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S. HRG. 114–655 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECURITY 

COOPERATION AND ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS 

AND AUTHORITIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 9, 2016 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

CHRISTIAN D. BROSE, Staff Director 

ELIZABETH L. KING, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska, Chairman 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

MARCH 9, 2016 

Page 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECURITY COOPERATION AND ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS AND AUTHORITIES ..................................................................................... 1 

Eggers, Jeffrey W., Senior Fellow, International Security Program, New 

America Foundation ............................................................................................. 2 

Dalton, Melissa G., Fellow and Chief of Staff, International Security Program, 

Center for Strategic and International Studies ................................................. 11 

McNerney, Michael J., Associate Director, International Security and Defense 

Policy Center, Rand Corporation ........................................................................ 21 

(III)

(1) 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECURITY 

COOPERATION AND ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS 

AND AUTHORITIES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING

THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m. in Room 

SR–232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Deb Fischer 

(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Subcommittee members present: Senators Ayotte, Fischer, 

Cotton, Ernst, Nelson, Gillibrand, and Kaine. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DEB FISCHER 

Senator FISCHER. The hearing will come to order. Welcome, 

everyone. 

The subcommittee meets today with a panel of outside experts to 

review the security cooperation strategy and associated legal authorities and resourcing of the Department of Defense. 

It is my goal that today’s hearing will provide the committee 

with a better understanding of the framework and tools through 

which the Department identifies, prioritizes, and executes security 

cooperation activities around the world, as well as identify areas 

for improvement and reform as we prepare to draft the NDAA 

[National Defense Authorization Act] . 

Put more simply, is the current strategy and framework for engaging with, training, and equipping the security forces of partner 

nations accomplishing the security objectives of the Department of 

Defense and the broader U.S. Government? If not, what should we 

change? 

Numerous studies over the years, including some written by our 

witnesses, have noted the challenges confronting the Department’s 

ability to plan, execute, and assess its security cooperation activities. These challenges include the growing disconnect between strategic priorities and the alignment of resources, the difficulty of 

navigating the unwieldy and cumbersome patchwork of over 100 

related security cooperation authorities, and the inability of the Department to effectively assess whether its activities are achieving 

their desired outcomes. 

As the Nation increasingly relies on the U.S. military to execute 

security cooperation and building partnership activities around the 

2 

world, there must be a commensurate emphasis on ensuring the 

Department is appropriately postured to execute this mission effectively. 

I would now ask Senator Nelson for any opening remarks that 

he would like to make. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BILL NELSON 

Senator NELSON. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. 

Welcome. 

Over the past decade and a half, the Department’s authorities to 

conduct security cooperation and building partnership capacity activities—it has expanded. That has created some observers to note 

this patchwork that the chairman has mentioned that allows the 

Department to conduct train-and-equip activities in a variety of 

niche areas with varying constraints. Funding for these activities 

has also grown, contributing to a change in the traditional balance 

within the State and Defense Departments. 

That expansion of authority and funding has complicated how do 

you set the priorities on a lot of these activities. How do you build 

well trained personnel and how do you develop the policy architecture to support all of this? The Department has done a lot of work 

in this area. 

Now, what I think we need to do is improve the transparency 

and how do we measure the effectiveness. 

I would like to hear you all talk about it. Give us an assessment 

of DOD’s security cooperation and assistance activities. Discuss 

whether this committee should make any changes to the current 

authorities and talk about how the Department can measure the 

effectiveness of the programs and what are lessons learned. 

Thank you. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Nelson. 

I would now turn to our witnesses. Your full statements will be 

submitted for the record. Thank you for that. I would ask each of 

you if you would please introduce yourselves and then make a brief 

opening statement. Mr. Eggers, if you would begin please. 

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY W. EGGERS, SENIOR FELLOW, 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, NEW AMERICA 

FOUNDATION 

Mr. EGGERS. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member 

Nelson, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on this important topic and I am honored to join 

my colleagues, Mike McNerney and Melissa Dalton. 

I am currently a senior fellow at New America. My testimony 

today is informed by my experience, first as an operational practitioner of security cooperation programs, more than 20 years ago a 

strategic policy advisor on such programs at the institutional level, 

and most recently on my research on the efficacy of U.S. security 

assistance programs. 

Considerable media attention has shed important light on the 

costly failures of these types of programs, most importantly in 

Syria and Yemen. This scrutiny has not yet yielded any significant 

debate towards reengineering a better solution. I welcome this subcommittee’s attention to the important issue here today. 

3 

The foundations of the modern security assistance system were, 

obviously, assembled amidst a time where the threat environment 

was moving more slowly. Despite the radical shift in the global security landscape since the turn of the century, these half-centuryold building blocks remain the foundation of a modern system. Numerous attempts, of course, have been made in the last 15 years 

to update this paradigm to make it more responsive and agile to 

the current threat environment. 

Mostly this effort involved, as you have said, involved new title 

10 authorities focused on building partner capacity to address the 

perceived challenge of fragile and failing states, giving rise to substate transnational threats. It is this effort that has largely in my 

view and in my research proven ineffective. 

The first problem is that the framework has become a cumbersome ‘‘patchwork,’’ as you have said, of authorities atop this outdated foundation, which I suspect my colleagues are going to speak 

to. 

The second problem is that building partner capacity as a means 

of buttressing fragile states has not been realistically implemented 

against the recipient nation dynamics. As a result, BPC programs 

have proven ineffective in fragile high threat environments where 

we attempt to accelerate the delivery of brand new capability. 

Yet, this is increasingly what we are seeking to do, principally 

because building partner capacity is seen as a preferred alternative 

to direct and unilateral U.S. intervention is more cost effective in 

a time of increasingly constrained defense budgets. 

A key lesson is that the effectiveness of security assistance is a 

function of U.S. intent. In cases where the programs seek to make 

gradual improvements to existing and mature capabilities, as was 

the case in Colombia and the Philippines, these programs have 

been more effective. In other instances where the assistance is employed to either buy access or influence, the track record is mixed 

in this more modest and transactional mode. However, efforts to 

literally build new capability in high-risk theaters with political instability have largely been ineffective. 

There are four basic types of difficulties behind these challenge 

programs. One, security capability is being developed ahead of or 

in the absence of civilian governance and rule of law infrastructure. 

Two, tactical capability development precedes institutional, 

logistical and financial support to sustain those programs for the 

long term. Three, program planning does not adequately account 

for political will, corruption, or the intent to use a capability. Four, 

programs are too ambitious, as I have said, in that they seek to 

build new capabilities where they do not exist rather than reinforce 

existing capabilities. 

Of course, a related overarching concern is the lack of a coordinated U.S. Government strategy for security sector assistance. 

Aside from broad guidance, there is no detailed, top-down strategy 

as to why the current array of programs and activities is structured 

the way it is. Rather, the array of programs is generally the result 

of a bottom-up process driven by country teams and regional leadership. 

Notwithstanding the lack of a global strategy, strategic level 

oversight of security sector assistance is further made difficult due 

4 

to a lack of a centralized and standardized way of cataloging programs and expenditures. 

To close, a few thoughts on ways this important aspect of our national security strategy might be improved. 

First and as a strategic matter, we could be a bit more humble 

about our ability to create new security capabilities in an expedited 

manner in politically weak environments and in the absence of civilian institutions. 

Second, programming should be vetted at the front end against 

an enhanced framework of selected feasibility criteria to include political will, corruption, absorptive capacity, sustainability, and so 

on 

Third, we should look to leverage joint authorities to enhance 

longer-term stabilization approaches focused on governance and 

rule of law efforts. 

Fourth, we should anticipate that the expansion of security sector assistance will increasingly pit Leahy Amendment requirements against human rights concerns and update those requirements accordingly to manage this expansion. 

Finally, it will be important to follow through on the Fiscal Year 

2016 NDAA requirement to develop a global strategic framework of 

U.S. security sector assistance. 

Madam Chair, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to offer this 

testimony today. None of this is to suggest that security sector assistance should be abandoned in favor of greater unilateral engagement. It is simply to suggest that we need to be more prudent and 

judicious with expectations of what these programs can and cannot 

achieve. 

I hope my testimony serves useful, and I look forward to assisting the committee in any way possible in the future. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eggers follows:] 

5 


16-27_egger_1.eps

·-... h".' 

=AMERICA 

STATEMEII.'T FOR THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

"Department of Defense Secu.•tv Cooperation and Assistance Programs and Authorities" 

INTRODUCTION 

Testimony By: 

COR Jeff Eggers. USN (Ret.) 

Senior Fellow. New America 

March 9. 2016 

Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, and members of the committee, I appreciate the 

opportunity to testify on U.S. security cooperation. And I'm honored to join colleagues Mike 

McNerney and Melissa Dalton. 

Early in my career, I served as a practitioner implementing security cooperation programs at the 

operational and institutional levels. More recently, I've conducted research on the efficacy of 

U.S. security sector assistance (or SSA, to include both State· led security assistance and DODled security cooperation), interviewing academics and those in government responsible for SSA 

programs. This statement summarizes the findings of that research and an associated J:mQ[t. 

Overall, there are signs that modern SSA programs are proving ineffective as they increasingly focus on "building partner capacity" as a means of addressing threats to U.S. interests. Considerable 

media attention has shed light on the more spectacular failures, such as Yemen and Syria, raising 

awareness of the problem, but this scrutiny has not yet yielded any significant debate toward re· 

engineering a better solution. In considering both the magnitude of U.S. security sector assistance 

and the complex range of security challenges abroad, I welcome the committee's attention to this 

important issue. 

"PATCHWORK" ATOP AN AGING FOUNDATION 

The foundation of the modern security assistance framework stems from the Cold War era, when 

the U.S. was prindpally interested in buttressing the existing capabilities of, and improving 

interoperability with, its close allies. Specifically, the roots of the modern system derive from the 

Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, and its enduring authorities 

that have since been codified in Title 22 of U.S. Code, such as Foreign Military Sales (FMS), Foreign 

Military Financing (FMF), and International Military Education and Training (IMET). 

These processes and its corresponding infrastructure were designed around a more slowly evolving 

environment, where the basic threat vectors changed little from year to year. The implementation 

of these State authorities came to rest within the Department of Defense, which created the Defense 

Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) in 1961 to manage the relevant processes. Despite the radical 

shift in the global security landscape since the turn of the century, these decades-old building 

blocks remain the foundation of our modern security sector assistance paradigm. 
6 


16-27_egger_2.eps

Numerous attempts have been made in the last decade to update this paradigm to make it more 

responsive and agUe to the current th.reat environment. By and la.rge, this effort has focused on 

the perceived challenge of fragile and failing states that give rise to sub·state transnational threats. 

The most recent innovations, to include "1206" (now 2282) "train and equip" funding, the Global 

Security Contingency Fund (GSCF), and the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund (CfPF), have 

received mixed reviews and assessments. 

Nonetheless, there is broad consensus that this current framework has become a cumbersome 

"patchwork" of authorities atop an outdated foundation. While there was some hope for relief 

from the post·9/11 pace of foreign crises and engagements, wherein the national security apparatus 

could be reset, the trend of persistent global conOict has defied those expectations, leaving little 

bandwidth to go beyond tinkering with the "patchwork" framework. 

EFFECTIVENESS VARIES BASED ON EXPECTATION 

The existing SSA infrastructure is not only outdated. Prior studies and current practitioners have 

found that is is generally ineffective where it seeks to build partner capacity in fragile, high·threat 

environments. And increasingly, this is the principle demand placed on this infrastructure. In 

cases where security sector assistance has sought to make gradual improvements to existing and 

mature capabilities (Colombia, Philippines, etc.), it is generally perceived as effective. In other 

instances, where the assistance is employed to buy access or influence (Pakistan, Israel, Oman, 

etc.), the track record is mixed In this more modest and transactional mode. However, In cases 

where the assistance literally seeks to "build" new capability (Yemen, Syria, Iraq, etc.) in high· 

risk theaters with political instability, program results have ranged from marginally effective to 

ineffective. 

Thus it is important to distinguish among the widely varying forms of security sector assistance. 

The following five-part, informal framework summarizes the various forms of SSA in use today: 

1. Legacy Aasistance. Older aspects of security sector assistance that are essentially fixed as 

a result of historical diplomatic agreements or expectations, such as the U.S. FMF assistance 

to Egypt and Israel, which was brokered in the Camp David accords, whereby the U.S. 

essentially bought peace through the guarantee of an indefinite provision of security sector 

assistance. 

2. Access and Influence. Cases where the primary U.S. intent of security assistance is a 

transactional exchange to secure strategic access or influence, rather than the expectation 

of actual capability, and whereby the U.S. gains a cooperative relationship of a strategic 

nature that exceeds the relative weight of the actual capability. 

