[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 114-57]
EXAMINING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
SECURITY COOPERATION: WHEN IT WORKS AND WHEN IT DOESN'T
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
OCTOBER 21, 2015
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Fourteenth Congress
WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina ADAM SMITH, Washington
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
JOE WILSON, South Carolina SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
ROB BISHOP, Utah RICK LARSEN, Washington
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania JOHN GARAMENDI, California
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado Georgia
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia JACKIE SPEIER, California
DUNCAN HUNTER, California JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado SCOTT H. PETERS, California
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
MO BROOKS, Alabama DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
PAUL COOK, California MARK TAKAI, Hawaii
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama PETE AGUILAR, California
SAM GRAVES, Missouri
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California
THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
Mark Morehouse, Professional Staff Member
Katy Quinn, Professional Staff Member
Britton Burkett, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Committee
on Armed Services.............................................. 1
WITNESSES
Fraser, Gen Douglas, USAF (Ret.), Principal, Doug Fraser LLC;
Former SOUTHCOM Commander, 2009-2012; and Former PACOM Deputy
Commander, 2008-2009........................................... 7
Paul, Christopher, Ph.D., Senior Social Scientist, RAND
Corporation.................................................... 6
Reveron, Derek, Ph.D., Professor of National Security Affairs,
U.S. Naval War College......................................... 4
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Fraser, Gen Douglas.......................................... 77
Paul, Christopher............................................ 52
Reveron, Derek............................................... 43
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 41
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]
EXAMINING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECURITY COOPERATION: WHEN IT WORKS AND
WHEN IT DOESN'T
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House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 21, 2015.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:20 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ``Mac''
Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
SOUTH CAROLINA, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Wilson [presiding]. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like
to call this meeting of the House Armed Services Committee to
order.
Chairman Thornberry is on his way. He has been delayed, but
he will be here any moment.
Additionally, Mr. Smith, we will be working with Ranking
Member Susan Davis of California.
But we would like to thank everyone for being here today.
The hearing today is certainly very important. And the issues
that are being discussed are critically important. And working
with our allies to increase global security is an important
mission for the U.S. military, rightfully so, as we have never
been faced with a more complex or complicated array of threats
to America's security.
In addition, tight defense budgets put additional pressure
on many of the accounts from which security assistance is
drawn. For these reasons and others, the committee has
dedicated this week for oversight of the Department of Defense
[DOD] security cooperation activities, programs, and
authorities. This week, the committee's activities include a
background briefing by Congressional Research Service, this
opening hearing with outside witnesses, and a classified
briefing with officials from both DOD and Department of State
on the status of the administration's efforts.
There is general agreement that security cooperation should
be an important component of our national security strategy. It
creates more capable fighting partners and builds relationships
that promote U.S. security interests.
But we need to remember what it means, not as an ends. We
have seen cases where security cooperation has been successful,
for example, countering narcotics traffickers in the nation of
Colombia or training Eastern European forces before they deploy
to Afghanistan. We have also seen failures, with the Iraq and
Syria train-and-equip programs the most notable, sadly, recent
examples.
Through this weeklong review of security cooperation
efforts, we hope to ask and answer a number of critical
questions: What makes a program successful? And what can we
learn from the failures? During today's hearing, we will look
into our distinguished panel of experts to help us analyze the
lessons learned, what works and what doesn't, so that the tool
of security cooperation is used in the right way to ensure that
future programs are set up for success.
Helping others develop the capability to do things that
need to be done makes sense. And part of the reason DOD is
doing more of it is because they actually get it done and,
particularly in the case of counterterrorism, get it done in a
timely way. Security cooperation week combined with the
language of the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA]
requiring the DOD to submit a strategic framework for building
partnership capacity to Congress are the first steps by the
committee as part of a long-term effort to review the use and
effectiveness of security cooperation programs. In fact, this
year, the National Defense Authorization Act includes important
provisions to help improve our security cooperation efforts,
such as the requirement for the security cooperation framework
and a couple of new authorities.
I would like to make the final point about working with
friends and allies beyond building partnership capacity and
other security cooperation. The House and Senate have sent the
President a National Defense Authorization Act that passed both
Chambers with strong bipartisan majorities. The legislation is
a result of months of collaboration across the aisle, people
working together to support our troops, making critical reforms
to acquisition and military retirement to ensure the country is
more secure. Wouldn't it send a strong signal to the country,
to our partners and friends, and to the rest of the world that
the U.S. Congress and our President are pulling in the same
direction when it comes to global security.
With that said, I turn to our ranking member, who has
arrived, for any opening comments he would like to make. Mr.
Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate this
hearing. I think this is an incredibly important topic,
building partner capacity, because there are certain realities
in the world right now. And the U.S. military is not going to
be able to go anyplace in the world and fix problems on its
own. We need allies. We need friends. We need partners in order
to multiply, be a force multiplier basically, to enable us to
be successful in parts of the world where we have unquestioned
national security interests but where the U.S. military simply
showing up is not necessarily going to fix the problem.
So I think it is an incredibly important part of what we
do. And it hasn't always been successful. A lot of folks have
criticized some of those failures, some of those areas where it
didn't work. And my great fear is that will be used as an
excuse to say that we shouldn't do this when we cannot succeed
in the current national security environment unless we build
partner capacity, unless we use allies to help us achieve our
national security goals. It is critically important. And a
couple areas where I think we have been very successful at
this: in the Horn of Africa, in dealing with Somalia and Al
Shabaab and AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] with a
very, very light U.S. footprint. The exact number of U.S.
troops involved is classified, but it is triple digits, not
quadruplefold. And the reason we have been successful there is
we have worked with Ethiopia, we have worked with Kenya, we
have worked with Uganda, we have worked with Burundi. We have
helped build their capacity, and we have been able to contain
the threat. Now, it is not, you know, 100 percent a peaceful,
rosy scenario. But it certainly hasn't spun out of control. And
we have had no attacks against U.S., Western targets come out
of Al Shabaab and Somalia because we built that partner
capacity and because we were able to successfully partner. And
I think that is just critically important.
Also in the Philippines, the relatively light footprint, we
have worked with the Philippine Government to contain
insurgencies in the southern islands in the Philippines. Again,
not a 100 percent success, there are still challenges down
there. But we have built the capacity of the Filipino military
to deal with that problem rather than sending in tens of
thousands of U.S. troops. And I think that is going to be the
model going forward: finding partners that we can work with to
contain these threats.
We have that challenge now in northern Africa, in Mali and
elsewhere, finding those partners. But, in that case, we have
worked to some degree with some of our European partners like
the French who have better connections, better relationships
down there. We still have a long way to go, obviously, with the
chaos coming out of Libya. But I think building that partner
capacity and finding allies who can help us is a critical piece
of it.
The final thing that I would add is that partner capacity
sort of includes the Department of Defense building its partner
capacity with our other two elements of national security,
diplomacy and development. That is areas where I think we can
better coordinate. I have been to dozens of countries where
this has been tried. In some places, it works. And in some
places, it doesn't. And I think one of the big factors is how
well the State Department gets along with the Department of
Defense in those areas. In some cases, you have ambassadors who
have great partnerships with the Department of Defense. In
other cases, they are going at each other all the time and
always in disagreement about how to proceed and who exactly is
in charge. Building up the level of cooperation between the
State Department and the Department of Defense is very
important.
And I would also say that building up development
capacity--when I was in the Philippines, there was a great
project, there we had an ambassador who worked very closely
with our local special operations commander at the time and
also worked very well with USAID [U.S. Agency for International
Development]--went to one of the southern islands when they
were cutting the ribbon on a new school that they had built.
And that partnership on our side between defense, development,
and diplomacy is the building block to successfully build the
partnerships with the local countries where we are working to
build their capacity. So that has to be part of it as well.
With that, I look forward to testimony and questions from
the members.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
And we now want to welcome our witnesses for the purpose of
this hearing, which is ``Examining Department of Defense
Security Cooperation: When It Works and When It Doesn't.'' We
are very grateful to have three distinguished witnesses with us
today: Dr. Derek Reveron, Ph.D., professor of national security
affairs at the U.S. Naval War College; Dr. Christopher Paul,
who is, again, a Ph.D., a senior special scientist at the RAND
Corporation; and also General Douglas Fraser, U.S. Air Force,
retired, principal of the Douglas Fraser LLC, and former
SOUTHCOM [United States Southern Command] commander and former
PACOM [United States Pacific Command] deputy commander.
Each of you, we are really grateful for your participation
today. And we will begin with Dr. Reveron, and then we will
proceed down the dais.
STATEMENT OF DEREK REVERON, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF NATIONAL
SECURITY AFFAIRS, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE
Dr. Reveron. Thank you very much and good morning. It is an
honor to speak to the committee today about security
cooperation. The ideas are my own and largely reflect my work
and my book, ``Exporting Security.''
Security cooperation is not an abstract concept to me but
something I participated in firsthand as an academic and as a
naval officer. My study began in the late 1990s, when I
observed military diplomacy firsthand, and continued through
the last decade working with security assistance officers
around the world to include dozens of militaries, Iraq and
Afghanistan included. Additionally, my students at the Naval
War College have been very helpful in my thinking on this.
During this time, there has been no shortage of foreign
policy crises. In an effort to reach for peace, the U.S. seeks
to prevent conflict by helping regimes through security
cooperation, which includes all Department of Defense
interactions with foreign defense establishments. By sending
weapons, trainers, and advisers, the U.S. helps other countries
meet their national security that is challenged by intrastate,
transnational, and regional challengers. Security cooperation
is much bigger than building partnership capacity in combat
zones. It seeks to empower U.S. partners rather than address
security challenges through American force alone. Since
coalition operations are a norm, security cooperation also
ensures partners are interoperable with U.S. forces. For
example, in Afghanistan, we operated with 50 partners who
brought capabilities that we could not, such as police
training. In Bahrain, a U.S. officer today directs 3 naval task
forces composed of 30 partners who collectively protect vital
trade routes. And in Key West, Joint Interagency Task Force
South serves as a fusion center supporting international
efforts to eliminate illicit trafficking into Caribbean and
Latin America.
Security cooperation enables these coalitions to work. The
programs ensure partners have access to the U.S. defense
industrial base. And U.S. sponsored military exercises promote
interoperability. Known as the indirect approach, the U.S.
helps countries fill security deficits that exist when a
country cannot independently protect its own national security.
American generosity helps explain this, but U.S. national
security benefits too. For example, by providing radars and
surveillance technology, Central American countries can control
their airspace and can interdict drug-filled planes bound for
the United States. By providing logistic support, Pakistan can
lead a coalition promoting maritime security in the Indian
Ocean. And by selling Aegis destroyers, Japan can counter North
Korean missiles and provide early warning of missile threats to
the United States.
