CRS Report on Building Partnership Capacity

The entire report can be downloaded here:  http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44313.pdf

Interestingly the recent Philippines mission is not addressed in the case studies.  The Huk Rebellion is covered as is Colombia.  Not saying the current Philippines should be one of the case studies (and I do think that the Huk Rebellion case is an important case study and I am glad it is included).  But in case anyone is interested here are three charts that put the recent Philippines mission (OEF-P) in historical context and contemporary perspective (from the Foreign Internal Defense (FID)  point of view).  But I do think that the current Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines mission supports the very important conclusion highlighted in the excerpt below. 

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."

It is interesting that FID is only mentioned twice in the report (excerpts below).  I think this is interesting because FID is a much broader mission than building partner capacity and security force assistance because by definition it is interagency and whole of government - training of foreign military forces is only one small part of FID - it consists of US government agencies support (advice and assistance) to a host nation's internal defense and development programs so that it can defend itself against lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism.

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CRS Report on Building Partnership Capacity

 

Extract: "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."

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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 DSCA earmarked 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. 

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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.

A very long read with a unique look at two cases.

This article explores the security and political effects of militia forces in Afghanistan and Mexico. From these case studies, it draws lessons for how to engage with militia forces more effectively and presents broader implications for U.S. foreign policy. In Afghanistan, building up militia forces has long been an important element of U.S security policy. In Mexico, anti-crime militias emerged spontaneously. Eventually, the behavior and visibility of the militias forced the government of Mexico to react to them, but the United States has not been involved with them in any way. Along many dimensions, the two cases are very different, and that is one reason why I chose such a compare-and-contrast pairing. Mexico is a middle-power country with a relatively strong economy, even though the state has been historically weak or absent in large areas, including those where militias are currently strong. In contrast, for several decades, Afghanistan has been a failed state or hovered on the verge of failure. For decades, Afghanistan has been caught up in insurgencies, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Only over the past decade has Mexico experienced highly violent crime. In Afghanistan, the United States and the Afghan government at least assumed that they could control some of the militias, such as those they actively recruited, including the Afghan Local Police, and steer some of the others that had existed, metamorphosed, and sometimes outright metastasized in Afghanistan since the late 1970s. At the same time, the Afghan government, the United Nations, and the United States have sought to disarm and dismantle other militia forces that came to be seen as particularly problematic.[1] In Mexico, the anti-crime self-defense forces emerged spontaneously without a direct and formal state effort to recruit them and without any nominal state control. Historically, of course, the Mexican government and military often recruited militias to fight insurgencies such as in Guerrero and Chiapas.

I would like to thank the author for saying this.  I would hope these two paragraphs could be committed to policy makers' and strategists' brain housing groups. 

The key assumptions of U.S. external assistance for such internal defense policies is that there is a sufficiently strong overlap between U.S. interests and those of the selected external partners to design and conduct anti-militancy efforts in a way that is consistent with U.S. objectives, and that such an overlap of interests can be sustained for a sufficient period. In other words, through internal defense assistance, the United States hopes to motivate external actors to deliver U.S. objectives without the United States being extensively sucked into difficult internal conflicts abroad and without having to sacrifice U.S. blood and treasure on a large scale.

Building partner capacity and assisting in internal defense are concepts much broader than simply standing up militia or proxy forces. Indeed, ideally, internal defense or partner-capacity-building efforts would focus on state military and police forces only and be fully integrated into an official strategy of the host country to undertake security sector reform (SSR).[7] The ideal conditions and design for such an undertaking include a post-conflict setting, without the presence of low-intensity conflict still simmering or increasing, and with U.S. security-aid programming focused on creating a legitimate monopoly of force for the state. Such an assistance program would be a comprehensive systematic effort easily lasting a decade or more.

Paper | July 21, 2015

The dubious joys of standing up militias and building partner capacity: Lessons from Afghanistan and Mexico for prosecuting security policy through proxies

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/07/21-afghanistan-mexico-security-policy-felbabbrown?rssid=u+s+military+affairs

By: Vanda Felbab-Brown

Introduction

After a decade and half of being involved in large-scale military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, the United States is increasingly looking for ways to prosecute its security interests with minimal involvement. The number and complexity of military conflicts burning in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia make large-scale military involvement prohibitive and potentially disastrous. Nor are desirable outcomes easy to achieve even when the United States is willing to devote large blood and treasure resources to such interventions. Yet allowing for large territories around the world to disintegrate into brutal conflicts or be dominated by terrorist and militant groups threatening the United States and its assets and allies may also be highly detrimental to U.S. interests. Increasingly, the United States has there embraced a strategy of building up the capacities of partners in such conflicts—preferably, those of national governments. But when national forces prove unable or unwilling to defeat the threat, such as in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Nigeria, and Somalia, the United States increasingly faces decisions whether to support (or establish) local militia and other irregular forces. Indeed, militias are back in vogue as a tool of U.S. security policy.