3. Allied lnteroperability and Capability. Assistance to allied states, whereby the U.S. ensures 

interoperability and capability within those forces it might someday be allied with in 

conflict. 

4. Fragile State Capability. This category addresses the modern demand behind the 12o6 

authority and the concept of "building partner capacity." These recipient nations are 

scarcely "partners" in the traditional sense, but they require security and governance 
7 


16-27_egger_3.eps

capability augmentation to counter the threat of non-state actors that pose a threat to the 

state and the broader international community. 

5. Reg ional and Multilateral Support. This category recognizes that regional approaches are 

required in many modern conflict areas, where assistance can also be directed at regional 

and multilateral entities (Mrican Union, AMlSOM, etc.). 

TOWARD A MORE SUSTAINABLE MODEL OF SECURITY 

The difficulties of "building partner capacity» (BPC) efforts are worth attention because BPC is being 

prioritized as a preferred alternative to direct U.S. intervention, seen as a cost-effective means of 

security in a time of increasingly constrained defense budgets and diminished political will for U.S. 

troop deployments. Thus the current administration has sought to re-design its counterterrorism 

strategy around a more sustainable approach built on "partnerships." Hov.ever, the challenges 

of BPC programming could pose a serious risk to the aspiration of asking partners to bear more 

of America's security burden. and should therefore be pursued with careful consideration and 

planning. 

Moreover, it is unclear how to balance the growing reliance on "partnerships" and "building 

partner capacity" with other core requirements to be prepared to win our nation's wars in more 

conventional models of state-on-state conflict. in an increasingly interdependent world, "grey" 

conHicts like those currently simmering in Uk.raine and the South China Sea pose a complex set of 

challenges to Defense planners, particularly in the context of security sector assistance. 

These difficulties are not to suggest that the concepts of partnership and BPC should be abandoned. 

but that such investment should be planned more carefully and tailored toward cases and countries 

where it can make a demonstrable effect against emerging threats. For instance, these hybrid 

models of "grey" conflict- between the extremes of preparing allies for conventional state-on-state 

conflict and the over-ambitious programs of "nation-building" in fragile states- are likely a higher· 

return target for investment. 

STRUCTUAL AND PROCESS PROBLEMS 

The chief structural issue is the historical problem of tension bet""oeen the Departments of Defense 

and State over Title 10 and Title 22 authorities, which has become exacerbated by the "patchwork" 

and proliferation of new Defense authorities, with renewed concerns within the State Department 

over the "milita.ri.zation of foreign policy." Addressing the causes of this tension are beyond the 

scope of this statement, but the two most prevalent are: 1) the legacy and structural nature of stovepiped authorities (Title 10 vs. Title 22) and the respective oversight committees (Armed Services vs. 

Foreign Affairs); and 2) the lack of State expeditionary resources to conduct civilian-based security 

sector assistance. 

There are also concerns with process-related issues, such as the speed, efficiency and prioritization 

of security sector assistance authorities. Of these, speed has received the most attention, as the 

fast-changing nature of the security challenges has placed emphasis on the ability to deliver new 

capabilities more rapidly and with greater agility. Prioritization, or alignment of priorities and 
8 


16-27_egger_4.eps

programs, is the second greatest concern. There is ~neral consensus that this is well·managed 

within countries and theaters, but that it does not occur in a way that allows for synchronization 

and oversight at the national level. Third is the question of efficiency, or the gaps and redundancies 

among authorities. The "patchwork" problem makes the process more cumbersome, although 

gaps can be overcome by innovating with a mosaic of authorities. While inefficient, concern over the problem of excess, overlapping, or stove-piped authorities is not universally shared, as some 

stakeholders find benefit in the patchwork as a means of securing dedicated resources. 

STRATEGIC DESIGN 

The more pressing problem is that of strategic design and overall effectiveness. The push to 

outsource security burdens through building partner capacity efforts bas not been founded in 

realistic assessments of whether the political and structural characteristics of recipient host nations 

would be suited to these efforts. Rather, this push was founded in a desire for action coupled with 

the need for a more sustainable alternative to unilateral U.S. engagement. 

As a result, it is not clear that partnership·based models will be capable of delivering the desired 

outcome of securing U.S. interests against certain threats, and the outlook for the partnership 

approach likely depends on what the United States hopes to acbiew. In cases where the intent 

is to respond to, vice prevent or prepare for, conflict or a failing state, the range of circumstances 

that would enable an effective investment of security sector assistance toward building capacity 

are very narrow. In cases where the intent is to maintain a strategic relationship that provides for 

transactional access or reinforces existing capabilities, the range is much wider. 

A related over-arching concern is the lack of a coordinated U.S. government strategy for security 

sector assistance. There is general articulation, in several strategy and doctrine products, of the 

broad intent of U.S. security assistance, yet there is no detailed top-down strategy as to why the 

current array of programs and activities is structured the way it is. Rather, the array of programs 

is generally the result of a bottom-up process driven by country teams and regional leadership 

(Ambassadors, COCO Ms. Defense and State bureaus, etc.) who push for certain programs in 

countries based on their country or regional strategy. While some regions are stronger in their 

strategic design and planning than others, there is generally good alignment at the regional level 

between the strategic resources, design and objectives. However, no such alignment exists at the 

global level across all regions. In addition, there is widespread difficulty in aggregating resource 

and program data across the government to create a compiled analysis of funding across activity 

types and countries. 

In theory, theater security assistance objectives would be aligned with a national-level security 

assistance strategy, but there is no mechanism by which the full range of resources and activities are made consistent with a relative prioritization of national security priorit.ies. The Pentagon's 

annual strategic planning guidance provides some guidance and alignment, but it remains indirect 

and with a broader focus than security assistance. In this context, the FY16 NOAA (Section 1202) 

requirement to report on a "strategic framework" for security cooperation is a useful step forward. 
9 


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SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS 

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness. Security cooperation reform is generally focused on improving 

efficiency (overlap, redundancy, speed, etc.) but the central problem Is one of strategic design and 

the overall return on investment. There are gaps and O\'erlapping efforts in the "patchwork," and 

the process is inefficient and slow, but these issues are secondary to the problem of ineffective 

security cooperation. 

Recipient Nation Considerations. Planning against recipient nation characteristics remains a 

key limiting factor to the effectiveness of security sector assistance. While staffers responsible 

for security cooperation programs are becoming better trained and organized toward generating 

effective programs, there is an over-aching need to better design assistance programs that are approached holistically from end·to·end (tactical to institutional} and have the political and civilian 

institutional support to complement the program. 

Lack of Global Synchronization. Interagency synchronization of program resourcing appears to 

work well at the country and regional level, but is not synchronized at the inter-theater or global 

level. There is no formalized and effective process among the agencies for the coordination of 

security sector assistance globally, although it occurs informally across regional and functional 

org\lnizations. 

Building vs. Improving CapabiUty. It is difficult to quickly "build" new capability where it does not 

already exist and such efforts tend to fail. By contrast, investments to improve or reinforce existing 

capabilities have generally proven more successful. "Building" partner capacity, particularly in 

a conruct·afllicted country, is costly relative to the effects achieved, and requires more time than 

is generally anticipated or programmed. Thus "reinforcing" partner capacity may be a more 

reasonable U.S. goal for this type of assistance. 

Sequencing Tactical and Institutional Capability Generation. Building tactical "teeth" skills takes 

considerably less time than building institutional logistical support, which in turn requires less 

time than developing the civilian institutions of governance and rule of law that are necessary to 

complement security institutions. Moreover, building logistical tail after the tactical "teeth" may 

seem logical or necessary when faced with the urgency of conflict, but unsupported tactical troops 

will falter due to attrition and poor morale, which can become a strategic liability to the broader 

security assistance effort. Therefore, it is worth re-balancing the sequence of building tactical level 

forces well before institutional support mechanisms are in place. 

Importance of Regionalizatlon. Security cooperation planning and Infrastructure is generally 

country· focused, but many of these problems are regional in nature. Investing in multilateral or 

regional constructs could mitigate the risk of lagging political will in particular nations, but this 

requires a separate effort to invest in buttressing the in1egrity of these multilateral and regional 

organizations. 

Sustainment Concerns. There are concerns with the sustainability of programs funded over one or two years. Beyond the question of whether these projects can be sustained by U.S. funding is 

a larger issue of whether they are sustainable, i.e. whether the host nation has the institutional 

strength to provide the support needed to sustain these projects over the long· term. 
10 


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Transparency of Reaourclng Data. It is very difficult to aggregate and analyze SSA expenditures 

because of the various accounting methodologies utilized, and the lack of a central database. 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

In general, the U.S. should temper its ambition to "build" capacity where It does not exist, or in 

the absence of political stability and civilian institutions. The following suggestions have specific 

pertinence to legislative requirements toward improving the return on investment of U.S. security 

sector assistance: 

• Leverage FYt6 NOAA Section 1202 to develop a global strategic framework for U.S. security 

sector assistance. 

• SSA programming should use realistic long-term timelines and should planned and vetted 

at the front-end against an enhanced framework of selected feasibility criteria (i.e. political 

will, absorptive capacity, sustain ability, etc.). 

• Leverage joint authorities (e.g., 2282 and GSCF) to conduct longer-term stabilization 

approaches focused on governance and rule·of·law efforts. 

• Enact a long·term effort to resolve the problem of U.S. military training civilian security 

forces and the lack of expeditionary capability and resources within civilian agencies. 

• Anticipate that Leahy Amendment concerns will increasingly emerge as the expansion of 

security sector assistance runs up against human rights, and consider means to update 

those requirements to manage this expansion. 

Madam Chairman, Senator Nelson, Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to offer 

this testimony. I hope this statement serves useful in your consideration of reform, and I'd again 

look forward to assisting the committee in any way possible in the future. 
11 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, sir. 

Ma’am? 

STATEMENT OF MELISSA G. DALTON, FELLOW AND CHIEF OF 

STAFF, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR 

STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Ms. DALTON. Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, and 

distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am honored to testify before you today. 

My name is Melissa Dalton. I am a fellow and the Chief of Staff 

of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic 

and International Studies. 

Security cooperation is central to meeting the challenges of the 

21st century, which heightens the imperative of planning, managing, and resourcing security cooperation effectively. I will focus 

my remarks on three topics: applying resources strategically, measuring effectiveness, and balancing activities for a coherent program. 

First, applying resources strategically. While we should strive for 

streamlining security cooperation authorities, we should also be 

cognizant of how the changing security environment may require 

new approaches. The United States faces an increasingly complex 

security environment with interlinking challenges from China, 

Russia, Iran, and North Korea to transnational threats including 

the Islamic State and al Qaeda and their affiliates, as well as 

cyber. These include hybrid or gray zone security challenges with 

a range of state and non-state actors in play. 

With this level of complexity and a declining defense budget, the 

United States must leverage its relationships with partners in support of shared interests. I offer five legislative recommendations for 

Congress. 

First, consider a new legal authority to permit title 10 security 

cooperation partnerships with non-state actors, in coordination 

with the Department of State, to give the President and the Department more options for addressing hybrid challenges. 

The default is to use title 50 authorities and funding in these situations. However, Washington may want to publicly highlight partnerships with non-state entities for strategic purposes or link those 

partnerships to military activities. Through our title 10 authority, 

we might create more options for decision-makers. An assessment, 

monitoring, and evaluation framework could help mitigate the 

risks of partnerships with non-state actors with established offramps for turning the assistance off if the program objectives are 

not met. 

The second recommendation. Congress should consider requiring 

acquisition and delivery systems to be more responsive to crisis requirements. The Department has the authorities it needs to rapidly 

inject security cooperation to partners in crisis response situations. 

However, acquisition and delivery systems are often slow to 

prioritize emerging requirements and may not have the appropriate manpower to staff these requirements, resulting in delays 

that present operational risks. 

Third, Congress should consider evaluating the risks and benefits of creating a transfer authority between the Department and 

12 

USAID [United States Agency for International Development] to 

enable, where appropriate, DOD to transfer funds to USAID. Such 

a mechanism could help combatant commands better link counter 

terrorism efforts to USAID countering violent extremism prevention programs. 

Fourth, Congress should specify roles for the Military Services 

such as organizing and allocating personnel for security cooperation 

activities. Currently, the services de-prioritize security cooperation 

in resource allocation decisions because the operational benefits are 

not clearly defined. Moreover, there is no security cooperation career track for military personnel. 