The rationale for security cooperation has been based on
the assumption that instability breeds chaos, which would make
it more likely that the U.S. or the international community
would face pressure in the future to intervene. Given America's
global foreign policy, many countries have large expectations
for assistance from the United States. But the U.S. also
derives benefits from security cooperation. Among these are
obtaining base access as a quid pro quo; augmenting U.S. force
structure by providing logistics and intelligence support to
coalition partners in the Middle East; promoting a favorable
balance of power by selling weapons systems and training
programs to Gulf Cooperation Council countries to balance Iran;
harmonizing areas of cooperation by working with Japan and
Israel on missile defense; promoting self-defense through the
Georgia Train and Equip Program; reinforcing sovereignty, like
programs such as the Merida Initiative with Mexico; and
supporting the U.S. industrial base and creating interoperable
air forces through the F-35 program.
At times, security cooperation can be limitless,
dissatisfying, and futile. Further, risks abound. First, the
non-exclusive nature of these activities will produce more
failures than successes, which negatively impacts confidence in
security cooperation as a tool.
Second, the personnel system is not producing sufficient
talent to support these missions. American forces no longer
operate in isolation and need an appreciation of the
historical, cultural, and political context of where they
operate.
Third, there is a tendency to over-rely on partners,
thinking they can accomplish U.S. objectives when they either
lack the political motivation or the skills to do so. Without
indigenous political legitimacy, programs can only have a
marginal impact on a country's security and stability.
Finally, other countries will rely on the U.S. to subsidize
their own defense budgets, creating a free rider problem.
Given the disappointments in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan,
there is the potential for the value of security cooperation to
be ignored. But these programs are not confined to combat zones
alone. When thinking about security cooperation, we should look
at how international partners contribute to coalition
operations, peacekeeping, and global security. U.S. budgetary
declines will likely reinforce the importance of security
cooperation, as the U.S. will need more partners and allies to
augment its own defense capacities.
I hope this hearing can show those inside and outside of
the government of the challenges of the by, with, and through
partners approach and why security cooperation is an important
pillar of U.S. defense strategy. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Reveron can be found in the
Appendix on page 43.]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Professor Reveron.
We now proceed to Dr. Paul.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER PAUL, PH.D., SENIOR SOCIAL SCIENTIST,
RAND CORPORATION
Dr. Paul. Thank you for inviting me here to testify today.
My remarks today will draw on research on security cooperation
that I have led at RAND over the last several years. In one
study, we used detailed case studies of 29 countries over 20
years. In a follow-on study, we did deep-dive case studies of
four countries chosen specifically because they highlighted the
range of possible challenges.
The research has found several factors that are critical
contributors in security cooperation. I will review them.
First, matching matters. Efforts to build partner capacity
are most effective when what is being offered aligns well with
partner nations' forces' baseline capabilities and with their
ability to absorb training and technology.
Second, relationships matter, and they can take time to
establish. Relationships contribute a necessary level of trust
and understanding. And relationships also include the alignment
of objectives between the United States and the partner.
Third, context matters. Certain characteristics or features
of partners improve their prospects for success. Specifically,
partners with relatively robust governance and relatively
strong economies have historically had more success in this
area. Having a functioning ministry of defense and having
sufficient resources and willingness to invest in sustainment
are also helpful.
Fourth, consistency and sustainment are key. By
``sustainment,'' I mean the provision of logistics and
personnel services necessary to keep something going. That
includes maintenance; spare and replacement parts; and some
kind of plans for manning and personnel sustainment. In
historical cases in which the United States provided consistent
funding and effort over several years and some kind of
sustainment effort was in place, be it provided by the U.S. or
the partner, capacity was much more likely to be built and
maintained.
While our research highlighted several elements conducive
to security cooperation success, we have also highlighted
various challenges that can reduce the prospect for success. I
will list some of them. First among them is partner
willingness. One of the findings of our research is that you
can't want it more than they do. Lack of willingness can
disrupt security cooperation at many different levels, any of
which can result in delay, diminished success, or outright
failure. Examples include partners who are unwilling to
participate in security cooperation activities, partners
willing to participate but unwilling to focus their efforts in
areas of interest to the United States, and partners unwilling
to use the capacity that has been built for the purpose that it
was intended.
We found that many of the challenges to security
cooperation success stem from shortcomings in U.S. practices,
specifically that U.S. funds and delivers security cooperation
inconsistently and that decreases effectiveness. Inadequate
sustainment planning hurts security cooperation effectiveness
too. As noted, unless they are sustained, forces and
capabilities rapidly atrophy. Similarly, a lack of flexibility
in security cooperation is a constraint on effectiveness. The
administrative requirements lack needed flexibility. And these
last three problems stem, in part, from some weaknesses in the
legislative authorities.
While the patchwork of authorities available to fund and
support security cooperation enable a wide range of activities,
they rarely support an activity for more than a year or two,
resulting in uncertainty about continuation. They also leave
insufficient room for flexibility.
To support progress in this area, I will highlight five
recommendations.
First, reform legislative authorities can improve
flexibility and simplify procedures.
Second, revise or add new authorities to support a wider
range of activities over longer periods of time and sustain
them. This may entail new needed authorities, specifically to
add a sustainment tail to existing programs and authorities.
Third, consider whether partners have the attributes or
characteristics that are associated with effective security
cooperation. Use the results of that consideration to manage
expectations accordingly.
Fourth, regardless of the partner or context, review how
well security cooperation goals and activities correspond with
what the partner wants or needs and what that partner is
capable of using and absorbing. As we have noted elsewhere,
security cooperation must find the right ladder, find the right
wrung, when aligning activities for partners.
Fifth and finally, emphasize sustainments when reviewing
security cooperation programs and ask whether planners have
identified means at the outset for the sustainment and
maintenance of any capabilities to be built. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Paul can be found in the
Appendix on page 52.]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Dr. Paul.
We now proceed to General Fraser.
STATEMENT OF GEN DOUGLAS FRASER, USAF (RET.), PRINCIPAL, DOUG
FRASER LLC; FORMER SOUTHCOM COMMANDER, 2009-2012; AND FORMER
PACOM DEPUTY COMMANDER, 2008-2009
General Fraser. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and
members of the committee, it has been over 3 years since I last
had the opportunity to appear before you. I am honored to be
here again--this time out of uniform--to share my perspective
on the value of security cooperation programs and what they
provide the Department of Defense and our Nation.
It is also a pleasure for me to share this table with such
two distinguished scholars in Professor Reveron and Dr. Paul.
My comments today are based on my experience in planning
and executing security cooperation programs in two separate
geographic combatant commands, U.S. Pacific Command and the
United States Southern Command. According to the U.S. National
Security Strategy, maintaining the security, confidence, and
reliabilities of our allies is one of the key national security
interests of the United States. Department of Defense security
cooperation programs provide the tools that enable the services
to support this national security interest. Increasingly,
international security threats require a coalition of nations
to counter and defeat them. To this end, the Armed Forces of
the United States routinely trains with partner nations to be
ready to form and fight as coalition when called. Department of
Defense cooperation programs enable this training.
Therefore, Department of Defense security programs provide
three valuable contributions to the security of the United
States. First, they build important relationships between the
members of the Armed Forces of the U.S. and our partner nations
which in turn enhances their capability to form and fight as
the coalition in times of crisis. In conjunction with the
Department of State's security assistance programs, security
cooperation programs help build the capacity of partner nation
armed forces to maintain security within their borders. And,
third, these programs grow the professional understanding of
partner militaries on the importance of adhering to
international standards of conduct, to include respect for
human rights, the rule of law, and the role of elected civilian
authorities. On the flip side, I often think we think that
security cooperation programs can accomplish more than they are
designed to do.
Therefore, let me mention what I think security cooperation
programs cannot do. First, they cannot prevent political change
in the nation. Security cooperation programs encourage the
armed forces of our partner nations to support the democratic
process and defend the rights of their citizens to decide their
political future. In maintaining these standards, political
change can happen that does not support U.S. interests. And,
second, security cooperation programs will not significantly
reduce the breeding grounds of conflict, poverty, income
inequality, or poor social infrastructure.
Mr. Chairman, while this hearing is focused on security
cooperation, because the responsibility for helping partner
militaries resides at both Defense and State, I think it is
important to acknowledge the close relationship that exists
between the Department of Defense security cooperation programs
and Department of State security assistance programs. The
training and exercise programs conducted under security
cooperation mesh closely with the education and equipping
programs conducted through security assistance programs. And in
my experience in working in two combatant commands, the
relationships, as Congressman Smith said, between the
Department of State and the Department of Defense is very close
and really works closely to manage and maintain those
capabilities. By supporting each other, these programs actually
increase the success for both.
Finally, security cooperation programs are important for
the defense of the United States. We live in a globalized
world. The United States will increasingly rely on our partners
to help maintain peace and security around the world. As I said
earlier, security cooperation programs play a key role in
enabling the U.S. and our partners to train and fight together.
I am concerned that declining budgets will have a
disproportionate impact on these programs, cutting them to a
higher degree than other defense programs and thereby reducing
their effectiveness. I thank you again for the opportunity to
appear before you. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Fraser can be found in
the Appendix on page 77.]
The Chairman [presiding]. Let me thank you all for being
here. And I apologize for being a little late. But I very much
appreciate testimony.
I want to yield my 5 minutes to the gentleman from South
Carolina, who I appreciate filling in for me.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
each of you for being here. And I appreciate--there was a
reference to Colombia. And people only hear really the
negative. But Plan Colombia has been a success. I am really
grateful that I have had the opportunity to serve, along with
my wife, as the co-chair of the Partners of the Americas
Program, an association of our State, South Carolina, with
Colombia. So I have had the opportunity to visit the country,
an extraordinary country of 40 million people.
Also two of my sons actually were exchange students at a
high school in Cali. And then we have had students come and
live with us as exchange students. And we have seen the
transition from a circumstance of narcoterrorists controlling
extensive areas of the country and thousands of lives being
lost, to Colombian families being protected. I wish more people
in the United States knew of the success of the cooperation
between the United States and the people of Colombia.
With that in mind, for each of you, what factors should we
use to evaluate how well security cooperation activities are
having with their intended effects? Beginning with Dr. Reveron.
Professor.
Dr. Reveron. Thank you, sir. I think as we start thinking
about success, just to reiterate what my colleague said, first
is, the alignment of national interest is essential. And, in
your case, that we highlight Colombia, I might add a couple of
points and then certainly defer to General Fraser.
