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5. Assessment and Program Design

With the increased Department of Defense (DOD) focus on building partner capacity (BPC) activities since 2001—ranging from routine, steady-state efforts to encourage democratic and competent partners, to the more extreme cases of Afghanistan and Iraq—most stakeholders involved in security cooperation are conversant with the basic lessons captured in the chapters in this volume. Each country is unique; solutions must be appropriate for partner-nation realities and should not simply mirror U.S. organizations and processes. The influence of external actors, including the United States, is limited; change will be driven from within. There will be actors who actively oppose change. Even when change is desired, it may require cultural adjustments that take time. External actors should have patience; trust and relationship building are essential first steps in supporting change processes. And while the military is important, it is just one tool that a state has at its disposal to achieve national security objectives and serve its citizenry; effective engagement on security issues requires a comprehensive whole-of-government approach.

Nov. 20, 2017

6. Strategy, Policy, and Defense Management Architecture

Defense institution building (DIB) activities help partner nations address gaps in how they manage their defense sectors. Ensuring that a nation’s defense management architecture includes a solid defense strategy and policy (DSP) framework is key to successful DIB initiatives. Effective strategy and policy are only achieved if a nation designates roles and missions for the defense sector and defense leaders, which can then be translated into defense guidance for planning and budgeting. Budgets not driven by strategy and defense guidance are at best, prone to status quo outcomes, and at worst, promote ineffective, inefficient, and corrupt flows of state resources. Good strategy and policy will also identify human resource and logistics needs. Strategy can then lead to analytically sound (ideally, “joint”) requirements for the defense sector to generate military units and operations—the ultimate test of DIB impact and partner-nation institutional capacity.

Nov. 20, 2017

7. Human Resources Management

Strategic human resource management (HRM) is a fundamentally important institutional capability for all defense organizations, and thus a key element of defense institution building (DIB). Although each nation manages its defense institutions differently, every nation needs its own overarching concept, along with policies, plans, and programs, to manage its security forces and the people in them. HRM combines with other technical elements, such as resource management and logistics, to form the pillars that support the overall administration of a nation’s defense sector. Successful strategic human resources (HR) systems provide not only for the armed forces themselves, but also for the organizations and institutions that support those forces. Absence or failure of this pillar would be a serious if not fatal flaw in a nation’s overall defense posture. Accordingly, partner nations have a significant interest in adapting and transforming their strategic HR systems to align with modern best practices.

Nov. 20, 2017

8. Logistics

Logistics is an elemental component of all military operations; it is not only a major function unto itself, but also a vital consideration in every other aspect. Logistics essentially undergirds operational capability in support of national security. Rear Admiral Henry Eccles, the seminal logistics theorist of the twentieth century, is credited with the idea that logistics sets the reach of the operational commander. While every commander and senior leader understands the importance of logistics, it is too often seen that a failure to consider, plan for, and resource logistics has resulted in diminished operational capability or even mission failure.

Nov. 20, 2017

9. Measuring and Evaluation

Defense institution building (DIB) seeks to produce relevant institutional change with partners by addressing complex problems in dynamic environments. In order to determine their impacts, these changes must be continuously monitored and their effects, positive and negative, evaluated. However, the methods and techniques commonly used for the monitoring and evaluation of security cooperation activities often prove inadequate to produce the information required for thoughtful DIB decisions. Further, information requirements differ between those necessary for the development and justification of DIB authorities, policies, resources, guidance, and programs (the “DIB Enterprise”), and the management toward DIB outcomes by programs and other implementers (“DIB Activities”). Evidence from measures at the activity level will heavily influence decisions at the DIB Enterprise level. In addition, measures to support monitoring and evaluation must enhance the effectiveness of DIB without over-burdening the limited capacity of the small footprint, high impact teams that carry out the work. This chapter will first address the role that measures play in DIB decision-making and the unique complexities of measuring in the DIB context. The importance of integrating measures into every aspect and phase of DIB will then be discussed, as well as what appropriate measures should be for DIB activities.

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10. The Security Governance Initiative

The White House estimates that between 2009 and 2014, U.S. assistance to sub-Saharan African militaries and police combined to total more than $3 billion.1 Of this total, the United States spent approximately $900 million on support to peacekeeping efforts alone. The U.S. government also provided approximately $90 million in foreign military financing and sold more than $135 million worth of arms.2 Despite these substantial expenditures and investments, the ability of African states to address their security challenges remains insufficient. Some African peacekeepers are falling short in peacekeeping performance; terrorism and other transnational threats impede human development in several parts of the continent; and African citizens often mistrust their police and military forces. When the fundamental responsibility of the state for the security and justice needs of its citizens is inadequately executed, the result is often increased insecurity and de-legitimization of the government.

Nov. 20, 2017

11. NATO and the Partnership for Peace

During 1989 and 1990, as the hold of the Soviet Union and the authority of communist regimes evaporated across the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allies attempted to make sense of this new situation. There was unease that the old certainties of the Cold War era were being swept away without any guarantees that their replacements would be more comfortable to live with. There was disquiet that the security linkage with the United States, through NATO, might no longer be sustainable or, at least, might be substantially more difficult to sustain than it had been. The complete dissolution of the Soviet Union was barely conceivable at that time. Allies were also wrestling with the complexities of extremely challenging arms control agreements, while also trying to define the wider role of the Atlantic Alliance in a Europe where the Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe and, subsequently, the European Union would also be significant political players.2 As they contemplated these uncertainties, the idea began to take hold that the Alliance had to provide practical assistance and institutional structures to support emerging democratic institutions and states in resisting the almost inevitable pressures that could emerge and drag them back toward the authoritarian practices to which they had been accustomed for a generation, or more.

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12. The British Experience in Africa and Oman

This chapter explores the British experience in defense institution building (DIB) through the examination of four case studies: Oman, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Sierra Leone. They are all set in the 60-year period between 1955 and 2015, the first 25 years of which was dominated by the British withdrawal from Empire. Throughout, there were severe budgetary pressures on defense expenditure as a result of periodic recessions, demands of the Cold War, operations in Northern Ireland, and more recently those in the Gulf, Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Thus, the overall approach taken to DIB was one of small-scale assistance to develop self-sustaining local capacity.

Nov. 20, 2017

13. Insights from the Development Sector

Development is big. It encompasses economic growth, but also social development through civil society, state-building (improving the capacity of the state to deliver services), and political institutions, including rule of law.1 New Institutional Economics (NIE) has changed how development practitioners think about growth and development over the past 15 years.2 NIE has shown that “how” people manage their relations through formal and informal institutions affects the efficiency and distribution of service delivery and the provision of public goods.

Nov. 20, 2017

14. Partnership: The Colombia-U.S.Experience

Strong security partnerships are not born overnight. They must be built on a foundation of shared goals, mutual respect, and understanding. The Colombia-U.S. security partnership is built upon just such a relationship, one that evolved over generations and spans multiple sectors. Although, in common with all Latin American countries, Colombia’s historical and cultural roots can be traced to the Iberian colonization of the Western Hemisphere, trade, diplomatic, and military relations with the United States date back to the early 19th century. The United States was among the first countries to recognize Colombia when it declared independence from Spain, receiving a diplomatic representative in Washington in 1822 and establishing its first diplomatic mission in Cartagena and Santa Marta in 1823. The first commercial treaty between the two young countries was signed in 1824, followed by a treaty of friendship and commerce in 1848.2 The Colombia-U.S. relationship has not been without its ups and downs historically, but it has led to familiarity, and in recent years a common understanding of shared security challenges in the Western Hemisphere.