Fifth, the Congress should consider streamlining the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense by, A, moving program management of security cooperation to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency under 

the oversight of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and B, 

consolidating all policy oversight of security cooperation programs, 

including counterterrorism and counternarcotics partnership programs to a single OSD [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] policy office. 

The Department should take two steps in this area. First, enact 

the security sector reform called for in Presidential Policy Directive 

23 to strengthen the linkage between U.S. priorities and security 

cooperation investments. It should also tighten the alignment from 

the defense strategy and the guidance for the employment of the 

force to theater campaign plans and specific security cooperation 

activities. 

The second topic I would like to address today is measuring effectiveness. The Department lacks a system to assess, monitor, and 

evaluate the performance of its security cooperation efforts. Congress should, therefore, consider tasking OSD to develop a framework for assessment, monitoring, and evaluation in coordination 

with the Department of State. This should include a rigorous frontend assessment by DOD, State, and the intelligence community of 

how security cooperation will affect a partner country beyond the 

discrete military contact. 

Congress should also consider requiring combatant commands to 

conduct programmatic assessment, monitoring, and evaluation for 

security cooperation within the parameters of the policy framework. 

The third and final topic I would like to address today is balancing activities for a coherent program. Current DOD policy is to 

create a comprehensive package of security cooperation for partners, including institution-building and sustainment. Yet, in practice, U.S. political imperatives and operational demands, as well as 

partner preferences and challenges, often hinder implementation of 

a coherent and enduring program. 

The DOD directive on defense institution building is a promising 

start to orienting security cooperation efforts for a more balanced 

and enduring approach. However, we should moderate expectations 

for improvement to account for long-term effects that are rarely 

evident in the short term. 

To achieve a better balance of security cooperation activities, 

Congress should consider requiring DOD to define the outcome, not 

just the objectives, for security cooperation programs when proVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:02 Jun 14, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\25808.TXT WILDA
13 

viding congressional notification and explain how a range of tools, 

including institution-building, will help achieve that outcome. 

In conclusion, the United States faces a daunting array of security challenges in the 21st century that only a network of partners 

can address together. The Department continually reaches for security cooperation to address challenges, but does not give it the investments in training personnel and policy to sustain and strategically employ it as it does for its hard power tools. Applying resources based on priorities, measuring effectiveness, and balancing 

activities for a coherent program will enable the United States to 

better employ security cooperation as a strategic tool of national 

power. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dalton follows:] 

14 


16-27_Dalton_1.eps

CSIS I CENTER FOR STRATEGICb 

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Statement before the 

Senate Armed Services Committee 

Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities 

uDepartment of Defense's 

Security Cooperation and Assistance 

Programs and Authorities" 

A Testimony by: 

Melissa Dalton 

Fellow and Chief of Staff, 

International Security Program, 

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) 

March 9, 2016 

232A Russell Senate Office Building 

WWW.CS!S.ORG 1616 RH00[ ISLAND AVEHU( HW Ttl.. (lO;t) OG7.0l00 

WASHINGfOH, DC .t00)6 rAX (101}17S.)1't't 
15 


16-27_Dalton_2.eps

Dallon: Wrillen Testimony to SASC ETC Subcommitlee 03/09/2016 

Chainnan Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, and distinguished members of the sub-commi11ec, I 

am honored to testify before you today on the Department of Defense's security cooperation 

programs and authorities. I will focus this written statement on an assessment of whether the 

Department uses security cooperation tesources strategically, how the Department should be 

measuring effectiveness of its security cooperation programs, and whether the Department 

achieves an appropriate balance of security cooperation activities. I will end by emphasizing that 

security cooperation is central to meeting the challenges of the 21st century. which heightens the 

imperative of planning, managing, and resourcing security cooperation effectively. 

Applying Resources Stra tegically 

The United Sta tes pursues security cooperation around the world to develop partner nations' 

capabilities, build relationships and intcroperability, and secure peacetime and contingency 

access to critical air, land, and sea nodes to protect U.S. national security interests.1 Security 

cooperation can take the form of delivering training and equipment, conducting joint exercises 

and exchanges, and advising ministries of defense. In terms of scale, it can range from building a 

military from scratch. to providing niche capabilities, to advising partners engaged in a war fight. 

Even on the low end of the spectrum, security cooperation can be difficult and imperfect; the 

complexity only grows with the greater scale of engagement- the U.S. efforts in Iraq and 

Afghanistan were the largest security cooperation undertakings of the last seventy years. The 

United States has a particularly mixed record of using security cooperation to attempt to stabilize 

fragile states. It makes these investments based on the premise that it will not have to fight as 

many wars directly if it builds the capabilities and capacity of indigenous security forces. 

However, security cooperation efforts in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen have yielded mixed to 

poor results. 

The reality is, beyond building partnership capacity and capabilities in foreign militaries, security 

cooperation can advance U.S. national security objectives. U.S. security cooperation in Northeast 

Asia has largely deterred North Korea and assured allies in that region for seven decades, though 

not without incident. U.S. secu1·ity partnerships in the Gulf and Israel have on balance deterred 

Iranian aggression and prevented Iran from obtaini ng a nuclear weapon to date. although Iran 

continues to foment instability in the region. Of course. none of these security cooperation efforts 

work in isolation. Indeed, they have worked best when coupled with U.S. and international 

diplomatic and economic levers, and when the United States and its partner countries have strong 

political alignment on desired outcomes. 

Security cooperation can yield force enabling and multiplying benefits through deepening 

relationships with allies and partners. It unlocks posture and access possibil ities for U.S. forces 

in the event of crises and contingencies. Seven decades of security cooperation with Japan 

1 DoD Directive 5132.03, DoD Policy and Responsibilities Relating to Security Cooperation, October 24, 2008, 

http://www.dtlc.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/Sl3203p.pdf 
16 


16-27_Dalton_3.eps

Dalton: Written Testimony to SASC ETC Subcommittee 03/0912016 

enabled the United States and Japan to respond to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 

20 II, given U.S. investments in Japan's humanita rian assistance and d isaster relief, lifl, and 

logistics capabilities. Security coopcrntion a llows the United States 10 obtain intelligence and 

operational insights that would not otherwise be available, such as in the African Sahel. Perhaps 

most importantly, common security approaches build standards of trust and mutual responsibility 

in the intemational system. Trust and relationshi ps solidified in the lntemational Security 

Assistance Force coalition in Afghanistan enabled the United States to gradually rally and lead a 

coalition of allies and partners keen 10 combat the Islamic State's brutality. 

Congress and the Department should strive for streamli ning security cooperation authorities. 

where appropriate. However, changes in the security environment should prompt an examination 

of how the Department aligns its security cooperation resources, and inefficiencies in processes 

and roles and responsibilities should be corrected to ensure that the Department applies security 

cooperation resources strategicall y. 

Adapting to a Changing Security Environment 

The United States faces an increasingly complex security environment with interli nking 

challenges, from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, 10 transnational threats including the 

Islamic State, ai-Qaida, and their affiliates, as well as eyber. With this level of complexity, the 

United States rarely is able to address these challenges alone and must leverage its relationships 

with partners and allies around the globe to protect its interests. In addition, power in the 

international system is growing increasingly diffuse, prompting the United States to use a 

network of partnershi ps to achieve its objectives. Moreover, declining defense budgets have 

heightened the urgency of the United States and its security partners leveraging and synthesizing 

military capabilities where possible in support of shared interests, such as counterterrorism and 

the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

2 

In this context, hybrid and fragmented state conflicts may increasingly compel the United States 

to seek partnerships with non-state actors. TI1e de fault is to use Title 50 authorities and funding 

in these situations, given the historical need to keep a low-profile while operating in sensitive 

environments. However, as the United States fi nds itself increasingly operating in hybrid areas, 

where adversaries de ftly co-opt non-slate actors to advance their objectives, Washi ngton may 

want to publicly high light partnerships with non -stale entities for strategic purposes at times, or 

link those partnerships to military activities. Given the pervasiveness of hybrid operating 

environments in the 2 1" century, the sub-commiuee should consider new legal authorities to 

permit Title I 0 security cooperation partnerships with non-state actors. in coordination with the 

Department of State, to give the President and the Department more options for dealing with 

hybrid challenges. A robust assessment, monitoring, and evaluation framework could help 

2 Federated Defense Concept, Center for Strategic and Internat ional Studies, December 16, 2013, 

http://csis.org/publication/federated-defense-project-concept-paper 
17 


16-27_Dalton_4.eps

Dalton: Wriuen Testimony to SASC ETC Subcommiuee 03/09/2016 4 

mitigate the risks of partnerships with non-state actors, with established off-ramps for turning the 

assistance off if program objectives are not mel. 

Contemporary security challenges also require close collaboration among DoD and its 

interagency partners, including USAID, not only in Washington but also critically, on the 

ground. In localities, countering terrorism and countering violent extremism are inseparable in 

working with partners. Yet, U.S. government agencies still encounter obstacles in collaborating 

to address this challenge. Congress and the Department should evaluate the risks and benefits of 

creating a transfer authority between the Department and USAID to enable, where appropriate, 

DoD to transfer funds to USA I D. Such a mechanism could help Combatant Commands better 

link their partnered counterterrorism efforts to USAID countering violent extremism prevention 

programs. Assessment, monitoring, and evaluation eflorts at both DoD and USA ID could closely 

track the performance of these linked initiatives. 

In addition, security cooperation will continue to be a tool of choice for policymakers to respond 

to contingencies. The Department has the authorities it needs to rapidly inject security 

cooperation to partners in crisis response situations. However, the Department's acquisition and 

delivery systems for security cooperation are often slow to prioritize these emerging 

requirements, and may not have the appropriate personnel or manpower to staff these crisis 

requirements, resulting in delays that present operational risks. DoD should be compelled by law 

to beuer link and resource security cooperation acquisition and delivery systems to respond to 

crises. 

Within today's challenging security and fiscal environment, the United States n:ust constantly 

make tradeoffs in where and how it allocates its forces. Security cooperation is a relatively costeflccti ve tool in the U.S. force posture kit. Because U.S. forces based overseas can combine their 

own training and activities with security cooperation with allies and partners, security 

cooperation incurs few costs to U.S. forces operating abroad. Under budgetary constraints, DoD 

leaders have stressed the need to reprioritize limited assets and develop innovative ways of 

maintaining a forward presence to project power as the U.S. military rebuilds its readiness. As 

the United States considers how to right-size its global posture, security cooperation through 

periodic and strategic<tlly ta rgeted combined exercises with partners could provide a low-cost 

alternative to continued forward deployment of U.S. forces. 

Aligning Rcsourct:s 1hrough Process 

The Department should take a number of policy steps to strategicall y align its security 

cooperation resources. Specifically, the Department should tighten the alignment from the 

defense strategy and the Guidance for the Employment of the Force (GEF) to Theater Campaign 

Plans (TCP) and specific security cooperation activities. For example, combined exercises with 

partners that clearly link to U.S. operational objectives should be prioritized, such that the United 

States is mostly exercising with partners with which it would actually respond to a contingency. 
18 


16-27_Dalton_5.eps

Dalton: Written Testimony to SASC ETC Subcommittee 03/09/2016 

Exercises that simply seek to "build relationships," while important and which have ancillary 

benefits, should receive lower prioritization. 

The Department should also work with the Department of State and the broader U.S. interagency 

to enact the security sector processes called for in Presidential Policy Directive 23 (PPD 23), to 

strengthen the linkage between U.S. strategic priorities and security cooperation investments.> 

PPD 23 calls for greater interagency coordination, the creation of integrated country strategies, 

and presses for linkage to TCP development. It will require an iterative process to allow for 

feedback from Embassy country teams as the situation on the ground and with the partner 

evolves, which is vital to ensuring that the United States can adapt its strategy and the 

application of security cooperation resources. 

Adjusting Roles and Responsibilities 

The management and oversight of DoD security cooperation programs are inefficiently spread 

throughout the organization. To increase efficiency, DoD should be compelled by law to adjust 

certain security cooperation roles and responsibilities. Specifically, the Department should move 

all program management and administrative implementation of security cooperation to the 

Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), under the oversight of the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Policy. This will requ ire reforms within the DSCA workforce and management to 

ensure that leaders and staff with the appropriate skills are administering the programs. The 

Department should also consolidate all policy oversight of security cooperation programs, 

including counterterrorism and counter narcotics programs, to a single OSD-Policy office. 

Refom1ing the Security Cooperation Workforce 

Given that security cooperation is an operational activity anchored in the defense strategy, the 

Department should appropriately recru it, train, and stafTa professional security cooperation 

workforce, as it does for all other lines of defense effort. Currently, the Military Services and 

Departments deprioritize security cooperation in resource allocation decisions, because the 

operational benefits are not clearly defined or linked to their strategic planning documents. 