First, I thought what Congress did was limit the number of
uniformed personnel that could be inside Colombia. I think
initially it was 400 and then increased to 800. I think that
had a very positive effect. One, it really sent the message to
the Colombians that it is their fight, and we are here to help
in terms of enable through planning, logistics, and then some
critical missing capabilities, such as rotary wing.
Second, related to that, is really the absorption capacity,
how well a partner can absorb U.S. aid. Sometimes we tend to
treat other militaries as equal to our own. And I think in a
professional setting, that, of course, is the right way to
approach it. But when we start looking at training and
absorption capacity, we sometimes get the standard wrong. So as
I think about success and nonsuccess, it is really, I ask the
question, to what standard should we be training partners? To
the U.S. standard? To the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty
Organization] standard? Or to some other standard?
And, finally, in terms of success, I think, these are U.S.
Government programs. And in my own experience, I find they work
best when they are coordinated at the U.S. Embassy level. And
my favorite quote, I can't name, but a combatant commander
described himself or herself as the four-star, but when meeting
with the U.S. Ambassador, that is the five-star. And when we
see good bureaucratic alignment inside the U.S. Government in
programs driven at the country level, I think we tend to see
greater success.
Dr. Paul. Thank you. I actually have a third report that
addresses assessments and evaluation explicitly. I will make
just a few points from it. I think when we are looking for
criteria to evaluate success in security cooperation, it
depends in large part on what we set out to do and how well we
have specified that. One of the broader recommendations of my
research and that of others is that objectives be specified in
a way that is SMART--specific, measurable, achievable,
relevant, and time-bound--both short-term intermediate
objectives for individual programs and program years and long-
term objectives and strategies.
I think Colombia is a very interesting example because part
of the story of Colombia is how it took time for the security
cooperation relationship to mature and evolve. There was
initially a mismatch in objectives. The United States was
primarily concerned with drugs, the Colombians were primarily
concerned with international security. And so because of that
mismatch, there was often ineffective action. But as the
relationship evolved and especially after 9/11 when our focus
changed, that relationship became much more effective and the
security cooperation did as well.
General Fraser. Thank you, Congressman Wilson.
I guess I would put mine into three different categories.
One is strategic patience. And I think security cooperation
programs require strategic patience. Plan Colombia happened,
but the United States had been working with the Colombian
Government and the Colombian Armed Forces for 20 to 30 years
prior to that, helping build the institutions within Colombia
to be successful, primarily the military, with some corollary
in coordination with the Department of State with the police.
And so when Plan Colombia was put in place, the conditions were
right in the country to help do that. So strategic patience I
think is important.
Commitment also. And at the time that Plan Colombia
happened, there was a lot of things came together in Colombia.
And a lot of focus came together in the United States also. And
we had a common commitment. Although, as Dr. Paul said, I think
we were misaligned there. And going back to the earlier point
of authorities, we had a misalignment of authorities. Our
objectives were counterdrug. And we limited the use of the
capabilities that we were supporting the Colombians with to
that mission when there was an intertwined problem within
Colombia of terrorism as well as counterdrug. And when we
changed those authorities was when the support of the United
States really helped make a difference in key areas for the
support of Colombia.
But I also think it is important to remember that while
United States support was very helpful and made a difference,
it was really the Colombians who won Colombia's struggle.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask two questions. How important is
development policy to the partner capacity issues that we are
talking about in building those partnerships? And how can we
improve the U.S. in terms of our development policy? Of course,
I think it can be very important. I don't think we have the
best, most coordinated development structure. But as you have
gone in these places and tried to build that partner capacity,
obviously, we have the military training component; we have the
State Department diplomacy. Whether you are talking about
Colombia or, as I talked about, the Philippines or the Horn of
Africa, where does the development piece fit into this building
partner capacity?
General Fraser. Congressman, let me start. From my
standpoint, they have to be very much linked. In many cases,
when I don't think security cooperation in our security overall
foreign assistance isn't working well, it is when they are all
working their own problems and where they see the problems as
the most need but they don't fit together in the overall
capacity of where the strategic direction of the country is.
Colombia, going back to that example, was successful because
the Colombians actually put together a very coordinated
strategic plan of how they were going to move from one part of
the country to another, gain secure locations in one part of
the country, and then bring in the development programs to help
secure that area while they maintain the security within the
country.
In other parts of the region, and I will use Central
America as an example, our efforts at times are very
uncoordinated as they are applied at the tactical level in a
country. So it is misapplied. And it is not necessarily well
aligned within those countries. So it is that discussion, I
think, between all the areas of foreign assistance that we have
that conversation to really align those projects. And I think
overall strategy of foreign assistance as it applies to the
country matters also. And it is applied inconsistently or
varies by embassy by embassy on how it is applied. So the roles
of ambassadors are critically important.
Dr. Paul. I think that how important development policy is
depends in part on our objectives. But within that, development
is clearly tied to absorptive capacity, clearly tied to
ministerial capacity, and clearly tied to the partner nation's
focus. So to the extent that our objectives rely on those
things and those things are all correlated with success in
security cooperation, it becomes important. As to what we can
do to improve our development policy, that is not my area of
expertise. So I will defer to the other gentlemen.
Dr. Reveron. I won't take that last part. But I think your
question is very good. It also goes to the pace. And so as we
think about the 3-D approach--defense, development, and
diplomacy--the pace is very different. And so the example I
like is the military can build a school pretty quickly. But it
needs the Department of State to say where the school should be
built. But it needs AID to train the teachers and provide the
school supplies. And if we keep going back to the Colombia
case, we could point out they took a--reclaimed a pretty big
part of territory held by the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia] relatively quickly, but then that created the
development challenge because then where the local farmers were
growing coca and encouraged for crop substitution, there was no
transportation system for them to get that out--the legitimate
crops--out. And so that created a problem. And so sometimes
with the pace, military can go in pretty quickly and maybe
establish security in months, where development can take
decades.
Mr. Smith. As far as how we reform development policy, I
think the best thing we could do is centralize it. Development
policy in the U.S. is spread out amongst way too many agencies.
When you think of USAID as being in charge of development
policy, but they only control about 14 percent of the
development dollars that are spent by the U.S., I mean it is a
patchwork. But that is another discussion.
Just a quick question about Afghanistan, I thought
something you said about Colombia was really important, that
capping the number of troops in Colombia was an important part
of the success because it made the Colombians aware that we
would help but it was their fight. And I am just wondering,
General Fraser, now that you are retired, speak frankly and
clearly about, you know, this has been a great debate in
Afghanistan, it was a debate in Iraq too, for that matter, is,
you know, well, we can't possibly maintain the security
environment because our troops are better than theirs, you
know, we need more U.S. troops. And I think every military
commander's first instinct is to say: Give me another 30,000
troops, and I can save the situation. When, in fact, I think
that the opposite tends to be the case. And in Afghanistan, I
think that is critically important. And though we certainly
have struggles in Afghanistan, you have seen the military, even
the police in Afghanistan become much more capable in the last
several years as we have drawn down.
Now, it is a balance. You didn't say: Cap Colombia at 50
troops. There has to be a certain level where we can train and
meet certain missions. But I am wondering if you could apply
that logic to Afghanistan and where you see appropriate troop
levels to be sufficiently supportive, but also to make it clear
that it is the Afghans' fight.
General Fraser. I am going to----
Mr. Smith. Punt?
General Fraser [continuing]. Give you a little bit of a
coordinated, because my expertise is not in Afghanistan. So the
first thing I will tell you is what happened in Colombia has a
model, but it cannot apply specifically to Afghanistan. It is a
completely different culture, completely different terrain, has
differing issues that they are dealing with. So to apply them
and use that as a comparison I think is unfair.
Mr. Smith. Understood. But the basic principle of too much
U.S. presence creates dependency instead of a sustainable
situation, are you saying that they are so different that that
doesn't even apply?
General Fraser. Sir, I think it needs to be applied to the
situation that you find within Afghanistan. And I am not smart
enough on that or learned enough to be able to tell you, to
answer that question.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Paul.
Dr. Paul. I would be happy to speak to this because I have
actually done other research on reaching negotiated
settlements, which is, I think, optimistically the outcome that
we are hoping for in Afghanistan at this point.
Mr. Smith. A piece of it, yes.
Dr. Paul. Yes. So I think your observation that, making it
clear that it is the Afghans' fight is absolutely central in
this. In our research on negotiated settlements, the first step
of seven steps towards achieving negotiated settlements is the
perception of stalemate. And stalemate is not just the military
reality, it is a perception. And as long as the opposition in
Afghanistan perceives that the U.S. is the reason there is a
stalemate, then that may slow those perceptions because the
classic statement from the Afghan perspective is: The Americans
have all the watches, but we have all the time.
So the opposition is waiting for the coalition forces to
withdraw, so they get a chance to fight just the Afghans and
see how well Afghanistan security forces will fight. If when
that happens, there is a stalemate, then we are well on the
path towards settlement.
Mr. Smith. But we have to get to that point. Okay. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
And, gentlemen, thank you for being here and sharing your
expertise in areas of the world that many of us are not that
familiar with. And probably Dr. Paul, because of your
expertise, I will start with you. Many of us in the Congress
are very concerned about the continued spending of billions and
billions and billions of dollars and not being able to show the
taxpayer--I am talking about Afghanistan now--how they are
benefiting or how we are helping to improve the life, if you
will, of people in Afghanistan.
An article on January 29, 2014, and the title is this,
``U.S. Literacy Program for Afghan Military Comes Up Short.''
These are comments from John Sopko. I will be very brief. But
as of February 2013, roughly half the Afghan forces were still
illiterate, despite the Pentagon's expenditures of hundreds of
millions of dollars on a literacy program there, according to
the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John
Sopko, an independent auditor.
One other sentence: Moreover, the United States military's
stated goal of 100 percent of first grade literacy for the
entire force by December 31, 2014, is probably unattainable.
Now, the reason I wanted to ask this question because we have
in our military, most, if not all, that go into the military
are high school graduates. Okay. Then if we are trying to build
the Afghan security forces--we have been there for 14 years I
believe, and we are going to be there another 8 years. That is
22 years. What level in 22 years would you anticipate we could
get that Afghan who maybe is not even at the first grade level
now, what would you, what would be your projections as to where
he or she might be in 22 years? I mean, this is where General
Fraser was saying declining budgets; they are declining left
and right quickly.
We are going to raise the debt ceiling in just a few days
and spend more and more money over in foreign countries that we
can't even account for. And this is what is frustrating to the
American people. And, quite frankly, that is why Donald Trump
is getting these big crowds. So, Dr. Paul--and one of my
dearest friends, by the way, is Ron Paul. I don't know if you
all are kin or not, but he is one of my dearest friends. Would
you respond to this concern about trying to train people to be
able to fight and carry weapons and to do the things that need
to be done to build a security force when they can't read at
the first grade level? And it doesn't seem to be making a heck
of a lot of progress. Please share your thoughts with me on
that.