Building partner capacity and standing up militias may at times turn out to be the least bad of available policy options, and chosen as a last resort. The two approaches are not identical: Building up the official forces of a country allows for greater levels of accountability of the host nation to the donor and of the forces to their population than standing up irregular forces. Building up official partner capacity is thus clearly a preferable policy than embracing militias.

Nonetheless, both policies need to be adopted with a clear understanding of how limited their contribution will be to the prosecution of U.S. interests. Despite the seductiveness of the belief that in situations of limited U.S. engagement and resource transfers others will do for the United States what it is not willing to do for itself, a robust alignment of U.S. interests with those of its presumed partners will often be lacking. Instead, after a momentary intersection of interests, the United States could find its partners unreliable, having divergent interests, and prosecuting policies directly contradictory to those of the United States. Even when militias seem to be defeating the enemy du jour, they will have a tendency to go rogue and themselves become the source of long-term and deep-seated drivers of conflict. Partner governments may well pocket U.S. assistance and have a tendency to conduct policies to satisfy U.S. objectives only minimally while they use the U.S. resources for their own political objectives, including perhaps marginalizing or eliminating political rivals. Nor will the United States find it easy to extricate itself from such indirect interventions. Consequently, when relying on such proxies, U.S. long-term engagement, monitoring, and rollback capacities will often be necessary for securing U.S. interests.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/07/21-afghanistan-mexico-security-policy-felbabbrown?rssid=u+s+military+affairs

If we cannot get the highlighted line imprinted in our brains or at least tattooed on the inside of our eyelids we will never be successful at working through and with indigenous or host nation forces.  This is probably our single most problematic weakness with all the concepts of building partner capacity, train advise and assist, organize, train, equip, rebuild and advise, and yes even foreign internal defense.  We have spent the last 14 years believing we could organize and train Afghans and Iraqis and others and yet we have not learned from history and we have tried so hard to create not only militaries in our image but also many other institutions.  We have spent so much time coming up with new concepts with new names and variations on foreign internal defense that have NOT been built on the important history we should have learned long ago and instead we continue to conduct social experiments to try to create armies and governments in our image.  Until we understand and accept the sentence below we will never be able to work effectively with host nation forces.

Can the Iraqis readjust their army to better reflect culture and clan in time for the next offensive? Can the United States commit to an air campaign to rival Desert Storm? Can we provide enough moral and technical support to make all this possible by the beginning of the next campaign season in April and May 2016? I don't know. But I do know that history has been harsh to those who try to build alien armies in their own image. All the American firepower and "boots on the ground" will be for naught unless we allow the Iraqis to fight their war their way.

The Iraqi Army Can't Be Westernized

Arabs fight best in formations organized around familiar groups sharing more than the same national flag.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB12104187675579354294504581041941772488936

By  

ROBERT H. SCALES

June 25, 2015 7:10 p.m. ET 

42 COMMENTS

Twenty-four years ago, in June 1991, as American troops began to gear up to invade Iraq, I started writing and researching my book "Certain Victory," the U.S. Army's official history of the Gulf War. I spent nine months reading documents and interviewing soldiers ranging from private to four-star general. I asked one question of everyone: How did the U.S. defeat the world's fourth-largest military in only 100 hours of combat?

The universal answers from the soldiers: We fought with superior equipment, bought by the taxpayers during the Reagan years; our leaders overcame the malaise of Vietnam to build a new volunteer military; the revolutions in training and doctrine of the 1980s proved their worth.

All true. But as I started to write, I knew something was missing. One afternoon at my office I convened a roundtable discussion with some of the most successful operational commanders against Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm. I asked the same question and got the same stock answers. But then one general and dear friend of mine paused for a moment, looked into the air pensively and said: "You know, Bob, Arab armies really can't do this very well. Remember we not only fought an Arab army, we fought with Arab armies, and the Saudis and Syrians weren't any better than Saddam's Republican Guard."

It was a politically incorrect moment to be sure. But after watching nearly a quarter-century of history pass, I must conclude he had a point. T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) certainly knew this to be true when he ignored orders from senior British Army officers to make his Saudi Bedouin brothers into a proper conventional force. The Israeli Defense Forces have racked up four wins and zero losses in wars against Arab armies that tried to fight them with Western methods and equipment. Our march to Baghdad in 2003 lasted only three weeks and crushed Iraq's conventional army.

The stark consistency of contemporary history tells us several things as we ponder why the Iraqi military is proving to be so inept in its war against Islamic State. First is the immutable tenet that wars are human endeavors and that culture counts. Arab culture is based on family, tribe and clan. Thus it should come as no surprise that Arabs fight best in formations that are organically grown and organized around familiar groups that share more than the same national flag.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB12104187675579354294504581041941772488936