Moreover, there is no security cooperation career track for military personnel. Services should be 

required to organize to meet security cooperation priorities that now from the defense strategy, 

including maintaining dedicated units of trained personnel with expertise to deliver the full range 

of security cooperation activities. Contract and acquisition workforce within the Military 

Departments must be protected to retain the ability to transfer material to foreign partners in 

support of strategic objectives. Specific roles for Services in security cooperation, such as 

organizing and allocating personnel for security cooperation, should be specified in law. 

1 •Fact Sheet: U.S. Security Sector Assistance Policy,., The White House Office of the Press Secretary, April 5, 2013, 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the·press·office/2013/04/05/fact·sheet·us·security·sector·assistance·policy 
19 


16-27_Dalton_6.eps

Dahon: Wriuen Testimony to SASC ETC Subcommiuee 03/09nOI6 6 

Measu.-ing Effectiveness 

The Department lacks a system to assess, monitor, and evaluate the performance of its security 

cooperation efforts. It measures effectiveness either very tactically (e.g., marksmanship or 

number of strikes or KIA by a partner) or semi-qualitatively, based on judgments of a partner's 

satisfaction, compliance, and enabling U.S. policies and activities. However, in the absence of an 

assessment, monitoring and evaluation {AM& E) framework, these judgments lack consistency 

and rarely infom1 future security cooperation decisions. In short, the Department does not have a 

mechanism to determine retum on investment for security cooperation. Developing an effective 

AM&E method for security cooperation resources could help the United States achieve stronger 

alignment with its strategic objecti ves. 

Critically, in coordination with the Department of State and through integrated country 

strategies, the Department should identify not onl y objectives for security cooperation but also 

outcomes. It must also conduct a rigorous front end assessment of how security cooperation will 

affect a partner country, beyond the discrete milita ry contact. Security cooperation serves 

military ends, but it also has "pin ball" effects on political, economic, and military structures and 

actors of the partner state, sometimes in unintended ways. With the Department of State and the 

Intelligence Community, the Department should conduct a front end assessment of short and 

long term effects of a security cooperation program in a country before deploying it. 

The Combatant Commands should conduct programmatic AM&E for security cooperation. The 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Department of State, should be 

tasked with developing an AM&E framework, to include Congressional reporting requirements. 

The framework could provide poli cy parameters for the COCOMs programmatic assessments, 

with feedback mechanisms to allow for policy and programmatic adjustments as security 

cooperation partnerships evolve. 

Balancing Activities for a Coherent f>rogram 

Current DoD policy is to c reate a comprehensive package of security cooperation for partners, 

including institution building and sustainment. However, in practice, U.S. political imperatives 

and operational demands, as well as partner preferences and challenges, often hinder 

implementation of a coherent and enduring security cooperation program. 

In coordination with the Department of State, DoD must improve its definition of desired 

outcomes for security cooperation and then determine the best tools to employ to achieve a 

balanced program. By law, the Department should be required to articulate the outcome for 

security cooperation programs when providing Congressional notification. There may be times 

when the Department contends that it wants to provide training and equipment to a partner for a 

shorter-term, contingency-linked purpose. U.S. political imperatives to do something in the ncar 

term in response to a crisis oficn press the Department to deploy train and equip measures 

without thinking through the consequences. However, the Department should not ascribe more to 
20 


16-27_Dalton_7.eps

Dalton: Wrinen Testimony to SASC ETC Subcomminee 03/09/2016 

this kind of"partnership" than there really is, that is narrow in purpose and perhaps also in 

duration, or it may expose itself to operational and political risk if the partner ultimately has a 

different outcome in mind. However, if the outcome sought by both the Department and the 

partner is a longer term relationship, then they should make a balanced investment of institution 

building, advising, exercises, education, training, and equipping, using the full security 

cooperation toolkit, infom1ed and continually updated by AM&E. 

This will not be easy. Even if the United States insists on a balanced security cooperation 

program, many partners will still want to primarily receive equipment. Frank dialogue between 

the United States and its security partners helps correct asymmetries of infonnation and 

expectations, but gaps will remain and should be acknowledged. Whereas the United States 

views security cooperation as a tool to achieve broader U.S. objectives, a partner may view 

security cooperation as an entitlement. Other partners may fear the risk of empowering their 

militaries beyond elite units that they can personally control. Moreover, institutional corruption 

and lack of prioritization of institution building and sustainment within partner nations can slow 

their development of capable forces through security cooperation programs. 

7 

In its engagements with partners, the Department should stress that enduring partnerships and the 

ability of partners to act independently depends on institution building and sustainment. The 

DoD Directive on Defense Institution Building (DIB) is a promising stan to defining and 

strategically orienting the Department's security cooperation efforts to include DIB4 However, 

DIB often rubs sensitivities of political and economic stntctures in partner country, affecting who 

is empowered and how planning and funding decisions are made, which the partner may view 

with suspicion and distrust and prompt questioning of U.S. motives. Even with a willing partner, 

it takes years for institution building efforts to solidify and yield results. Wh ile Congressional 

and policy oversight and AM&E of DIB will be important, Congress and the Department should 

moderate their expectations for improvement to account for long-term effects that are rarely 

evident in the short term. 

Conclusion 

The United States faces a daunting array of security challenges in the 21" century that only a 

network of partners can address together. Security cooperation enables these partnerships, but 

may falter without stronger strategic alignment, assessment, and management of resources. The 

Department continually reaches for security cooperation to address challenges and crises but 

does not give it the investments in training, personnel, and policy to sustain and strategically 

employ it, as it does for its hard power tools. Within the security cooperation enterprise, adapting 

to a changing security environment, aligning resources to priorities, adjusting roles and 

• DoD Directive 5205.82 Defense Institution Building (DIB), 

http:/ /cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/DoDD%20on%20DIB·SIGNED%20EFFECTIVE%2027%20Jan%202016.pdf 
21 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Sir? 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. McNERNEY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY 

CENTER, RAND CORPORATION 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the important topic of security cooperation. 

I am Michael McNerney from the RAND Corporation. It is a 

pleasure to appear before you along with my colleagues, Jeff 

Eggers and Melissa Dalton. 

Today I will focus on three questions. First, how does the Department of Defense prioritize its security cooperation investments? 

Second, how does DOD manage the current patchwork of relevant 

legislative authorities? Third, how can DOD and Congress better 

evaluate the effectiveness of these activities? 

Regarding prioritization, let us start with a few numbers. DOD 

conducts about 3,000 to 4,000 security cooperation events per year 

in more than 130 countries. Total U.S. assistance to foreign militaries and police forces runs between $15 billion and $20 billion a 

year, about $10 billion of which comes from DOD. 

What is the bang for the buck? A recent RAND study found U.S. 

investments in security cooperation were associated with reduced 

fragility around the world. This link, however, is strongly connected with certain types of countries, less autocratic, less fragile, 

and with certain types of tools, namely those tools that focus on 

building human capital and institutions. 

Resilient partners are the best defense against terrorism and 

other threats, and resilience comes from strong institutions and 

professional security forces. Some of the most important tools for 

building resilient partners reside outside DOD, for example, with 

the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

Let me mention two recommendations relevant to prioritization. 

First, Congress might consider ways to encourage DOD to more 

clearly prioritize partner countries and investment tradeoffs and to 

more consistently prioritize activities that strengthen a partner’s 

institutions and the professionalization of their security forces. 

Second, Congress might consider ways to support DOD, State Department, and USAID unity of effort. For example, could DOD be 

authorized to transfer funds to USAID if a military commander 

needs USAID’s support in preventing violent extremism? 

Regarding authorities, last week, RAND released a report analyzing legislative authorities for security cooperation. Based on our 


16-27_Dalton_8.eps
22 

research and on the focused discussions we had with stakeholders 

in Congress and in DOD, we created a framework to organize 106 

title 10 authorities into several categories. We identified opportunities for reducing these authorities by 15 percent from 106 to 91. We 

also found opportunities to revise and add authorities to improve 

flexibility, for example, in the areas of cyber and ballistic missile 

defense. 

Two recommendations on authorities. 

First, Congress, working with DOD, might consider RAND’s proposals for consolidating, revising, and adding title 10 security cooperation authorities. Doing so would likely increase operational effectiveness on the ground while maintaining robust congressional 

oversight. 

Second, Congress might consider a follow-on step to analyze how 

DOD and Department of State authorities can be better integrated. 

The third major challenge I see in security cooperation is how 

DOD and Congress can better evaluate effectiveness, what is working and what is not. Understanding effectiveness starts with smart 

objectives, specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and 

time-bound. With smart objectives as the foundation, the next step 

is building a comprehensive system for what is called AM&E, assessments of partner capabilities and will, monitoring of performance, and evaluations of effectiveness. 

RAND is working with DOD to help it apply lessons from various 

organizations like the State Department, USAID, World Bank, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and working with them to create 

a framework for managing AM&E more effectively. 

Looking ahead to when DOD provides its strategic framework for 

security cooperation this spring, a key question for Congress might 

be how DOD’s AM&E system will improve congressional oversight, 

particularly through prioritized, analysis-based evaluations. 

Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, members of the 

subcommittee, I appreciate the time to offer this testimony. I look 

forward to helping the committee with its vital work. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McNerney follows:] 

23 


16-27_McNerney_1.eps

Department of Defense and Security 

Cooperation 

Testimony 

Improving Prioritization, Authorities, and Evaluations 

Michael J. McNerney 

RAND Office of External Affairs 

CT-454 

March 2016 

Testimony pre-Seflted before the Senate Armed 5tfvioes Subcommltee on Emerging Ttveats on March 9. 2016 

This product is part of the RAND Corporation tKtimony series. RAND testimoni&s record testimony presented by RAND auodatK 

to federal, state, or lOCal legislative oommitt&M; govemment~appointed oommis.s.ion.s and panels; and private review and oversight 

bOdies. The RAND Corporation is a nonp(()(rt tMearch OC"ganiution providing Objec:we analys.is and effectiw sotut;ons that addreu 

the chal*'ge:s facing the public and private uctM around the wortd. RAND's publications do not necessarily reftect the opinions of 

its research dients and sponsors. RAN 0 3 is a registeted trademark.. 
24 


16-27_McNerney_2.eps

For more information on this publi('ation~ visit www.rand.org/pub.slrcstimonicslCf454.html 

Published by the RAND Corponuion. Santa Monica. Dlif. 

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25 


16-27_McNerney_3.eps

Michael J . McNerney' 

The RAND Corporation 

Department of Defens e and Security Cooperation: 

Improving Prioritization, Authorities, and Evaluations' 

Before the Committee on Armed Services 

Subcommittee on Emerging Threats 

United States Senate 

March 9, 2016 

Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify on the important subject of U.S. security cooperation. lfs a 

pleasure to appear before you today along with my colleagues, Jeff Eggers and Melissa Dalton' 

The RAND Corporation has analyzed the costs and benefits of security cooperation extensively 

over the past 15 years. I've analyzed security cooperation challenges during that same period, 

both at the Pentagon and at RAND. 

Make no mistake: Working with foreign militaries is more art than science. But it certainly 

shouldn't be abstract art. Security cooperation is most effective when it's based on coordinated 

' The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the autho(s alone and should not be 

interpreted as representing those of RAND or any of the sponsors of its research. This product is part of the 

RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND testimonies record testimony presented by RAND associates to 

federal, state, or local legislative committees; govemment·appointed commissions and panels; and private 

review and oversight bodies. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization provi<fing objective 

analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the 

world. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. 

2 This testimony is available for free download at http://www.rand.org/pubs/lestimonies/CT454.html. 

3 This testimony draws on the following reports: David E. Thaler, Michael J. McNerney, Beth Grill, Jefferson 

P. Marquis, and Amanda Kadlec, From Patchwork to Framework: A Review of Tille 10 Authorities for 

Security Cooperation, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1438-0SD, 2016 (rand.orgNRR1438); 

Michael J. McNerney. Stuart E. Johnson, Stephanie Pezard, David Stebbins, Renanah Miles. Angela 

O'Mahony, Chaoling Feng, Tim Oliver, Defense Institution Building in Africa: An Assessmant, Santa Monica, 

Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1232-0SD, 2016 (www.rand.orgNRR1232); Michael J. McNerney, Angela 

O'Mahony, Thomas$. Szayna, Derek Eaton, Caroline Baxter, Colin P. Clarke, Emma Cutrufello, Michael 

McGee, Heather Peterson, Leslie Adrienne Payne, Calin Trenkov-Wermuth, Assessing Security 

Cooperation as a Preventive Tool, Santa Monica, Ca ~. : RAND Corporation, RR-350-A, 2014 

(www.rand.orgNRR350); Larry Hanauer, Stuart E. Johnson, Christopher Springer, Chaoting Feng, Michael 

J. McNerney, Stephanie Pezard, Shira Efron, Evaluating the Impact of the Department of Defense Regional 

Centers for Security Studies, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-388-0SD, 2014 

(www.rand.orgNRR388); Christopher Paul, Brian Gordon, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Lisa Saum-Manning, 

Beth Grill. Colin P. Clar1<e, Heather Peterson. A Buikfing Partner Capacity Assessment Framework: Tracking 

Inputs, Outputs, Outcomes, Disrupters, and Worl<arounds. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation. RR· 

935-0SD, 2015 (www.rand.orgNRR935); and Christopher Paul, Jennifer D. P. Moroney. Beth Grill, Colin P. 