Dr. Paul. That is a great question, sir. And I have a lot
of relevant thoughts, so please be patient with me. First, the
kernel of that latter issue is about absorptive capacity. And
that is a really rough baseline, to take Afghan provincial
tribesmen who have very low baseline literacy and any kind of
education. So what your goals are has to align to that. Is it
feasible? Is it really necessary to achieve desired end states?
How many people do you really need to educate to what level?
Let's look at the history of Afghanistan. A lot of Afghans have
been fighting very effectively for a very long time without
being literate. So some of that is a product of mirror imaging,
that if we imagine that we want them to have conventional,
mature, professional forces like our own, that, of course, to
have a force like the United States' force, you need a high
level of baseline literacy. That probably isn't feasible in
Afghanistan.
But, sir, your broader question about what do we tell the
American people, how do we account for the money spent, and
what we have to show for it, that is fundamentally an
assessment and evaluation question. And if we were doing more
and better assessment and evaluation, we would have something
to show them. All of this, the subtext to all of this is the
chain of logic connecting the things that we are doing with how
we think they are going to work with how that is going to get
to our end states. And a well designed assessment framework
considers the whole progress along that path, from the SMART
objectives at the end, from the SMART intermediate objectives
that lead and connect those paths.
Assessment and evaluation can be used to ask questions when
you are planning operations and efforts, formative research:
How is what I am planning to do likely to turn out? Assessment
and evaluation can be asked of efforts in process: How is this
effort going? Am I delivering the products and services and
training that I planned to? How is that going?
And then, of course, assessment at the back end, when you
are done with an effort: How well did it go? Was attendance at
the level that was expected? Did the number of trainees that
actually passed the course reach our target or not? So that as
you continue to move on, you can revise and improve. So
assessment supports planning. It supports process improvement.
And it enables accountability.
Mr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to all of you for being here.
Nice to see you, General Fraser, as well. Yesterday, we met
with the Congressional Research Service. And I think some of
the folks are here now. And in some ways this follows with my
colleague's question and adds to, one of my questions has
always been, you know, what about State Department capacity? Do
they have the capacity that is needed to do what needs to be
done essentially? And one of the issues that was raised
yesterday, which has been, I have heard this ever since I have
practically been here after 9/11, is that the State Department
doesn't have a bench, a wide enough bench, a deep enough bench,
as does the military, to provide people to be together in an
initial planning. And I think some of the questions raised by,
you know, the answer just now are, what skill sets are needed
to assess these things? Do people need to be embedded in a
situation in order to really truly evaluate what is happening
rather than always being brought in at the end?
We obviously have a budget problem. And this committee is
not charged with having to budget the State Department. But at
the same time, this is just such a recurring theme. How do we
get our hands around this? Is that the problem? Or do you think
they do have the capacity and that maybe it is within other
departments, it is not just the State Department and the
military, it is Commerce, it is Treasury, it is a whole host of
things?
General Fraser. Well, good to see you again, Congresswoman
Davis. Thank you. From my standpoint, the State Department is
not resourced well enough. And if you look across the board at
our foreign assistance, depending on what we want that foreign
assistance to accomplish, we have to resource it accordingly.
And that goes not just to the State Department, but that goes
to many of the other agencies who provide foreign assistance
throughout countries. If I look back at General Kelly's last
posture statement from SOUTHCOM, his comment was he couldn't do
what he is doing without the teamwork of everybody else in the
Federal Government who is working this. So I think this
overall, as the NDAA this year has put in a requirement for the
Department of Defense to come back and give a strategy on
security cooperation, I think there needs to be--the Congress
would be well served by bringing multiple committees together
and developing a strategy of foreign assistance.
Mrs. Davis. Foreign assistance strategy particularly, yes.
Dr. Paul. I would concur. The State Department's role is
absolutely critical. And the State Department is woefully
undermanned. I routinely point out to colleagues in the
Department of Defense and in the military services that the
Department of State has fewer than 1,000 deployable officer
equivalents. And that kind of helps them understand the manning
mismatch.
Mrs. Davis. Did you want to comment?
Dr. Reveron. I think it works, all this works best when
there is great cooperation. And State doesn't seem to have the
personnel to be able to do this. But the cooperation is
essential.
Mrs. Davis. Are there instances where you could see the
need to have more professional skill sets available to do these
evaluations and assessment? I mean, where do we look for that?
I know that we have people who have gained some expertise in
this area. But to what extent are they really activated in
these areas today? And what would you change?
Dr. Paul. Evaluation isn't as hard as we often think it is.
So if we provided more personnel with some basic evaluation
training, they could do a better job. One of the big threats to
effective evaluation is continuity. And often we see situations
because of rotations both on the military and on the civilian
side that some evaluation or assessment framework is in place,
but then the next person on the job recognizes some
deficiencies in that framework and starts a new one. So we need
to inculcate a culture that says even mediocre evaluation done
consistently is better than starting the baseline and starting
evaluation over and over again. But there is certainly
opportunity to bring in civilian experts and to identify
positions both in defense and on the civilian side specifically
for assessment and evaluation with possible considerable
benefits.
Mrs. Davis. General.
General Fraser. Ma'am, I would just add one other thing.
And that is with declining budgets, I think we have to focus
very much on where we want foreign assistance to be successful
and why. But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be
cooperation efforts undertaken with a bunch of different
countries because I think maintaining relationships is an
important outcome of security cooperation and foreign
assistance.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Fraser, your last comment with declining budgets,
we have to figure out where and why, I appreciate that. And
that is something that has been one of my big concerns since I
have been on this committee and watching the funding for the
U.S. military and the number of men and women in uniform. And I
look at the world and Africa's 50-plus countries with a billion
people. We are talking about Latin America today; 20 or better
countries with 600 million in population. And it certainly
seems to me like we get more bang for our buck, if you will, in
the Latin American and Central American countries with our
partnerships there.
So to me, building that partnership capacity is the key to
the U.S.'s ability to influence things in the right direction.
And certainly you have been a big part of that. How would you
rate the progress we have made in building partnership capacity
in Latin America? And where do you think we can best spend our
dollars to improve those partnership capabilities?
General Fraser. Congressman, thank you for that question. I
would say that it has been episodic. At some points, we have
success when we continue and, as you heard earlier, when those
efforts are sustained. But they need to be focused. They need
to be sustained. They need to have clear objectives that can
happen in 3 to 5 years. And I would argue that is not the long-
term objective, that is a stepping stone to a long-term
objective.
So in support of Latin America, what happened in Colombia,
which everybody uses as an example, took a long time to happen.
But it got very focused. And it was very much a U.S. Government
effort supporting a Colombian Government effort. Both of them
working together. And it had strong leadership on both sides of
that coin. I think that remained a critical part.
Where should we spend that effort right now within Latin
America? I think what General Kelly and the State Department is
doing in focusing on the northern tier of Central America is
the right place to continue to focus our efforts. But we need
to maintain those relationships with other parts of the region
as well.
Mr. Scott. Schools like WHINSEC [Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation], Western Hemisphere School
for Security Cooperation, that helps build those military
relationships with the future military leaders or current
military leaders, really, of these other countries seems to be
a cost-effective model. Is that something that we could extend
to other regions of the world? Or is that a scenario under
which cultural differences would create problems?
General Fraser. No, sir. I think we, in many cases, I think
we already have those schools in many places. There are
different names. For example, in Hawaii, the Pacific Command
has the Asia Pacific Center for Strategic Studies, similar
school, similar types of programs focused in the same areas. So
I think a lot of those schools are already in existence. The
real focus, from my standpoint, is they need to be continued to
be funded.
Mr. Scott. Are we bringing those men and women from other
countries to the U.S. to train them at those schools as we do
at WHINSEC?
General Fraser. The Asia Pacific Center for Security
Studies is in Hawaii. It is in Honolulu. I can't answer for the
other combatant commands.
Mr. Scott. That is great. Thank you. I was not aware of
that. It might be a good place for a CODEL [congressional
delegation].
Mr. Chairman, I would yield the remainder of my time.
Gentlemen, thank you for your service to our country.
The Chairman. Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am worried that two topics have not been explored. One is
the very nature of security cooperation, it is usually way more
lucrative for the receiving nation. That is where the big money
is, right? And I don't want to exaggerate that, but we have
already heard some discussion of how meager State Department
resources are. And General Fraser mentioned that one general
with four stars was kind enough to refer to the ambassador as
being the five-star. That five-star ambassador had no
transportation, no bank account, no resources. So it sounds
more like brown-nosing than a genuine compliment.
So to what extent in your analysis--and I know it is
difficult to generalize and we should be country specific--we
should be implementation plan specific, but, in general,
security cooperation is almost a host country stimulus program
compared to what the State Department can offer, right?
Dr. Reveron. Sir, I would say it is a part of it. Promoting
international security, I think, is a key dimension of U.S.
foreign policy. The partner certainly benefits. I think
benefits have come back to the United States. I like the
current--there is currently three maritime coalitions operating
out of Bahrain. Not one is led by an American anymore. But the
United States provides that backbone and lets three countries
lead these efforts. And I think we benefit in that perspective.
The other example that I like is when I was in Afghanistan, we
had Mongolians guarding our base. And so we felt, we were able
to gain that benefit. And we also didn't need 200 U.S. soldiers
to guard our base because the Mongolians----
Mr. Cooper. I don't think you are really getting my point.
The scale of the resources offered, whether in cash or in kind,
are just amazing, like it was our base, and some others are
guarding it. It was our flotilla, and some others are leading
it. But this is amazing. Just transportation around Africa can
really only be offered by AFRICOM [United States Africa
Command]. The State Department doesn't have its own fleet of
planes.
So just in terms of scale, I think it is important in your
analysis to emphasize scale. If I were a receiving country,
hey, I would go where the money was. And we did a lot of this
in the Cold War era when some countries were almost pretending
to be leaning communist so they would get more help from us.
This is, as Walter Jones mentioned, a lot of our constituents
are worried about foreign aid. And they are particularly
worried about military aid that really ends up being foreign
aid and that produces no real result.
But another aspect of this security cooperation that
worries me is it tends to be incumbent protection. Because
almost by definition, you talk to host militaries. You know,
those are the folks in power. And General Fraser was kind
enough to acknowledge that this cannot stop political change
within the country, but sometimes it can certainly inhibit it.
And money is fungible. And you really don't know where if you
free up resources in the host nation, where those could be put.
