerned that al-Shabaab may sever its links with al Qaeda in favor of the Islamic State.84 Third, U.S. support for earlier Ethiopian interventions in Somalia arguably exacerbated local tensions, thereby fueling the conflict, and some analysts warn that civilian casualties during AMISOM operations could again alienate the local population. AMISOM itself experienced significant challenges during the course of the campaign. Coordination among troop-contributing countries varies by sector, and some of AMISOM’s military operations, by some accounts, are not directed by the central headquarters. Despite U.S. financial and training support, personnel shortfalls have plagued the operation, and participating countries are reimbursed for some but not all contingent-owned equipment.85 Some AMISOM troop contributors, notably Ethiopia and Kenya, reportedly conduct operations outside the auspices of AMISOM for which they are not reimbursed. Other observers note that despite U.S. assistance thus far, the African Union’s capabilities fall well short of expectations: [The AU] has glaring shortcomings when it comes to analyzing and predicting violent conflict, formulating military doctrine, planning peace operations, mobilizing and deploying troops, providing logistical support, ensuring effective command and control, and distilling lessons learned and best practices from ongoing and completed operations. Professional standards vary widely across troop contributors, interoperability remains uneven, and many member states are reluctant to participate in AU missions. Case Study: U.S. Assistance to Mali (2002-2015)86 The Malian government has received U.S. support for its counterterrorism efforts since 2002, in response to perceived terrorist threats from radical Islamists (e.g., the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which eventually renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM] in 2007). These terrorist activities led the United States to launch the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI)—a counterterrorism, military, and border training program for the Malian army, among others, in the Sahel. The PSI eventually became the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP), which integrated counterterrorism and train and equip support with development assistance and public diplomacy efforts. A separatist rebellion launched in late 2011 by members of the minority ethnic Tuareg community aggravated intra-military and political tensions in the country, leading to a military coup by junior officers in March 2012. The coup was led by Captain Amadou Sanogo, who had previously been a recipient of U.S. professional military education and training.87 Sanogo argued that deposing the democratically elected government was necessary due to its inability to handle the Tuareg 84 In October, 2015, a faction of al-Shabaab pledged its allegiance to ISIS. See Robyn Kriel and Briana Duggan, “Al Shabaab Faction Pledges Allegiance to ISIS,” CNN.com, October 23, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/22/africa/alshabaab-faction-isis/. 85 Williams, “Fighting for Peace,” p. 225. 86 Much of the material contained within this case study has been derived from reports by CRS analyst (name redacted). 87 Martin Vogl, “Mali Coup leaders partially reopen airport,” The Associated Press, March 26, 2012. Congressional Research Service 29 What Is “Building Partner Capacity?” Issues for Congress situation in northern Mali. Islamist extremist groups including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magrheb (AQIM), who initially reportedly fought alongside the separatists, took advantage of the ensuing chaos to expand their presence and eventually ousted the separatists to assert control over major towns in northern Mali. Malian forces, in turn, largely disintegrated and proved unable to reverse the territorial gains of these Islamic extremist groups.88 In January of 2013, France launched military operations in northern Mali to dislodge AQIM in coordination with other regional forces. U.S. security assistance for Mali was suspended between 2012 and 2013 due to the military coup, although the Obama Administration has slowly restarted some programs, focusing largely on security sector reform (rather than focusing on specialized training and equipping of Malian forces for counterterrorism purposes).89 On June 20, 2015, after nearly a year of peace talks mediated by Algeria, a coalition of northern separatist rebel groups agreed to a peace accord with the government and a rival set of loyalist northern factions. However, the underlying causes of Mali’s crisis have not been resolved, and security conditions have deteriorated since 2014. Islamic extremist groups launched attacks in targets across Mali in 2015; 90 on November 20, 2015, gunmen attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, killing 22 people including one American. Al Murabitoun, a Sahel-based terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) jointly claimed responsibility for the assault, possibly in coordination with other Mali-based groups.91 Despite post-9/11 efforts by the United States and France to train and equip Malian forces to counter terrorism, some have questioned whether these were sufficient in the wake of these attacks. As one Malian Member of Parliament noted, “we are not up for the fight against terrorism - we are not prepared enough.”92 Case Study: U.S. Support to the Former Warsaw Pact (1994-Present) At the end of the Cold War, the United States and its European allies sought to rebuild ties with Central and Eastern European countries formerly associated with the Warsaw Pact. In January of 1994, the North A [Text truncated at 120,000 characters. The full text is on the page linked above.] --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/crs%3AR44313. Public record. Not legal advice.