Clar1<e, Lisa Saum-Manning, Heather Peterson. Brian Gordon. What Worl<s Best When Building Partner 

Capacity in Challenging Contexts? Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-937-0SD, 2015 

(www.rand.orgNRR937). 
26 


16-27_McNerney_4.eps

planning and informed by rigorous analysis. But ultimately, it must be lailored by the dedicated 

men and women serving overseas to meet the realities they face on the ground. Clear guidance 

and intensive training are crucial to ensure that they can overcome the many challenges that 

arise in this line of work. 

Today, I will focus on three questions. First, how does the Department of Defense (DoD) prioritize 

its security cooperation investments? Second, how does DoD manage the current patchwork of 

relevant legislative authorities that have been pieced together in recent years? Third, how can 

DoD-and Congress-better evaluate the effectiveness of these activilies? 

Background 

DoD conducts about 3,000 to 4,000 security cooperation events each year in more than 130 

countries, while total U.S. assistance to foreign militaries and police forces runs between $15 

billion and $20 billion per year.' An activity can include a military chaplain exchange, a 

multinational exercise with lhousands of troops, and everything in between. These activities touch 

tens of thousands of foreign security forces each year. 

Observers might assume that security cooperation failures in places like Iraq, Mali, and Syria are 

the result of DoD having no strategy or no plan to manage this vast effort. But this assumption 

oversimplifies the problem. DoD produces thousands of pages of guidance, strategies, planning 

documents, and after-action reports. Hundreds of officials coordinate their plans and share 

information. Success stories abound concerning more-professional forces, successful 

counterterrorism missions, countries that can better protect their borders, and countries that can 

deploy on peacekeeping missions or in coalitions with the United Slates. But to what end? A I rue 

strategy aligns ends, ways, and means and links to detailed strategic plans. Strategy and 

planning documents should provide sufficient detail for senior leaders to undersland whars 

working and what's not. In RAND's research on security cooperation planning, we have found 

that DoD has made great strides to add rigor to this type of planning through more-detailed 

guidance, Theater Campaign Plans, country cooperation plans, and extensive coordination 

processes. The scope and scale of these activities, however, make it extraordinarily difficult for 

civilian leaders in the Pentagon, at the State Department, and in Congress to play an efective 

role in fulfilling their oversight responsibilities. 

' Security Assistance Monitor, "Data," web tool, undated 

(http:/lwww.securityassistance.org/data/country/military/country/201 012017 fls _ aiVGiobal). 

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Let me turn now to three of the most important issues relating to this oversight: prioritization, 

authorities, and evaluation of effectiveness. 

Prioritization 

The military assistant to a former senior Pentagon official once told me that one of his jobs was to 

manage the memos and reports that arrived daily for his boss to read. Some would be tagged as 

red-hot, some as white-hot, and some simply as important. Every Friday, he would bundle the 

remaining hot items for the deputy's weekend work, while the rest-often a 2-ft high pile-were 

not read and subsequently disposed of. This revelation was quite discouraging to an eager 

Pentagon staffer like me, who authored many "important" memos in his day, but a good reminder 

of the tyranny of time. Senior leaders can play a role in prioritizing efforts for their organization 

only if their organization does some prioritization in advance. 

Right now, different parts of DoD prioritize security cooperation efforts in different ways through 

their plans. It is extremely challenging for leaders to link these plans to resource priorities and 

thereby consider the implicit trade-offs being made. The result often puts secretaries and under 

secretaries in DoD and the State Department in a listening role rather than a decisionmaking role 

and likely affects members of Congress and their staff as well. Lers look more closely at this 

problem through two lenses: prioritizing countries and prioritizing security cooperation tools. 

When traveling to a combatant command, it can seem as if every region of the world is like Lake 

Wobegon. where every partner country is above average. In many security cooperation plans, 

different countries are priorities for different objectives. This is logical but makes it extremely 

difficult to analyze trade-offs. Difficulties are acknowledged, but optimism-and a desire for more 

funding-abounds. 

When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. What if every combatant command had to 

identify three countries where they expected the greatest return on investment for the next two 

years? For these "bullish partners." there would be a surge in security cooperation activities. On 

the flip side, the combatant command would also identify three countries where a strong return on 

investment is less likely for the next two years. For these "bearish partners," activities would be 

reduced to offset costs to support increased investments in bullish partners. But what if bearish 

partners are central to achieving crucially important objectives? Continued investments might be 

warranted despite the risks, but sometimes it is foolish to continue a losing approach. Return on 

investment should take into account the importance of the objectives being pursued, expected 

benefits, relative costs, and risk. Of course, security cooperation funding comes through many 

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different programs using many different tools, so such an effort would be complicated and require 

extensive dialogue among stakeholders. But such a discussion might be more focused and 

action-oriented than the typical round-the-wortd reviews that take up so much staf and leadership 

time. 

In addition to prioritizing countries. senior leaders have a role in prioritizing the security 

cooperation tools used to address partnership requirements. Matching the right tool to the right 

country for the right objective is perhaps the single most important aspect of security cooperation 

planning. RAND research found a statistically significant correlation between U.S. investments in 

security cooperation and reduced fragility around the world. This correlation, however, was 

stronger with certain types of countries (less autocratic, less fragile) and with certain types of 

tools-namely, those focused on building human capital and institutions. As such countries as 

Colombia, Georgia, Romania, and South Korea improved their own governance, for example, the 

United States seemed to find ever better returns on its security cooperation investments. Focused 

train-and-equip programs-such as the Section 2282 (formerly Section 1206) program' - have 

certainly been valuable in supporting U.S. counterterrorism objectives in the Horn of Africa and 

elsewhere. But we must be wary of overvaluing these activities at the expense of longer-term 

efforts to create more-resilient, well-governed, and stable partners. After 15 years of intensive 

counterterrorism activities, I would argue that it is long overdue for the United States to prioritize 

long-term support to good governance over rapidly equipping tactical military units. Resilient 

partners are the best defense against terrorism, and resilience comes from strong institutions and 

professional security forces. 

RAN~esearch on building defense institutions found that many of those involved in security 

cooperation had a poor understanding of institution-building tools and were inadequately trained 

in explaining relevant U.S. programs to olfic<als from partner countries. The International Military 

Education and Training program, the Defense Institutional Reform Initiative, Do~egional 

Centers, and other professional military education programs should serve as the foundation of 

security cooperation and as a top priority for leadership attention and stan training, not as smalldollar efforts that can run themselves. 

Finally, it is important to note that some of the most critical tools reside outside DoD, for example 

with the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). DoD and 

State have extensive mechanisms for coordinating security-related eWorts, and this coordination 

' Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, and as amended in Fiscal 

Year 2015 as Section 2282, provided the Secretary of Defense with authority to Ita in and equip foreign 

military forces for two specified purposes--wunterterrorism and stability operations-and foreign security 

forces for counterterrorism operations. 

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warrants sustained Congressional attention. Fewer such mechanisms exist between DoD and 

USAID, despite USAID's important roles in areas such as security sector reform, peace-building, 

and preventing violent extremism. Any efforts to promote greater unity of effort between DoD and 

USAID also warrant Congressional attention. 

Authorities 

last week, RAND released a report analyzing the legislative authorities for security cooperation, 

which are under U.S. Code Title 10 or related public laws• Through our research, we found 160 

total authorities relevant to security cooperation, 123 of which are under Title 10. We identified 

106 "core" statutes that directly authorize activities and 17 "supporting" ones that legislate the 

transfer of funds or mandate reports to Congress. These 106 core authorities included various 

limitations and levels of flexibility. Dozens of interviews and focus group sessions revealed 

frustration and confusion about perceived gaps. overlaps. and ambiguities surrounding these 

authorities, a need for greater flexibility in addressing multifaceted or emerging threats, and a 

desire to improve on this patchwork that has developed over many years. 

So how does DoD sew together this patchwork of relevant legislative authorities into a nicely 

tailored coat of many colors? In our report, we create a framework to organize authorities into 

several categories: some authorities focused on particular activities (e.g., exercises), some on 

particular missions (e.g., counterterrorism), and some on particular partners (e.g., Pakistan). 

We identified opportunities for consolidating authorities, starting by reducing the 106 core 

authorities to 91. While there were ether opportunities for consolidation, we propose this initial 

step-a 15-percent cut of low-hanging fruit to serve as a pilot effort and a way to initiate a more 

structured dialogue among DoD, the State Department, and Congress. 

We also found opportunities to revise authorities to improve flexibility for DoD while maintaining 

robust congressional oversight. For example, we identified ways to improve the ability of DoD to 

engage with partners on cyber issues, provide more flexibility to conduct military-to-military 

engagements, provide military advisors to support institution-building, and expand maritime 

security train-and-equip efforts globally. Finally, we identified the need for a new authority to 

improve DoD's ability to engage parlllers on ballistic missile defense. 

There is certainly more to do to streamline the patchwork and improve the ability of DoD to 

efficiently and effectively engage in the security cooperation activities that Congress has 

• Thaler et al., 2016. 

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authorized it to conduct. Aside from seeking additional opportunities for consolidation and 

revision. much still needs to be done to better integrate Title 10 and Title 22 authorities. assess 

the effect of appropriations on security cooperation. and align notification and reporting 

requirements. 

Evaluation 

The third major challenge I see in security cooperation is how DoD and Congress can better 

evaluate effectiveness. What is working and what is not? 

Understanding effectiveness starts with understanding your objectives. We have been working 

with DoD to help them develop "SMART" security cooperation objectives. These are objectives 

that help a plan become specific, measurable. achievable, results-oriented, and time.bound. Not 

every objective can meet every one of these criteria on its own, but rather must be supplemented 

with information about the tasks planned within each objective. When detailed objectives and 

tasks are combined with measures of effectiveness that will be used for future evaluations, an 

organization can create a SMART system. Such a system should help clarify for senior leaders 

exactly what an organization is trying to do, how it plans to do it. and how the leaders will know if 

it is making progress. 

Addressing the challenges of evaluation also requires breaking down the process of evaluation 

into its component parts. which we think of as "AM&E": baseline assessments, monitoring of 

performance. and evaluations of effectiveness. But before looking at AM&E-and this relates to 

my earlier point about prioritization-senior leaders must decide what is worth measuring. In 

command headquarters in Afghanistan, Germany, Iraq, Honolulu. and Tampa, I have seen 

massive slide presentations and spreadsheets analyzing various security cooperation activities 

until it all becomes a blur, and I surrender to the operations researchers and engineers who have 

designed them. How much more difficult is this process for congressional overseers who review 

an even greater scope of national security issues? These slides and spreadsheets may well be 

important for the organizations in which they reside, but evaluations must translate into something 

that can highlight a few key areas of progress and problems. 

In the AM&E construct, assessments mean that senior leaders must have a baseline assessment. 

What is the security environment in which these activities will take place? What are the partner's 

existing capabilities. and what does the United States want to improve? How well aligned are the 

partner's interests and values with those of the United States? DoD has made some 

improvements in analyzing partner capabilities and is planning to do more. For example, the 

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Office of the Secretary of Defense has designed a Capability Package Planning Model to guide 

assessment of capability requirements and programmatic risks, identify key inputs comprising a 

military capability, and develop comprehensive capability packages that address capability 

requirements across all necessary dimensions. This effort should help ensure that security 

cooperation investments are more closely linked to priority objectives. 

Monitoring means that priority efforts must be closely tracked to determine whether inputs (e.g., 

money and effort) are translating into outputs (e.g ., equipment, training, education, and 

information). These outputs then serve as the basis for evaluating progress toward objectives 

(i.e., outcomes). The U.S. effort to train fighters in Syria last fall is an important example of a 

failure in monitoring, when only a handful of Syrians had been trained despite the expenditure of 

millions of dollars. While most monitoring of security cooperation is a relatively slraightfoiWard 

program managemenllask, senior leaders need a system that alerts them much faster to 

significant system breakdowns. 