And some host militaries are so embedded in the economy, like,
for example, the Egyptian military, it is kind of an amazing
thing when they own appliance companies in Egypt and divert
resources that way. And, yet, we are helping them with tactics,
techniques, and procedures.
So to me, in your analysis, it would be more accurate--and
I am not the expert; you all are--if you focused on the quantum
difference in resources and also the incumbent protection
nature of this. Almost by definition, you have to go with the
host nation's incumbent military. And that puts a real bias in
the process. And we are not even talking about upholding lines
drawn primarily by the British Empire on the map in many
regions of the world that have almost nothing to do with
ethnicity or tribe or current conditions. As I have stated many
times before, we are almost executors of the British estate
here as we, unthinkingly, enforce those lines on maps. Maybe
they make sense. Maybe they don't. But we just seem to
automatically pump big dollars into incumbent governments, and
we call it security assistance. And that does relieve us often
of the obligation of putting U.S. troops in more directly. And
we want friendships and partnerships. But sometimes we care
more about these nations than even their host governments. To
what extent do we monitor kleptocracy?
General Fraser. Congressman, let me attempt to answer a
little bit, and that is--but I am going to talk specifically
from a military perspective, not from a political perspective
because we are supporting those militaries, if you will, that
are in existence. From supporting the incumbents, at least from
a military perspective, my experience has been is it has not
protected the military leadership. I have seen lots of military
leadership changed. And there hasn't been a change in that
country. And there hasn't been a change within that military.
From a political standpoint, I think it varies country by
country what impact that may or may not have.
Speaking from a military standpoint with some of my
counterparts, they would come to the United States looking for
assistance that they were either unable to or unwilling to go
to their own government to seek for assistance. So that is one
that we have to always be watchful for and understand when it
is happening. And one of the things, from a military
standpoint, and I would argue from a U.S. in a lot of cases, we
tend to mirror image our perspective on other governments and
other cultures. We need to do a better job of understanding
what is important within that culture and what means something
as we develop these programs.
Mr. Cooper. I agree, General, we should never mirror image.
When I was last in Bogota, I asked where the wealthy part
of town was, and I was told by our folks that, ``Oh, the
wealthiest Colombians, they all live in New York and Miami.''
You know, what is going on here? You know, they have to care as
much about their country as we do.
General Fraser. Again, I don't want to speak for the
Colombians, Congressman, but I would argue that if you look
back over the last 15 years, Colombians have owned their
problem. The Colombians instigated a war tax. That tax was
focused on the wealthy. The wealthy stood behind it, and that
is a large measure of why the Colombians have been successful,
is because they paid for it.
The United States has encouraged other countries within
Central America to follow that model to finance the needs for
their own security.
Mr. Cooper. General, my information may be dated, but when
I visited Colombia, it had the highest income inequality in the
world.
General Fraser. Yes, sir, it still does.
The Chairman. Mr. Nugent.
Mr. Nugent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank this panel for being here today. I am sorry
I missed your opening remarks, but I had another committee
assignment that I had to take.
You know what is striking, though--I was in Afghanistan in
2011 and with a bunch of Marines. And we went to a location
that they took back from those that were fighting us in
Afghanistan; rebuilt the school, not like the schools that we
know of. Obviously, you have been there. What was striking is
the Marines at the time were paying the headmaster to teach. I
mean, they were paying his salary. But what changed was, you
know, as we wanted to get out of Afghanistan, we were pushing
more of it on the central government to take care of that
particular issue, even though it was our foreign dollars, our
foreign aid going to do that. But the headmaster wasn't getting
paid, you know, for months at a time at that point. And he
risked his life. The school was burned down. He was chased;
risked his life to come back to train the Afghani
schoolchildren, girls and boys for the first time. But when I
asked the State Department, you know, what are we doing on
checks and balances--I mean, you were out here, why wouldn't we
make sure this guy gets paid? If the Marines were paying them
at one point in time, and now we are giving money directly to
the central government, and we know it is not getting to him--I
guess what I am hearing from you is that they were
underresourced to do it, but it was a real flippant response
from the State Department in regards to, ``Well, that is not
our problem.'' But it is our dollars.
And so I guess in our rush sometimes to leave a country--
and I get it, I have three kids in the Army that have been to
those great places, like Afghanistan and Iraq--but if we are
putting our dollars there in foreign aid, how do we make sure
that those dollars are being spent correctly? I know that is
really not the discussion here, but it is because, you know,
the military, General, from your aspect, obviously that was
important to stabilize a country, but when do we rush into it
and--when do we draw the line and say, ``Listen, yes, I know we
want to get this government up and running, but maybe they are
not ready yet to do it with our dollars''? Do we ever make that
decision and say, ``Hey, listen, no, we shouldn't do that''?
Does the State Department ever do that, are you aware of?
Dr. Reveron. Sir, as it related to CSTC-A [Combined
Security Transition Command-Afghanistan], the NATO training
mission, I can explain at least what they tried to do because
the corruption in Afghanistan is very well documented. There is
no modern banking system and so at least when it went to--
because U.S. taxpayers pay the salaries of Afghan military and
police. So what CSTC-A did, I don't know if it is still active,
but tried to set up an electronic pay system with an ATM card,
but this is where the illiteracy challenge came in.
Mr. Nugent. Right.
Dr. Reveron. As well as do regular census to monitor to
make sure there weren't kind of ghost cash till, kind of ghost
muster sheets, to make sure individuals were getting paid who
actually existed. But many challenges, without a doubt. I think
in Afghanistan it is probably the hardest problem because the
civil war devastated society and the economy. And my own
opinion, without the $4.5 billion or so that the U.S. taxpayers
provide, the system would collapse.
Dr. Paul. If I may, I have a couple of thoughts about this
as well. One of the things I mentioned in my opening remarks
was the importance of flexibility. Sometimes we, unfortunately,
encounter a situation where we begin security cooperation with
a partner; it is authorized and funded; and delivery begins.
And then some level in the partner hierarchy becomes reticent
and stops cooperating. And, unfortunately, often the executors
on the U.S. side don't have the authority to turn the tap on
and off. And so how do you incentivize a partner to resume
cooperation when deliveries are still being----
Mr. Nugent. And I think you probably answered a question I
didn't really lay out clearly, but you are answering the
question. Once we get on a track, do we ever reel it back? Do
we ever, like you say, turn off the tap and say, ``Hold on a
second, you are not meeting the goals''? And you talk about
goals and coming in and looking at a program to see if it is
actually doing what it is supposed to do. That should be one of
those. I would think it would give the commander on the ground
a whole lot more responsibility because I know that Marine, the
Marine major that was there, he was frustrated because it
didn't seem like anybody was listening to him, and he is out
there with these guys every day.
So how do we do that? How do we give them the flexibility
to turn the tap off?
Dr. Paul. I am not sure in process exactly what has to
happen, but I think some of it has to be at the level of
authorities, and then some of it has to be in the bureaucracy.
Sometimes that authority is held somewhere in the bureaucracy,
but the major on the ground in some province doesn't know who
to talk to, to make that happen.
I think there is periodic reviews of these programs, but
usually that is on an annual or semiannual basis. So, again, a
push for assessment and increased flexibility in the
authorities should help because that is a real problem, sir.
Mr. Nugent. General.
General Fraser. If I could add in one thing, I think one,
you have to have clearly defined objectives with very clearly
defined metrics that you measure and then decide. But I also
think not only an authorities part to this, but sometimes, at
least within the Department of Defense, if you give money back
or you hold money, then somebody else takes it. And so there
has to be an incentive within the organization that I can make
smart decisions and I can apply that money to other places
without a large effort to try and make that happen, that I have
the flexibility, as Dr. Paul says, to be able to move those
funds to where they are going to go have the biggest impact and
I can then--and then I need to be accountable for those
decisions.
Mr. Nugent. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me a
little extra time.
Thank you, and I appreciate your comments.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Bordallo.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this
hearing.
To some degree, you all mentioned the need for enduring
relationships with partners that are actively looking for our
cooperation. But you didn't, not one of you, mention one
example of a successful program that accomplishes this goal.
And it is the National Guard's State Partnership Program [SPP]
that does an outstanding job at creating long-term
relationships with countries and results in increased
capabilities for the nations that take part. The Guard provides
unique capacity-building capabilities to combatant commanders
and U.S. ambassadors via 68 comprehensive partnerships between
the National Guard units across the United States and,
gentlemen, 74 partner nations, with more being developed.
Now this program has been operating for more than 20 years,
and I will be working to enhance the program. I would like to
highlight one partnership in particular, the partnership
between the California National Guard and Ukraine. When
conflict began in Ukraine, it was that relationship that gave
us some of our best insight into what was actually happening on
the ground, thanks to the long-term and often personal
relationships that had developed. Not only did this put the
Ukrainian military in a better position to respond, but it also
gave us access that would have been very difficult to obtain in
any other way.
Now my question is, how do you see the National Guard
contributing to security cooperation in the future? Can any of
you comment on the value of the State Partnership Program and
how we can enhance it or other programs that develop these
long-term relationships?
Now I realize, gentlemen, that most of our security
cooperative programs aim to address counterterrorism, so how
can we shape these programs to be broader in scope like the
Guard program? And I would like to ask each one of you.
General Fraser. Ma'am, let me start, if I may. You are
exactly right, the National Guard programs are critical tools
for every combatant commander, and they make a big difference.
One example when I was assigned in Alaska, the Alaska Guard had
a relationship with Mongolia. When the President of Mongolia
visited the United States, one of his stops was to visit the
adjutant general in Alaska before he went back to Mongolia
because the relationship was as close. So it is a critical
tool, and we need to continue to use it.
We also, as well as building capacity, there is a lot of
effort that goes into training and exercising with partner
nations. And that is really that relationship that continues to
grow. So those opportunities where we have to do that I think
will help build the capacity.
Where there are opportunities to support their ability to
do disaster response and to help support disaster response
training and efforts within differing nations, I think that is
a real strength that the Guard brings to any relationship that
we have.
And then just the overall relationship that they bring into
our military departments also is beneficial. So, from my
standpoint, we always look to as much of the Guard's
participation as they could afford.
Ms. Bordallo. Dr. Paul.
Dr. Paul. Thank you. The State Department partnership
program is a great program, and it is very cost-effective
because it doesn't require that much additional resourcing with
potentially modest payouts. And I think that is a kind of
program that often gets overlooked or can be in danger in times
of austerity, a program that doesn't cost a great deal but
doesn't have gigantic payouts. Many of the payouts are fairly
modest but important, especially in long-term relationships.
And that is something that as we think about assessment, that
we have to keep in mind. Every mission has a primary mission
that should be spelled out very clearly, but there may be other
forms of ancillary benefit. So usually the primary mission of a
National Guard engagement is to do some kind of building
partner capacity exercise or some kind of interoperability
exercise. But the ancillary benefit is the relationship. And
those relationships can be hugely important, like the instance
you mention with Ukraine and in other countries where there is
turmoil. And someone from the United States who is still in
uniform can call up someone in the partner nation who is still
in uniform and ask what is going on and open a dialogue that
way.
Ms. Bordallo. Dr. Reveron.
Dr. Reveron. Thank you very much for the question. It is a
brilliant insight because I think security cooperation really
works best building these long-term relationships, and the
Guard is really suited for that because members of the Guard
don't rotate as frequently as they do on Active Duty. And so if
you are in the California Guard, you tend to stay in the
California Guard, and you can keep going back to that country
year after year after and all the different positions. So I
think the SPP, you are absolutely right, ma'am, it is a
fantastic program to develop these relationship.
Ms. Bordallo. Well, I thank you very much for your comments
to my question. I just wish it were mentioned in your opening
statements. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Stefanik.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to the witnesses for your testimony today.
Members of this committee understand that security
cooperation has long been a component of our national security
strategy, and it has become more of a central figure over the
last decade.
My question is a broad one, but I wanted to get each of you
on the record. Can security cooperation be a substitute for
U.S. forces? And the reason I am asking that question is I am
concerned that some may assume that security cooperation can
replace U.S. forces as a justification for the further
drawdown. So I would like you to each comment on whether it can
be a substitute.
I will start with you, General Fraser.
General Fraser. I would tell you that a lot of our security
cooperation programs exist today because of the size of our
force, and that it is an ancillary part to our ability to train
and exercise and provide capacity and work with other
countries. A drawdown in the size of our forces would mean that
we have less opportunity to train with our partners because we
would be focused on maintaining our own readiness and we would
have fewer, smaller capacity to be able to do that.
Ms. Stefanik. Dr. Paul.
Dr. Paul. I think the idea of security cooperation is to
lighten the load on our military forces and to decrease the
frequency with which we have to deploy them in order to help
other countries and other parts of the world help themselves.
With that said, I don't think there is any danger of disbanding
the Marine Corps in favor of the Peace Corps.
Ms. Stefanik. So just to get it on record, security
cooperation is not a substitute for U.S. forces?
Dr. Paul. Correct.
Dr. Reveron. No, and I would add, in fact, it probably
enhances U.S. power in general. And so, for example, we are
very concerned with civil war in Somalia, don't want to put
U.S. boots on the ground in Somalia. But by training and
equipping Ethiopians, Kenyans, Burundians, and others, they can
provide that force and then the U.S. incurs that benefit of
stability, an attempt of stability in Somalia.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Speier.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the panelists.
Dr. Paul, you said in your comments and I paraphrase them,
we can't want it more than they want it. And in some respects,
I think we suffer from superimposing what we believe they want
or convincing the leadership that it is what they want when it
is not what the people want. The revelation that in Syria,
after all the money we spent, $500 million, we have four or
five individuals who have been trained and equipped, is more
than an embarrassment. And had that not become public at a
Senate hearing, I think we would be moving forward, spending
more money. How do we put in place some form of governance of
these efforts so that when they are failing, we just fess up to
it and pull that plug?
Dr. Paul. Ma'am, I view that as an assessment question.
That is part of assessment. I don't know anything more about
the Syrian program than what has been discussed in the popular
press. It is not an area of personal expertise, but thinking in
general about these kinds of efforts, if there was assessment
in place, clearly when you get to the point of measuring your
measures of performance--is money being spent on what? What are
you delivering? Well, we only have five trainees. That has got
to be a concern, and there has got to be internal revisions to
the program. There has to be a feedback loop. And then when you
come to output, the output is the number of trained personnel
produced, five. That has got to be well below the target, and
there has to be accountability.
Ms. Speier. Well, yes, there should be accountability. But
to just say we are going to put in an assessment tool,
supposedly we have persons in authority that can make that
assessment and should be making that assessment without the
benefit of an assessment tool. I mean----
Dr. Paul. No, fair enough that one is so clearly and
obviously not successful that it shouldn't require much of an
assessment framework, but if there were an assessment framework
and assessment mindedness in place, that call would get made
earlier. The whole benefit of assessment is, what can we learn
from this? Why did this program go awry? How were we allowed to
spend so much money over so much time without recognizing that
things could be different? What could be different so that the
next time we do this, it doesn't happen that way?
Ms. Speier. General Fraser, with our pivot to the Pacific,
what or should there be efforts undertaken to improve our
military relationship with China and create greater
predictability in the South China Sea?
General Fraser. I think there is. And there is ongoing
effort--at least from what I understand, again, from press,
that there is an ongoing effort on the part of the Pacific
Command as well as U.S. military to build those relationships.
But we have to also remember the relationships are two-way
streets. And so there has to be the same willingness and the
same openness and the same ability on the part of whomever we
are building that relationship with. But we find across, at
least my experience, that the more we are able to understand
one another--we may not agree with one another--but the more we
can work and at least know what my counterparts' views are,
that is important. So, yes, I think we should continue our
efforts.
Ms. Speier. Is there anything else you think we should be
doing that we are not doing?
General Fraser. I think it is a slow process. It is a step-
by-step process. And we just need to work our way down that
path. And it is going to take, in my opinion, a long time.
Ms. Speier. For all of you, are there any examples that you
can give us of security cooperation in nondefense sectors that
have been successful?
Silence is golden, I guess.
Dr. Reveron. I am not quite sure I completely understand
the question.
Ms. Speier. Well, we are providing training and equipping,
but we are also doing things in other nations that are non-
security-related that you could argue are creating security
cooperation. Can you point to any of those that are nondefense-
related that have paid back in dividends?
General Fraser. Ma'am, the one I will use is really focused
on the Department of Justice, if you will, the Drug Enforcement
Agency, and a lot of the work that they do within Latin America
and within counterdrug operations all over.
I think if you go in and look at some of the international
narcotics logistics out of the Department of State that also
fund similar types of programs, those are very helpful, but
there is a close relationship and I will use the effort, the
counterdrug effort, within the Caribbean led by JIATF-South
[Joint Interagency Task Force South]. A lot of the intelligence
that they get comes out of law enforcement organizations and
relationships, then it moves into a military sphere if you can
for an intercept, but once that intercept is taking place, then
it is law enforcement who is then engaged again so that there
is a legal procedure that continues from that, and then it goes
into the court system from there. So that is a lot of different
agencies who have found the ability to work together, and I
think that is the real model, as we look at it, is we shouldn't
try and divorce any of these programs from one another, they
work best when they work together.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. O'Rourke.
Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to follow up on some questions that have been asked
about tough decisions that we have to make when our short-term
security interests or those of our partners conflict with
longer-term strategic interests or even just the standing of
the United States in a given part of the world. The example of
Egypt was used earlier where there is a prohibition on the kind
of military assistance we would give that regime, the current
regime, if it is a regime that is in place due to a coup. And
we have essentially looked the other way because of very real,
short-term immediate problems. ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria] I think was one of the reasons given for contravening
that part of U.S. law or policy.
To move back to this hemisphere, you can use the example of
Guatemala in the 1950s or Chile in the 1970s, El Salvador,
Nicaragua in the 1980s to see where that short-term focus has
caused us long-term problems, and probably more importantly, it
causes the people in those countries significant suffering and
long-term harm.
Tell me, and I will start with General Fraser, your
thoughts on the administration's recent decision to withhold 15
percent of Merida funding to Mexico because of human rights
concerns. I know that is not strictly military aid, but it is
connected to military aid that we have given that country. Is
that a step in the right direction to begin to hold regimes
accountable for things like human rights and their conduct
using the money that U.S. taxpayers have supplied?
General Fraser. Congressman, thank you for that question. I
think that--and there has been a big focus at least in my time
in Southern Command. I know General Kelly continues it and has
actually expanded the program on the focus on human rights and
the importance of militaries sustaining their focus on human
rights.
But as you say, there are very hard decisions that have to
be made as we go through and look at what the results are. So I
will argue that we need to have a very clear focus there as
well and determine what we are trying to achieve and measure
how we are able to do that. It is a situation that will always
be troublesome as we go through it. I don't know all the
specifics around the specifics of the Merida, but I know there
is a lot of focus and effort that the Armed Forces put in to
vetting organizations with whom they work for with abiding by
human rights vetting and then supporting those organizations
that we should.
And, in fact, the example I will use is during my time in
Southern Command, we had a problem where one of the countries
decided to shoot down airplanes. And we had to stop aid going
in to them very specifically for that reason.
But on the other side of that, the current militaries, I
have a hard time if nothing--if they have not had any human
rights violations in 20 years, that we hold them accountable
for what happened 20 years ago. There is somewhere in there,
there has to be a balance.
Mr. O'Rourke. Yeah. I don't know if other members of the
panel would like to address this issue of how we balance what
we stand for to ourselves and much of the rest of the world,
you know, democracy and freedom and human rights, with some of
the regimes and nonregime actors that we support who don't help
us to achieve those things for the people in those countries,
and does that diminish our standing in those regions and those
countries, and is it counterproductive ultimately?
Dr. Paul. It is definitely an issue because, as you have
highlighted, we often have conflicting objectives. We have a
short-term objective that is about improving the security
situation or improving the capability of partner forces. But we
have long-term objectives that have to do with our national
values, things about human rights, things about democracy and
other kinds of issues. So I think we have to recognize that
sometimes these objectives are in conflict, and there has to be
some prioritization. From some of the cases I have examined
over 20-year periods, we find that yes, if there is a
suspension of the relationship due to human rights violations,
that does unsurprisingly impair our ability to build partner
capacity. But, pleasantly, in most of those cases, it has also
caused the partner to improve their behavior.
Dr. Reveron. And maybe to add, I share your concern because
while we might not have a deep appreciation for history, our
partners certainly do. And we have to be very careful in
protecting what the United States holds dear. And because we
have a very nonexclusive list of partners, I really think what
we need to make sure is that when we inculcate with these
programs, that we are doing it in accordance with American
values. And I think the officers that at least I teach
understand that, and I think programs, like Leahy vetting,
ensure that we identify that. But there are long-term
consequences because our history shows we will support a wrong
side. A U.S. graduate of an IMET [International Military
Education and Training] program will stage a coup. That
happens, as you know, sir.
Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Let me zoom back out for just a second. It kind of goes
back to some things that Ms. Stefanik was talking with you all
about. I mean, my assumption is we can't do everything in the
world, so we have to have some partners of different
capabilities. Some are sophisticated like NATO countries; some
are lesser developed sorts of countries.