Evaluation is the ultimate goal of AM&E and requires that all other components work well. 

Providing a piece of equipment or training a military officer is not an end unto itself. Investments 

require following up to make sure that they yield the full potential benefits that were expected. 

Many organizations inside and outside the U.S. government have put a heavy emphasis on the 

ability to evaluate progress toward objectives. The Gates Foundation and World Bank have been 

trailblazers in this field. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, U.S. Agency for International 

Development, and State Department have all found at least some success in evaluations, even in 

areas that are not amenable to quantifiable metrics. Within DoD. the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict oversees a promising evaluation 

process for its Section 2282 Train and Equip program. 

In the case of the Section 2282 program, DoD uses a small team of independent outside 

evaluators who have established reasonable, common standards of capability and performance 

for the types of missions supported by this authority. These standards are applicable to all partner 

nations that receive assistance. The team visits the recipient partner organizations about one 

year after training and equipment is provided, both to monitor use of the assistance and to 

evaluate the effects of that assistance. Results- the good, the bad, and the ugly-are 

consolidated into an annual report that highlights key points for the Secretary of Defense to 

transmit to Congress. The teams have been to 20 countries in the past four years and have 

documented their approach in a handbook to ensure consistency of application. 

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RAND is working with DoD to help it apply lessons from various organizations and create a 

framework that can be applied across the entire department to establish roles and responsibilities 

for managing AM&E more effectively. We hope this will support Congress's requirement in 

Section 1202 of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act lor DoD to issue a strategic 

framework prioritizing security cooperation resources and activities. 

Recommendations 

The eight recommendations that follow could help set the stage for more productive, analyticallybased discussions between DoD and Congress and ultimately more effective security 

cooperation. 

1. Congress might consider requiring a regular dialogue focused on three countries in each 

region of the world where a strong return on security cooperation investments are 

expected and three countries in each region where activities will be reduced. Senior DoD 

leaders and Members of Congress are nooded with more information than they can 

manage. A more focused dialogue on priorities and tradeoffs would likely be a better use 

of everyone's time than current efforts to review every detail of every activity around the 

world, regardless of priority. 

2. Given RAND's findings about the value of institution-building and human capital 

investments, Congress might consider ways to encourage DoD to consistently prioritize 

activities that strengthen a partner's institutions and the professionalization of the~ 

security forces. 

3. Congress might consider ways to support DoD and USAID unity of effort, for example. 

through an authority to allow DoD to transfer funds to USAID in support of programs like 

those to prevent violent extremism. 

4. Congress-working with DoD-might consider RAND's proposals for consolidating, 

revising, and adding Title 10 security cooperation authorities. Doing so would li<ely 

increase operational effectiveness on the ground while maintaining robust oversight for 

Congress. 

5. Congress might consider reviewing security cooperation roles, interests, and coordination 

between DoD and the Department of State, as well as how their respective authorities 

can be better integrated. 

6. Congress, DoD, and other stakeholders could use the SMART criteria described earlier 

to evaluate the utility of DoD security cooperation objectives. 

7. Given last year's problems monitoring security force training in Syria, Congress might 

review DoD's system lor alerting senior leaders to significant system breakdowns in 

providing security sector assistance. 

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8. When DoD provides its strategic framework for securijy cooperation, Congress might 

focus part of its review on how DoD's AM&E system witl help improve congressional 

oversight, particularly through prioritized, analysis-based evaluations. 

Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Nelson, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the 

opportunity to offer this testimony, and I look forward to assisting the committee in its vital work. 

9 
34 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you all. I appreciate your opening statements. 

The ranking member has to leave shortly, so I will defer and 

have Senator Nelson begin the questioning. 

Senator NELSON. Thank you for the courtesy, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. Dalton, you talked about assistance to non-state actors. Tell 

us. 

Ms. DALTON. Thank you, Ranking Member Nelson. 

What I am talking about is in the 21st century, the United 

States faces considerable challenges from potential adversaries that 

are leveraging non-state actors. If you think of China’s activities in 

the South China Sea, using Coast Guard and commercial shipping 

assets, if you think about Russia’s activities in Europe, little green 

men, political subversion, leveraging non-state capabilities, and 

Iran has a long history of leveraging non-state actors in the Middle 

East. 

The fact of the matter is the 21st century security landscape is 

incredibly diffuse with power distributed across state and non-state 

boundaries. For the United States to remain competitive in that 

space with its potential adversaries, I think we need to get creative 

about who we are partnering with. That might require us thinking 

through whether we have the right authorities to conduct military 

activities in various parts of the world. 

As I mentioned, there are currently mechanisms in other parts 

of the Government that allow for that, but there may be an argument for considering a more public approach to highlight the partnerships that we might strike with non-state actors. We have also 

done this in sort of an ad hoc manner in places like Syria, support 

for the Kurds. The question is do we need a more systematic approach, given the evolution of the strategic landscape that does not 

seem to be faltering at this time. 

Senator NELSON. Before I leave, I need to get to another question, but I would like a brief comment from the other two of you 

about this. 

Mr. EGGERS. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator NELSON. Brief. 

Mr. EGGERS. Ms. Dalton has put her finger on an important 

problem. Libya and Syria exemplify the multi-dimensional conflicts 

we face where it is not clear that the sub-state enemy of our enemy 

is our friend. It is clearly not so simple in the case of Al-Nusra and 

the even wider factualization in Libya. 

However, I am also not sure that it is necessarily right to formalize vehicles for such type of support, but I do think it would be 

better to bring some mechanism and some discipline so that it does 

not sit entirely within title 50. There are pretty good lessons of 

where that has gone. It has been successful, but long-term unintended consequences need to be watched. 

Senator NELSON. The gentleman from RAND. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Senator. 

I agree it could be a helpful approach, but it would have to be 

monitored pretty carefully. I do think title 10 can bring a more 

open approach, and not everything working with non-state actors 

has to be clandestine or covert. Why not have a more open apVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:02 Jun 14, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\25808.TXT WILDA
35 

proach to non-state actors if we do not need to operate in a covert 

manner with them? 

Senator NELSON. Let us go to Eastern Europe. How important is 

it to our Eastern European allies that there are training opportunities and exercises basically for their capability, as well as reassurance? Anybody. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I will go first. 

The research I talked about showed less autocratic, more stable 

countries seem to be able to use security cooperation assistance 

better, and Eastern Europe countries are in general a very good example of where I think the United States gets a good bang for the 

buck. 

Senator NELSON. All right. We send U.S. Forces there. They 

train or conduct exercises with those allies, and they do it in multilateral settings. Everybody agree with that? Okay. 

Now, what about Ukraine? We are concerned in building partner 

capacity. We are focused on addressing the institutional problems 

of corruption and flawed management, and yet we have to help 

them build better tactical skills. Do you want to comment on that? 

Mr. EGGERS. I think the example of Ukraine is, as Mr. McNerney 

said, a good bang for the buck example where there is a high return on investment because the new threats of the 21st century are 

in, as Ms. Dalton said, these gray areas where the 20th century 

toolbox is not working. The one thing in that toolbox that can work 

in this paradigm is buttressing and, as you said, reassuring our 

support and commitment in these areas. The South China Sea is 

another great example of where there are fewer tools that we can 

use. This is an example where the old paradigm does meet the new 

wave of threats in my view. 

Senator NELSON. I am only 30 seconds over. 

Senator FISCHER. Not bad. Thank you, Senator Nelson. 

I would like to ask you just some basic questions about these programs. As you know, we are looking at different reforms in moving 

forward as a committee. I kind of want to do a broad view of these 

programs. Any of you that would like to respond to the questions, 

it would be fine. 

Do you believe that our current structure of security cooperation 

authorities allows the Department to effectively being able to 

marry the strategic policy with appropriate operations and resources? If not, where do you think this process breaks down? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I would say the authorities are not the biggest 

problem in terms of the breakdown, but they could be made clearer, more consolidated to make it a little bit clearer for those on the 

ground to understand what they can and cannot do. In our report, 

we have got some what we call low-hanging fruit options that are 

very easy to consolidate and a few new ideas for authorities to enable the men and women who are working so hard on the ground 

to do this to feel confident that, yes, I can work with this partner 

to strengthen their cyber capabilities and I am not going to get 

shut down by a Pentagon lawyer a month later. Yes, there is room 

for improvements in that regard. 

The bigger problem is often in the guidance that flows then down 

from the Pentagon and the need for the people on the ground to 

understand what is expected of them and for them to communicate 

36 

with the partner how this is going to work. That is where we usually have more problems. 

Senator FISCHER. As we have seen the growth in threats, we also 

see a growth in the security cooperation authorities. I talked about 

a patchwork and just the vast number of authorities that are out 

there. I believe it was you, Ms. Dalton, who spoke about being able 

to combine some of them. How do you think that would impact our 

efforts, though, in moving forward? Are we going to be able to save 

some time and resources by consolidating some of these authorities, 

making it more time-sensitive in many ways as well? Again, any 

of you feel free to answer. 

Ms. DALTON. Yes, Madam Chairman. I do think that doing some 

streamlining of authorities would simplify the choices that decisionmakers and practitioners have to make when faced with a challenge that seems to require some sort of security cooperation, and 

then opening the grand menu of 100 authorities, it is quite a task. 

You know, there are folks in the security cooperation enterprise 

that have years of experience that are in pockets in different offices. Oftentimes you have embassies staffed with security cooperation officials that are very well intended, have significant operational background, but do not have the training on how to do security cooperation. They have had a 2-week crash course on what 

the security cooperation authorities are, but have not had a career 

of looking at this issue set and so are often somewhat scrambling 

in a way to define what the appropriate mix of tools is correct for 

a particular application. 

Senator FISCHER. As they are attempting to navigate through 

this process, how much time is wasted? How much of our resources 

are wasted? Do you have any way to gauge that? A lot, a little? 

Mr. EGGERS. Madam Chair, my guess is that the has evolved to 

the complexity of the framework, and so people are now holding essentially doctorates in how to patch together these 160 authorities 

to get what they need to do done. Making it consolidated and more 

streamlined would probably lower the bars to entry for becoming 

an expert planner, and these people have an immense amount of 

experience and knowledge to be able to work with this patchwork. 

I am not sure it would save time. I think it would lower the bar 

to entry so that it would be more accessible and more easily 

trained. Again, I do not think it is one of the strategic variables 

impacting the effectiveness of the overall process. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I would think about opportunity costs also. 

Sometimes the person at the embassy working with the partner directly—they will not waste a lot of time. They will just say, well, 

I do not understand this, so I am going to do what my predecessor 

did, or I am going to do what we did last year because it is easy 

and I know it will get approved. Sometimes it can still be implemented quickly, but it might not be the most effective approach. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Senator Kaine? 

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the 

committee. Thanks to the witnesses for being here. 

I will start with the positive, then questions and concerns. 

I have been a huge fan of security assistance programs. I have 

seen our special forces working together with the Lebanese army 

37 

and thanked profusely for the commitment of our country to their 

special forces training. We have special purpose Marine air-ground 

task force training units in Africa doing a lot of work with a lot 

of the different countries there. They are both helping countries 

tackle their challenges, they are building good relations between 

the United States and those countries. A lot of the work is done 

in areas that have been identified as near or adjacent to highthreat embassy posts so that if we were ever to need to do something quickly at a high-threat U.S. embassy, we would have the 

working relationships there to enable us to do it. There are a lot 

of reasons for these investments. 

Then finally, the work that we have done in security cooperation 

with Colombia has really been remarkable in the last 15 years. 

Now you see Colombians that we have trained in Central America 

helping the northern triangle countries deal with their violence. 

You see them in the Sinai as part of the multinational force observers guarding the border between Egypt and Israel. We have trained 

them well enough that they are going out and providing stability 

elsewhere, which is fantastic. 

I generally am a fan, but I am really glad that the chairwoman 

called this hearing because I think there are potentials for confusion and overlap and how do you rationalize all this. 

We had a hearing in January in the Readiness Subcommittee— 

I think Senator Ernst was part of it—where we were looking a tug 

of war between basically DOD and USAID over the DOD Task 

Force for Business and Stability Operations, which led to a lot of 

kind of shocking headlines about over-expenditure on what would 

seem like USAID activity. Even though the witnesses were sort of 

making a case that some of the instances were not as bad as maybe 

they initially appeared, they did concede actually, when they 

looked at it, it would be better for USAID to do this kind of work 

than DOD. That was a helpful concession that they made in connection with the hearing. 