So if you had to give a grade for our security cooperation
efforts, how are we doing when you look at this range, which is
us and the Brits and the Australians at one level and, you
know, a few advisers we are sending to Cameroon on the other--
or wherever--at that level? How are we doing?
Dr. Paul. I will take a stab, sir. In our study, we looked
at 29 cases. In 23 of those 29, we evaluated there being some
level of success in building partner capacity. So if we use a
conventional American high school grading system, 23 out of 29
probably comes in the B range?
The Chairman. Okay. You all agree?
Dr. Reveron. Yes, sir. I mean, I think one of the things I
look for is we empower our partners, and so it is everything
from a country like Japan that not only wants to buy our
weapons but operate with us but provide us host nation support,
but also countries like Ethiopia that is willing to deploy into
Somalia.
General Fraser. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the B rating. I
think as you look at--focus it specifically on relationship
building, I think we are probably in a B-plus, maybe a low A.
But as you look at it the from a capability standpoint, I would
argue we are probably down in the C range, maybe a little bit
lower than that because that is a harder issue to take on. It
requires a lot more focus and a lot more discipline and a lot
more patience, if you will, than just the building relationship
part of this.
The Chairman. Well, I made note of your comments, General,
on strategic patience because that is not a quality with which
we are always associated in this country.
So let's just think for a second because a lot of attention
recently has been on our disappointment at the Afghan forces
not advancing faster, although they have made tremendous
strides, but disappointment they haven't advanced faster. The
Iraqis, it didn't work out very well when ISIS confronted them,
and then, as Ms. Speier was talking about, the Syria thing.
From those examples of trying to train and equip security
forces in the Middle East and South Asia, without asking you
all to be experts on any particular case, do you think there
are lessons to be learned from those disappointing results?
Dr. Paul. I can highlight two lessons just off the top of
my head. First is about whether the glass is half full or the
glass is half empty. Afghan security forces have made
remarkable strides from their baseline state. Arguably, Iraqi
forces made pretty impressive strides from their baseline
states. The question is then, are they good enough to face the
threat that they face? And the answer in both cases is
equivocal.
The other key issue is about willingness to fight. This is
an incredibly difficult thing to assess. It is incredibly
difficult to know how willing to fight a force is until they
are battle tested.
The Chairman. Okay.
Dr. Reveron. If I can add, sir, 100,000 U.S. troops didn't
defeat the Taliban, so I am not completely surprised that the
Afghan forces we trained and equipped didn't either, haven't
either, and struggled as well. Maybe the general lesson for me
is military cannot solve a political problem. And so unless
there is a legitimate semi-stable political authority that can
control a border and actually run a government, efforts to
reinforce another country's military are going to go have
limited success.
The Chairman. Okay.
General Fraser. Mr. Chairman, what I would say is I think
there are important lessons that we can take from all three. I
am not an expert on any one of them. But I will capsulize it in
that the three areas that we are talking about were all combat
zones, and they were all security cooperation being conducted
in combat and in a combat zone. That differs, I would argue,
from security cooperation programs that we have other places.
And I would argue that it is much more difficult because
the security situation is much, much more different. The
security that the people feel is much different. The
relationships, the political relationships are much more
tenuous than they can be in other situations. So I think we
really need to take a hard look at it from that standpoint and
not just capture all security cooperation in one bucket.
The Chairman. Well, and, General, the Congressional
Research Service were looking at a variety of test cases makes
that exact point. The thing that we have the hardest time with
is doing this sort of thing in war zones because, obviously,
you have a war to fight while you are also building the
capability. It is just hard. So I appreciate that.
You all talked a lot today about Colombia. Are there other
examples of successes that you think deserve our attention?
Various things I have read mention the Philippines as having
some success, you know. Are there other examples?
Dr. Reveron. No. I think my favorite example is really
South Korea because if you look at it over that 60-year period,
you see what the country, government, military have really
become, and it is still very capable. Another example is
Israel. We don't really discuss Israel as a case of security
cooperation, but if you look at from a funding perspective, it
clearly is. And in that case, the U.S. benefits tremendously
from the relationship because there are common areas of
technology transfer. And then, on other examples, I would look
to the peacekeeping programs funded under the Global Peace
Operations Initiative, in particular, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya.
Dr. Paul. I will toss Jordan onto the pile. This is an
example of a country where we have invested a great deal with a
great level of success, so much so that they have become a
regional center for training peacekeeping forces. So it is a
pay-it-forward security cooperation model and success in that
regard.
General Fraser. The only thing I will add, Mr. Chairman, is
I think the Philippines is a good example also.
But I think it is important in this equation also as we
look at those successes is to put the political dimension into
this. To just apply a security cooperation program and expect
it to achieve the results without having a companion political
effort to get a political decision to follow that same path and
follow that success were misaligned. And so I think we have to
follow it in a holistic approach.
The Chairman. Yeah, no, I agree, and I appreciate all those
examples. I don't know, it seems to me the challenge is, okay,
what if you are in a messy place without a strong political
infrastructure to work with. I am thinking of Mali, for
example. We spent a fair amount of time trying to develop
security forces there. It didn't work very well. And so the
question for us is, do we not engage if there is not a strong
political infrastructure, you know, with which to work? Do we
engage with much lower expectations of what can result in it?
And I don't know the answers. I guess I am literally thinking
out loud here.
But I was listening as you all were talking with Mr. Smith
and others about the importance of development assistance, the
importance of the political engagement, the inadequacies of the
State Department, the need for strategic patience. It is true:
We need to know what works, and then the hard question is,
okay, if you don't have all of those things, do you engage
anyway? And, you know, I guess maybe that is a case-by-case
sort of situation.
You all don't have to comment on that, but you are welcome
to if you want.
Dr. Paul. It seems to me that you have identified the right
issues, that it is a challenge and that expectation management
is key. So the decision should be made in each of those
instances based on the realistic expectations.
Another observation from some of our research that might be
relevant is the value of ministerial capacity building, so in a
situation where you lack a lot of the contextual factors that
make security cooperation more likely to be successful, some of
the political support, baseline absorptive capacity. Well,
investing in ministerial capacity can both help improve future
absorptive capacity if you have strategic patience and is
investing in the government, albeit through the defense
ministry, and can make that more robust.
In fact, we noted a number of cases where we were able to
successfully contribute to ministerial capacity building, and
then, later on, historically later, 6, 7, 8, 10 years, they are
able to start building actual forces capability.
The Chairman. Thanks.
Let me touch on just one, maybe two other things right
quick, and then I want to yield to Mr. Franks.
Dr. Paul, in your testimony, you talked about authorities
and basically said we need more flexibility, that we get kind
of wrapped around--CRS [Congressional Research Service] says we
have 80 different authorities in DOD, and that doesn't even
include State Department authorities--we get wrapped around
that. What wasn't clear to me from your testimony is how big a
problem this is. How much of a problem is caused by having all
of these different complex authorities and signoffs and so
forth?
Dr. Paul. I actually think General Fraser may be able to
speak to this better because of his experience. But I will say
from what I know, talking to operators, doing interviews,
looking at the histories, it is a problem in concert with other
problems. So there is what is described in the community as a
patchwork of authorities. There are a lot of different
authorities to do a lot of different things. And if you are an
experienced and practiced bureaucrat and invest a lot of time
into it, it is amazing the kinds of things you can pull
together to get stuff done.
Unfortunately, we have a rotational culture on both the
military and the civilian side. So someone who has had a prior
security cooperation billet and falls in on a very well-
orchestrated set of programs may be able to make that
transition and go smoothly. But if someone new rotates in and
has transferred from some other aspect of the service and
doesn't have any experience there and there isn't a good
transition folder and there is changing needs in that country,
they may well be quickly overwhelmed.
General Fraser. Sir, my perspective is, in a lot of cases,
I would argue people trying to manage their way through the
authorities becomes, results in, how are we going to do this to
get a little bit of something done rather than what we need to
have done? So they are just trying to help. They are trying to
align with our partner's requests, but it is very hard when our
partner says this, but my authority will only let me do a very
small part of what you are asking to be able to do this. And it
is all normally the authorities that we get placed on in
various different places I would argue come from individual
instances where we need an authority to go do something for
some limited amount of time, and then they either sustain
themselves, or they get patchworked in another way.
My thoughts are for security cooperation to be successful,
security assistance, we need to have a longer range strategic
objectivity. Then I am a believer--and then build the
authorities to help achieve that objective rather than the
patchwork that I have to manage along with all the other pieces
to go out and to achieve that goal.
The Chairman. Well, we talked about lots of things today;
some of which is in the purview of Congress, and some of which
is not. This is ours, you know. We can make this better, and I
am just trying to figure out if it is worth the effort. You
know, how much of a benefit comes from it I guess I should say.
Let me yield to Mr. Franks.
Mr. Franks. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank all of you. I will try to just keep this to one
general question because I think it goes to the core of what we
are all talking about, and I am sure you have already touched
on this substantively prior to that.
But, I mean, it is a very compelling concept, this building
partnership capacity, because we are able to kind of lighten
our load and try to bring in new friends. And there is
something very compelling about that, but of course, sometimes
we succeed pretty effectively, like we have with Israel and the
Iron Dome and missile batteries. Those have been marked
successes. And then sometimes we don't do as well, like the
training and equipping program in Syria. And so it seems to me
that the key here is to ascertain ways that we can make sure
that those we are dealing with are the right ones that we
should be dealing with. And I would look to you to tell us,
what metric do you use to ascertain what you think has been a
successful effort? And how should Congress measure that in our
oversight capacity?
General Fraser, I will start with you. And thank you for
your service here.
General Fraser. Thank you, sir. I guess I am struggling a
little bit with how we put this together. I guess to be
successful, in my mind, it has to be a two-way street. And a
lot of times I think we go into this and we have a capability
we think--and it is in our interest to help build your capacity
in this way, but that partner may not see it exactly that same
way. So we have to have a two-way conversation that matches and
makes our goals match.
And then I would argue, then we have to stay very focused
on whether or not we are doing that, through good assessment
and metrics, but I would also argue, much as we rotate through
a lot of people, our partners also rotate. And so sometimes
when one senior leader in a government changes--or in a
military--changes to another, the successor doesn't always
agree with the program that was then put in place, but we
continue that program along. So we have got to have another
agreement every time leadership changes, I would argue, to help
us be successful. And then put small goals, achievable goals,
in a timely timeframe that will then step on, build on one
another, rather than say that we have got [to] have the whole
enchilada tomorrow.