I sort of am curious to have you talk really about two things— 

if we are working with other nations to help them on security, the 

purpose is great—how to coordinate better between what DOD provides and what State or USAID provide first. 

Then second—and you touched on this a little bit in your testimony—the whole question of measuring effect. It is like what are 

the goals you set out in advance and then how do you measure 

their effectiveness. The 160 different authorities not only makes it 

hard to plan, but it makes it hard for us to exercise oversight if 

the authorities are also very different. That is something we ought 

to be doing to measure the effectiveness of this $10 billion annual 

investment. 

If you could talk about either effectiveness or coordinating among 

the different participating U.S. agencies. 

Mr. EGGERS. Thank you, Senator. I will take the first one. 

One of the bright spots in the evolution of authorities, the expansion of title 10 authorities and so forth, the innovation since 9/11 

in these types of authorities that I found that people were relatively pleased with were the utilization of joint authorities and 

getting away from the old mechanism where it was really one or 

the other and there was either a coordination consultation requireVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:02 Jun 14, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\25808.TXT WILDA
38 

ment, which since they were not well defined, could create tensions 

and lack of coordination between the agencies. There was a fair 

amount of consensus that the innovation of using a joint mechanism for these types of authorities, while it obviously requires more 

work because two agencies have to come together, it also steps 

around a lot of the tension that was built up in the older model. 

I would defer the effectiveness question to my colleagues. 

Ms. DALTON. Thank you for that question, Senator. 

In regards to coordination between the Department and its interagency partners, the Presidential Policy Directive 23 calls for the 

creation of integrated country strategies that would originate in the 

embassies, and so it would involve all various members of the country teams, State, USAID, DOD, and others collaborating to synchronize objectives and priorities and activities in that strategy. 

Then that, in theory, is supposed to come back up to Washington 

to have the policy oversight of that. 

The trick then is also feeding that into the theater campaign 

plan development. That linkage would need to happen in DOD, 

particularly in OSD and the Joint Staff. 

There is interagency work afoot to try to address that, but I 

think we are not quite there yet. 

To the point of measuring effectiveness, I completely agree that 

the 100 authorities that we would have to measure effectiveness 

against would be quite a daunting task. Being able to streamline 

the authorities with—you know, in part one of the objectives of enhancing our ability to measure effectiveness would be quite significant in both creating a policy framework, how do you create parameters for the framework around the authorities that you are going 

to measure, as well as the burden on the combatant commanders 

to do programmatic evaluation of security cooperation. If you kind 

of narrow the number of things that people have to look at, surely 

there are efficiencies to be made. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Kaine. 

Senator Cotton? 

Senator COTTON. Thank you. 

Mr. McNerney, you stressed in your written testimony the importance of prioritization. Oftentimes when I hear a conversation 

about security assistance and security cooperation programs, it is 

focused on the Middle East where we have been for a long time and 

countries in Africa that need some very basic capability-building, 

you know, police forces, shoot, move, communicate at the small 

unit tactic level. Then you look in places like Southeast Asia where 

we deal with very advanced militaries that still need assistance 

with maritime security especially towards China and their aggressive actions in the South China Sea. 

Could you say a little bit about the qualitative differences in security assistance across the main regions where we are engaged, 

East and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and how 

we might think about prioritizing those efforts? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thanks, Senator Cotton. 

I think you are exactly right that for every region the assistance 

really needs to be tailored, and even every country has a great variety. 

39 

I think the way to think about tailoring, though, is to start with 

the same fundamental tools. Institution-building is relevant in all 

regions. It is just done in a different way. In Europe, for instance, 

we work with institutions on a more peer basis to share classified 

information in a more efficient way, almost the way the U.S. works 

within the interagency. State and DOD have trouble talking to 

each other. The United States and the U.K. might have similar 

challenges working across agencies. We work at the institutional 

level in a very sophisticated way. It is important to reinforce that. 

Whereas, in the Middle East, we are not as close because we do 

not have a NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] alliance 

equivalent. The cooperation is not as sophisticated, and yet there 

needs to be an ability to work with those partners and try to align 

our values and our interests over time. That is a really long game, 

but it is well worth the investment. There it is less about sharing 

some top secret piece of information today. It is more about how 

can we become closer over the next 20 years. 

In Southeast Asia, it is helping them develop the institutions. 

Often it is pushing on an open door where countries are already 

working to strengthen institutions, and we can build on that, and 

it is basically putting seed in fertile ground, whereas in Africa, you 

might get more resistance. 

In all cases, the tools are important. You just have to apply them 

in different ways. To save time, I will not go through train and 

equip or professional military education, but it is the same way of 

thinking for each of those. 

Senator COTTON. Ms. Dalton, would you care to add anything? It 

was a CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies] report 

recently on the Asia-Pacific rebalance that talked about the need 

for more maritime security cooperation in the South China Sea. 

Ms. DALTON. Yes. That was combined effort from my office and 

the Asia team, and that was absolutely highlighted as a priority for 

investment on the part of the Department going forward, including 

the creation of a joint operational center to synchronize maritime 

security activities and enhance investments in undersea warfare, 

electronic warfare, and ISR [intelligence surveillance 

reconnaisance], among other capabilities. From our perspective, 

that is certainly a priority for investment going forward for the Department. 

Senator COTTON. I am going to throw this out for all three witnesses because I am not sure which has the best perspective. Feel 

free to claim the jump ball. 

In our country when we think about authorities, we have a pretty sharp distinction between title 10 and title 50. Suffice it to say 

those authorities and that distinction is not as clear cut among our 

adversaries and among many of our allies. If you look at some of 

the challenges that countries on Russia’s periphery face, they certainly face something that we might consider closer to a title 50 authority challenge than a traditional military challenge, even though 

those lines are not as clear. Russia has a larger intelligence budget 

for instance than the entire government budget of Estonia and Latvia. 

Is that something that we need to address as a government, the 

fact that we have a very bright line between those two authorities 

40 

but allies, countries who need capacity- and capability-building do 

not have such a bright line? 

Ms. DALTON. Senator, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I 

do think that we need to take a look at how we approach this issue 

of hybrid warfare and gray zones because there is a difference, as 

you note, between how our adversaries approach these issues and 

how they are task organized to address them, and then the clear 

distinctions on our side. 

Certainly we need to be very careful in approaching that. There 

are very good reasons why we have those distinctions. We are a democracy. We want to have that civ-mil distinction and have a clear 

distinction between our intelligence and our military activities. 

As I mentioned earlier, I do think that in order to remain competitive in this space, that it requires some creative thinking on 

our part in terms of how we organize and how we approach these 

problem sets, which may have implications for our authorities. 

Senator COTTON. Mr. Eggers, Mr. McNerney? 

Mr. EGGERS. I would agree with Ms. Dalton. I think it is right 

to identify these areas as a need for focus, but really the first place 

to invest would be targeting these areas with greater priority with 

the tools that we have, as is being done with the Eastern Europe 

reassurance and South China Sea and so forth, before we need to 

get to engineering kind of new authorities that kind of go with 

what Putin and the Russians are doing. I think there is probably 

more that could be done, but I think it is right to focus on this as 

a problem area. 

Senator COTTON. Thank you. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Cotton. 

Senator Ernst? 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you to the witnesses today for being here. It is an interesting discussion. 

I am going to go back a little bit. Senator Cotton had mentioned 

the Middle East and the South China Sea. If we can go back to the 

Middle East a little bit, as we talk about measurements and what 

is working and what is not working, Mr. McNerney, if you can set 

the stage for us. 

Right now if we focus on the Middle East, in particular, in Iraq, 

developing a Sunni fighting force is really key to defeating ISIS 

[the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] in Iraq, and holding and 

building in Sunni areas that ISIS has destroyed, that is very important. It does not seem like we have had much emphasis coming 

from the Iraqi Government on actually developing that Sunni force. 

Now we have a Shia force that is rivaling the Iraqi Security Forces 

in that area and outside of Baghdad. 

If you could set the stage for us on why it is taking so long for 

the Iraqis to develop a Sunni fighting force and maybe any influences in that. Then I would like to move on to Ms. Dalton and talk 

about being creative and tailoring some of these programs that 

exist to retool and do better. If you could set the stage for us, 

please, Mr. McNerney. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Senator Ernst. 

I think the Middle East is obviously the greatest challenge of all 

in the security cooperation realm, and I think where the DepartVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:02 Jun 14, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\25808.TXT WILDA
41 

ment could do better is in presenting expected outcomes and risk. 

What we usually get is hoped-for outcomes when we get assessments. If there was a little more sort of skeptical assessment of 

what will come out of efforts, I think it then allows Congress to 

maybe make better judgments about what the investments are 

gong to do. 

Again, I would reiterate that that is a really long game in the 

Middle East. The investments really have to be balanced between 

long-term and short-term goals. At times in Iraq, being a great 

case, we were very short-term focused during the effort to withdraw and getting to certain levels of troops at a certain readiness 

standard and may not have done as good a job thinking about the 

political frameworks and the sort of institutional piece of that. We 

do not want to make the same mistake now. Of course, you cannot 

force a sovereign nation to take action, but we have a lot of tools 

to encourage ways of doing business that we need to have a more 

open dialogue about, including here on the Hill. 

Senator ERNST. Certainly. Do you see other governmental forces, 

particularly Iranian forces—are they having an influence in that in 

why we are not able to see greater Sunni participation? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, absolutely. Iran as a next door neighbor 

and having a relationship with the government absolutely has influence there as well. I always say that the United States does not 

have much leverage, but we have tremendous influence. By leverage, I think of a transactional you need to do X or else we will 

withdraw funding. That does not work very well. Both countries, 

Iran and the United States, have influence but it is a much more 

subtle sort of soft power way of thinking, and we need to try to 

think about how to use tools that help in that regard. 

Senator ERNST. Well, okay. Now we have got the stage set with 

some of the issues that we have and the influences that we have. 

Now, Ms. Dalton, can you take that stage and further develop it, 

retooling the way we think about the situation and the other types 

of assistance or cooperation that we can utilize in that area to do 

a better job? Can you maybe give us an idea what you think perhaps could work in that area? 

Ms. DALTON. Thank you for the question, Senator. 

I do think that this is one of the areas where this concept of 

greater engagement with non-state actors could be helpful. We had 

this one-off example of the Awakening in Iraq in 2007–2008 where 

we provided assistance to the tribes at a local level and that helped 

turn the tide. That for a variety of reasons did not work over the 

long term. I think that that is the big lesson learned there, that 

there are cases in the past where we have ad hoc assisted nonstate actors in places in the Middle East, but then connecting that 

to a broader political framework such that it is a sustainable solution such that if we empower the tribes and they set up their expectations in terms of their role in the future of Iraq, that there 

is some answer at the end of that for them. I think we did not close 

the circle on that last time. If we are to step our engagement with 

the tribes this time, that is something that we should definitely 

look to do better on. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Ms. Dalton. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

42 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Ernst. 

Senator Gillibrand? 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

The international partners who are a focus of our security assistance efforts have a wide range of financial means. Saudi Arabia, 

for example, a vastly wealthy state, is capable of funding most of 

the capacity-building arrangements it has with the United States. 

Other strategically important partners like Jordan are much more 

dependent on United States financial assistance to sustain such activities. 

When a partner nation commits its own resources towards paying for U.S. security assistance, does that influence its efficacy and 

outcome? When partner nations are not able to bankroll the assistance the U.S. provides, what reasons justify or which metrics 

should be met to determine whether the U.S. supports that relationship financially? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I have always been of the mind that even the 

partners with the least resources need to have some buy-in, and we 

always say you cannot want it more than they do. Even a partner 

who is really strapped for resources—they need to buy into 

sustainment, maintenance over time, and at least providing trained 

personnel who are going to stay with the equipment or other assistance that we provide. 

On the other end of the coin, a country like Saudi Arabia—I am 

definitely a heretic in this regard, but I think the United States 

should be willing to even fund Saudi Arabian participation in certain events if the United States feels like it will not come otherwise 

and it is really important for us to have them there. The U.K. actually does that. Sometimes the U.K. will say we are doing an event 

on something to do with professionalization and we want everyone 

to come and we will just pay for everyone. Of course, we do not do 

that for sound financial reasons, but there may be times we want 

to make exceptions to that rule. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Anyone else? 

Ms. DALTON. Senator, thanks for the question. 

I would just also add to Mike’s great comments that there is also 

a difference in leverage, as Mike noted earlier, being a factor in security cooperation relationships. That has an impact as you look to 

measuring effectiveness and the identification of what outcomes we 

are trying to achieve. If our partner has more of a say in terms of 

the dollar amount that they can commit to their security investments, that arguably puts us on a different playing field with them 

in terms of leverage. 