Dr. Paul. Sir, I believe that both of your questions about
how do we deal with the right partner and how do we assess
success hinge on objectives and interests. If we are clear
about what our objectives are and what our interests are, then
that can allow us to examine a potential partner or a partner
that we are considering changing our relationship with and see
whether our objectives align with their objectives so that we
have shared interests and how much distance there is between
their baseline condition and where we want them to be and what
we want them to do to meet our objectives.
And then, for assessment, how, again, the clarity of our
objectives and the distance between where you start and where
you are going to end up because I am aware of a lot of cases
where security cooperation objectives were met. We dramatically
improved the capability of a partner, but national security
objectives were not met because that partner was not, at the
end of the day, sufficiently robust to deal with whatever the
threat or the challenge was by himself.
Mr. Franks. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity.
And I yield back right there. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. O'Rourke, do you have further questions?
Mr. O'Rourke. Yes, I wanted to follow up on a question that
the ranking member asked about whether it is helpful to put
some kind of absolute cap or horizon on aid to reduce the risk
of a moral hazard. In other words, we don't want the partner
country to think that U.S. assistance is going to be there no
matter because then they will fail to develop the capacity and
capabilities necessary for them to be able to take on their
challenges without U.S. aid in the future.
Is that in fact the right approach? And Colombia was
mentioned as an example. But are there examples where we set
some kind of fixed amount of U.S. intervention or aid or a date
certain that has been effective?
Dr. Reveron. You are absolutely right. I mean, there is a
moral hazard in all of these. And an easy example, you look at
NATO spending, NATO sets the target of 2 percent of GDP [gross
domestic product] on defense. I think it is only 4 of the 28
make it.
Mr. O'Rourke. Right.
Dr. Reveron. And there is that tendency.
Mr. O'Rourke. They know the United States will be there.
Dr. Reveron. Absolutely, but I would also say, too, I am
concerned if we get too narrowly focused on achievable
objectives. Sometimes we give assistance because we gain base
access. Sometimes we give assistance because we liked, we would
joke, 50 flags over ISAF [International Security Assistance
Force] in Kabul. We got legitimacy on that, and even you get a
little moral upbringing when you saw the Bosnian flag flying
because 20 years earlier, we were dealing with the ethnic
conflict in Bosnia. And so I appreciate the concern and the
question, and I think it is always there. And that is where I
think really at the U.S. embassy level in those countries
really have a better feel for it to capture some of this
subjectivity that is involved in providing these programs.
Mr. O'Rourke. I think you could argue the other side and
use Iraq and Afghanistan as examples where you set a fixed
deadline I think with the intention of forcing that partner
country to step up and recognize that, at some point, they are
going to go have to take these issues into their own hands, and
it seems in Iraq not to have worked certainly. And in
Afghanistan, the President has changed course and recommitted
the current force size until conditions on the ground change.
So would you argue that it is a case-by-case, condition-by-
condition issue and that it is not helpful then to set a
deadline? Or is there some other way to resolve the potential
for a moral hazard and perpetual U.S. presence?
General Fraser. My answer directly is it depends. I just
don't think there is one standard that fits every situation.
And I would argue that when you get into security cooperation,
when you get into especially combat zones, those are morally
hazardous zones. And there is no way, whether a number of
troops or a standard or anything like that will avoid the fact
that there are going to be some conflicts there. And so, from
my standpoint, we need to realize that. We need to accept that,
and then we need to understand where interests and those moral
hazards come in conflict with one another and make very clear
decisions on which way we need to go, but bottom line to it is
it depends.
Dr. Paul. I will echo and agree with it depends, but it
should be a consideration as we are laying out our investment
and our plan for engagement in a country. As I said earlier,
you can't want it more than they do. And if you are in a
situation where there is moral hazard, where there is some
danger of us wanting it more than they do, then it is critical
that we identify the right levers in order to retain some kind
leverage over the partner so that we can influence them, so we
can say: Well, you need to achieve this benchmark by this date,
or there will be a consequence. And then we need to be willing
to put those consequences in place, whether specific drawdowns
of forces or changing the resource allocation or things like
that.
Mr. O'Rourke. Yeah. I think because this is so hard and the
consequences are so significant, I am looking for some certain
rules of the road, kind of like we have on the military
intervention side, the Powell Doctrine, these eight
preconditions must exist before you commit U.S. forces--I think
you are saying that it is not going to be that easy and you
cannot simplify it to that degree. And it is going to be on a
condition-by-condition basis. Although I think you have given
us some really important principles, like you can't solve a
political problem militarily. And you have mentioned the need
to resource and staff the State Department side of this so you
have the corresponding diplomatic and political aspect covered.
And I think that is helpful. So if, you know, we look forward
to anything additional you can point me and other members
towards that would help us to make better decisions as a
country going forward. Thank you very much.
General Fraser. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add one thing
here. I think the real focus as you talk about this--because we
are really talking about moral judgment, and we are talking
about individuals having moral judgment in horrific
circumstances--education is the focus. We have to build the
capacity of military personnel on both sides, whoever we are
working with, to be able to have that moral judgment that will
meet international standards. And absent that, then it is a
crap shoot.
Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you.
The Chairman. I want to get to that in just a second.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It really goes along with this, but sort of the leverage
that we have and whether we use it or we don't, the
conditionality, I think these are things that the public
responds to. And often I hear from people that feel like, you
know, we don't use it when we should. The example in Mexico
recently is one; obviously Pakistan, another where the Congress
has weighed in. And, you know, we are probably out of time now,
but I am just trying to wade through that, sometimes muck, is
really difficult. And, General, maybe you have had an example
of where you wanted to use it, weren't able to use it. What was
at stake there? What was occurring?
General Fraser. A lot of the zone, the same topics we are
talking about are combat zones, but there have been examples
where--and I will just air my frustration. We have had very
strict rules on what we can and can't do with certain armed
forces, and those are valid. But my concern has been to put a
benchmark on what that means and what that means for current
day leaders via something that happened in the past. And when
is good enough good enough? Because, in some cases, good
enough--a government took seriously what we were talking about.
They made positive steps, and we changed the conditions. That
shouldn't stand either. So we have to do some of our own
understanding of what do we really want, what do we really
expect as you look at, in combination with our other interests,
as that understanding and conditionality, if you will, needs to
be there, but it has to be put in a bigger context and not just
something as a whole, from my standpoint.
The Chairman. Dr. Wenstrup.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.
Obviously, in every situation, it is going to be different.
And, you know, we are going to set an objective, and then we
have to look at the pieces on the chessboard, if you will.
Where is this country now? For example, in Iraq, should we have
kept the military in place and started from there? Those types
of discussions probably should take place long before we act
and intervene and get in place. And I would agree with you
wholeheartedly: there is a big difference between trying to
prop up a military in the middle of a war and create a new
military in the middle of a war, and that is a greater
challenge.
One of the things that you mentioned today, a couple
things: One, it comes down to dollars, will, and politics, I
think, in a lot of cases, right? And to that point of will, I
just have one question. I should know the answer to this. In
Afghanistan today, are they operating under a draft, or are
they a volunteer military?
Dr. Reveron. It is an all-volunteer force, sir.
Dr. Wenstrup. That says a lot to their will, I would say.
And we do hear more positive things about their will as opposed
to other places. That is really all I have. Thank you very much
for being here today.
The Chairman. Let me just get to one other thing.
General Fraser, you talked about the rotational culture and
the need for us to be better trained at training, if it will.
And so one of the questions I have had is, how do you all
evaluate our institutions, our organizations, for engaging with
other countries? There have been suggestions, for example, that
we need to form different organizations within the military who
specialize in this. Of course, special forces has always been a
key capability of theirs, but just give me, if you will, you
all's evaluation of how well prepared we are for the various
sorts of things we have been talking about today?
General Fraser. Congressman, Mr. Chairman, let me start
with that. In a lot of cases, I think where we are not as
prepared as I would like to see us is in our understanding of
whatever culture and whatever military we are working with. I
just don't think we are very good at that, and even with those
officers and enlisted personnel that we trained and who are
embedded and really study those environments, they don't always
understand the military organizations and what really drives
some of the military organizations. For example, some of them
in Latin America, we say, okay, they are just as committed to
this program as we are. And what we found out in some cases is,
well, no. In one case, 90 percent of an organization of an army
was committed to helping private security because they don't
get very much money from their government for this so this was
a way for them to help build up the capacity of their armed
forces. We don't understand that relationship and that
intricacy a lot of times, so from that standpoint, we need to
be able to do better than that, but that is an ongoing issue,
and that is a rotational issue.
We are always going to have a problem with the expertise
there because people cap out at a certain level within our
Armed Forces normally who are in security assistance and
security cooperation. And they have to have a skill set. To
just be knowledgeable of another country's culture and how they
operate when you are trying to build a military capacity, you
need to have some military expertise also, and you have to
build that somewhere. That has to happen within our
organization. But I think what the Marines are doing today with
designated special-purpose MAGTFs [Marine air-ground task
forces] on a regional basis. The Army is doing the same thing
with brigades. The Navy, I would argue, in some cases,
routinely does that, in a lot of cases, better. I think that is
a good step in the right direction. And that brings that combat
expertise in our relationships, and that is valued by our
partners.
Dr. Reveron. Mr. Chairman, at the Naval War College, for
example, our intermediate course for O-3s and O-4s, it is
regional focused. And so we divide the students by region, and
then we give them sort of the problem over the term, how do you
translate national strategy into regional strategy? And that is
an attempt to kind of get at the broad base. I think, within
the force, the FAO Program, Foreign Area Officer Program, is
the gold standard. And then you see these different programs
that have popped up over time, the AFPAK [Afghanistan-Pakistan]
Hands, or I think the Navy has the Asia Pacific Hands. And
those have limited life because we are a global force and you
never quite know where the next resource is. I would argue then
for across the entire force more programs that really emphasize
the study of regions, cultures, and histories. And you see the
Army, too, that designated their regional aligned force concept
I think is another way to get at that.
Dr. Paul. I concur with all of those remarks and note that
we are really good at training ourselves. We habitually take
men and women from civilian life and inculcate them into a
highly effective military and build our own capabilities quite
well. We are really good at working with partners who are very
much like us, with our NATO partners. The interoperability
exercises we do with them are great. Where we struggle is in
different contexts. We are too vulnerable to mirror imaging,
and we don't have enough of a mindset of recognizing the kinds
of things that can be different and how that can impact
outcomes.
The Chairman. Okay, well, that is helpful. You know, this
is a complex area, and yet, as people have said, it is a
central part of our security. So thank you all for helping to
enlighten us and think through some of the issues. We may well
draw on you again in the future. Again, we appreciate your
testimony.
And, with that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
October 21, 2015
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
October 21, 2015
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