If there is a difference in the outcomes that we want to achieve, 

it perhaps is harder for us to square those different outcomes. If 

there is a partner that is more dependent on us for resources, arguably we may have a bit more leverage. Any differences in objectives 

and outcomes might be more easily bridged, I would venture. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Related. Since 2001, the United States has 

spent more than $100 billion on programs to build partner capacity 

in weak states like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, all producing limited degrees of success. What metrics are used to determine the efficacy of capacity-building programs there, and what might be better indicators of success? 

43 

Mr. EGGERS. Senator, I think metrics I will leave to my colleague, Mr. McNerney, to address. 

One of the things that I have advocated before is before we even 

get to the question of measuring the effectiveness of the program, 

vetting the feasibility of the program on the front end. I think it 

is going to be always difficult to really find concrete and quantitative metrics, even when these programs are well implemented 

and appear to be creating good results. I think it is always going 

to be difficult. I think it is easier to come up with principles for 

which these types of programs should be applied and where we 

think we are going to get a reasonable return on investment and 

focus on applying that on the front end. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Maybe I could just add something about the way 

USAID creates its metrics. They work on what is called project design, and they have a theory of change. They have a very sophisticated way of thinking about where they want the partner to be 

over time and creating milestones to get there. 

DOD does that sometimes but in a more informal way, and it is 

not clear to me DOD always engages with the partner as early in 

the process as, say, AID does. I always say sometimes they bake 

the cake and give it to the partner and say, you can put the icing 

on it, whereas it is better to be right in there with the eggs and 

the flour and the sugar with the partner right away, and that often 

comes out with better measures right up front. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Do you consider the money we spend with 

regard to Pakistan to be one of those partnerships or not? 

Mr. EGGERS. Senator, I put that in the category of security cooperation that is buying us influence and access. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Because we do not have any control where 

the money goes, and we have zero oversight and zero accountability. 

Mr. EGGERS. Pakistan is not alone in that regard. 

I think there is a pretty clear acknowledgement that even where 

we are buying capability, it is going to have, at best, a mixed use, 

and the Pakistani intentions for those are not generally going to 

align with where we would want to see them go. In fact, in most 

cases, we are pretty sure they do not. They have been at least kind 

of ostensibly effective in maintaining a relationship that gave us 

access, for instance, to supply lines in Afghanistan for the coalition. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Do you think our investment has paid off? 

Mr. EGGERS. In Pakistan? 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Yes. 

Mr. EGGERS. I think it is hard to make those kinds of judgments 

because of the amounts of funding we are talking about are of kind 

of an almost unprecedented magnitude. They, of course, are small 

relative to the overall cost of the effort in Afghanistan, and they 

were instrumental. Without many of those supply lines through 

Pakistan, the war effort would not have been possible. It is really 

impossible to make a judgment of whether or not they were, quote, 

worth it. I think once we decided that this military effort and this 

style of engagement in Afghanistan was required, it was part of the 

cost of that. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you. 

Thanks, Madam Chairwoman. 

44 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator. 

Mr. McNerney, in your comments that you provided, you discuss 

the Syria train-and-equip program. You gave that as an example 

for the need for better monitoring, and you spoke about the need 

for an alert system that would notify us earlier on when a system, 

when a program was failing. How do you see that program operating in practice, if we have this early alert system? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Senator. 

I think when a project is so high-profile and so high-risk, you 

need to have—and by alert system, it is not sort of a red phone 

type of system, but more of a way for leaders in the field to let 

leaders in Washington know that risk is growing or that they are 

seeing problems growing. 

Senator FISCHER. Objectives would not be met on a schedule that 

hopefully had been preset? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes, ma’am. 

An example in Syria, of course, there is a startup cost when you 

are going to train a force. There is infrastructure. There is equipment that has to be brought in. Then you are hoping that the students will show up or the trainees will show up. 

Now, there should be a way to alert the system when you are 

starting to worry that maybe the trainees will not show up. I find 

it hard to believe that the U.S. spent as much money as it did and 

never had any sense that the trainees would not show up. There 

must have been that worry, and so that alert system is really about 

communicating risk and communicating it to Washington so that 

senior leaders in the Pentagon can come here and communicate it 

here. 

Senator FISCHER. Would you recommend having a third party be 

involved in this, or do you believe it could be handled within the 

current system that we have? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I have never actually given that thought, but it 

is an interesting idea. 

I have thought about red teaming, so where you have like the 

CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and others do where they have 

a skeptical group inside who plays devil’s advocate. I think what 

you might be suggesting, ma’am, would be to have sort of a third 

party play that role, and I think there are groups within the U.S. 

that have better linkages to civil society in a country where we are 

working where they may have a better sense of the reality on the 

ground that the U.S. could leverage better. That may be a way to 

use a third party. 

Senator FISCHER. Ms. Dalton or Mr. Eggers, do you have anything to add on that? 

Mr. EGGERS. I would agree. I always advocate and endorse the 

idea of more objective assessors. I think anytime you are in the 

business of having people responsible for the development and implementation of programs, cognitive bias makes it difficult for them 

to view and assess those programs objectively. 

Ms. DALTON. Madam, I would just add to that that if we are 

going to be relying on, as I myself recommended, the combatant 

commanders to provide programmatic assessment, monitoring, and 

evaluation, that the COCOMs actually have the incentive to report 

45 

back positively so that they may receive more resources. The idea 

of having a third party, some sort of red teaming, is probably wise. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Also, Mr. McNerney, in your opening statement, you suggested 

the need for a new authority to improve the multilateral engagement on missile defense. Could you elaborate on that? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes, ma’am. The U.S. has authorities or DOD 

has authorities to engage on a range of topics, but ballistic missile 

defense is one that has not been used in the past. Lawyers could 

be nervous to allow that topic to come in. In none of the authorities 

is there that sort of mission-based ability. 

Senator FISCHER. We would not modify an existing authority. It 

would take creating a new one? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes, ma’am. In fact, that was the one case, the 

only case, where we found you could not easily revise an existing 

authority. It was the only one where we said you probably need a 

brand new authority. In the case of cyber, we thought there are 

cyber-related authorities. It is just a matter of sort of extending 

them in different ways. Maritime security—the same thing, but not 

missile defense. 

Senator FISCHER. Would either of you have anything to add on 

that? 

[No response.] 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Senator Kaine? 

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

This is a great hearing, really important for us. 

This is a question that is going to be out of left field, but I just 

would be curious because you kind of represent the intellectual 

think tank community that looks big picture at some of these questions. 

The chairman of the committee, Senator McCain, is interested in 

having us this year possibly as part of the NDAA process tackle a 

Goldwater-Nichols type—you know, since 1986, look at the whole 

structure of the Pentagon, the Service Chiefs, the civilian secretaries, the COCOMs, kind of look at all that. 

It strikes me if you were looking at that in a world where you 

are not doing a lot of cooperation with other nations, you might set 

it up one way, but if you are looking at it in a world where this 

kind of cooperation is likely to be probably more frequent rather 

than less, you might set things up differently. For example, if the 

COCOMs are going to be in charge of these security cooperation instances or if you continue with the presidential executive order and 

you basically make everything hinge around the ambassador, you 

know, that all kind of fits into a structure. 

Would you have any general advice for us, as we approach the 

notion of Goldwater-Nichols reanalysis, about how to factor in the 

reality of these security cooperation agreements, which I think are 

only going to grow, how to fact that into looking at structural questions about the way we ought to organize our DOD mission? 

Mr. EGGERS. Thank you, Senator. 

I had the opportunity to testify in one of the hearings in December on that question. 

46 

As it relates to this topic, my sense is that the opportunities for 

reform on Goldwater-Nichols are not trivial. They are significant. 

Most of them have to do, at least in the hearings that I observed, 

with programmatics and acquisition on our side. I advocated for 

personnel reform in that same manner. 

I think as it pertains to this, the objective of maybe revisiting the 

relationship between the service secretaries and the Service Chiefs 

and the Secretary may not be as related to the question of whether 

COCOMs have the majority influence and the prerogative to shape 

the security cooperation and the theater security cooperation plans 

in their theaters. The current system, obviously, I think is advantageous to them in that way. I do not see the shifting the balance 

or the onus of ever shifting from being kind of a regional/theater 

approach to being one that is built more around services, if that 

makes sense. Admittedly, that is as much as I have thought about 

that very interesting question thus far. 

Senator KAINE. You do not see it shifting from kind of a regionalbased strategy to a service-based strategy. 

Mr. EGGERS. That is correct. 

Senator KAINE. Okay. 

Ms. DALTON. Senator, I think it is a great question. 

I think that one of the areas that we should collectively look at 

is this tightening of an alignment between the defense strategy, the 

guidance for the employment of the force, and theater campaign 

plans and who kind of orchestrates that and drives that to ensure 

that then connects to security cooperation activities. Right now it 

is a variety of actors that are involved in that process, and not everybody is necessarily on the same sheet of music. To be clearly be 

able to pull the thread through from prioritization to what 

COCOMs are executing on the ground when they conduct security 

cooperation activities I think could be tightened up perhaps in 

thinking through who is involved with planning, how that is driven, and what mechanisms are used. Certainly those are topics to 

be taken up in the defense reform conversation. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. The only addition I would make, Senator, is 

maybe to dust off the Beyond Goldwater-Nichols reports that Jim 

Locher did a couple years ago. They are voluminous, but there are 

some interesting components in there that talk about not just DOD 

but how do you have a Goldwater-Nichols approach to interagency 

cooperation. There may be some useful ways to improve that. 

Senator KAINE. Thank you. 

Thanks, Madam Chair. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Kaine. 

I would like to do one more question. I will let Senator Kaine 

stay and ask another one too, if we can. 

Mr. McNerney—or Mr. Eggers. I am sorry. In your opening statement, you noted that concern over the problem of excess, overlapping, or stovepiped authorities is not universally shared as some 

stakeholders find benefit in the patchwork as a means of securing 

dedicated resources. 

Can you elaborate more on the potential resistance to changing 

the current architecture of the authorities? 

47 

Mr. EGGERS. Thank you, Madam Chair, and you are not the first 

person who stopped on that finding and found that somewhat surprising. 

I myself was surprised in the course of doing research and interviews to hear people express anywhere from acquiescence to the 

status quo to resistance to consolidation. 

Senator FISCHER. Does this go to the Ph.D.s you were speaking 

of earlier? 

Mr. EGGERS. Some of them probably were doctors. 

Senator FISCHER. I will let you continue. Go ahead. 

Mr. EGGERS. I will give you two main reasons. One is that some 

people like the status quo because its patchwork nature is necessarily specific in places and it allocates resources to certain theaters or even specific and particular efforts. They are concerned that 

they would lose out in resourcing if there was a consolidation that 

lost that degree of specificity because they would not become a priority. Having a dedicated authority with the name of their issue or 

their region on it is beneficial to their securing resources. 

The second is one that was more particular to the State Department, which is that to the extent the proliferation of new authorities has been in title 10 and it has been to their perception something of an encroachment upon traditional State security assistance 

responsibilities, that the consolidation would formalize, institutionalize some of this, quote, encroachment. There was some sense 

of being cautious about consolidation for that reason, that we 

should be kind of slow and methodological in making sure that we 

do not kind of step past a certain kind of traditional boundary 

there. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Other comments? Do you have views that you would like to 

share? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I would just add that we found sunset clauses 

can often be very valuable because sometimes, as Mr. Eggers said, 

it can be helpful to shine a light on a particular mission that needs 

to be accomplished or a particular partner that is in dire straits, 

as you mentioned Ukraine. Then we should have a feeling for what 

is temporary and what is forever. The sunset clauses help keep 

people focused on the fact that this is a surge to focus on a particular problem and eventually things should go back to the normal 

process. 

Senator FISCHER. Where resources could be allocated by conditions on the ground. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Senator Kaine, did you have any other questions? 

Senator KAINE. You know, I have got a ton, but maybe I will do 

one. Let us see. Which one will I choose? Maybe I will go to Ms. 

Dalton. 

You answered a question that Senator Ernst asked, and I wish 

she was here because I am going to reference her in another way 

too. She had a very interesting amendment on the table in the 

NDAA last year that I thought was one of the hardest votes I cast. 

I ended up not supporting the amendment, but it was around do 

we provide our arms directly to the Kurds in Iraq. You indicated 

48 

that we may need to be open to do security cooperation with nonstate actors. We really grappled with this as a policy matter. 

We are supporting one nation, Iraq. We have not yet said we 

support a devolved Iraq. The Kurds are—they have been our best 

fighters. There is a very, very good relationship between the Kurds 

and the United States. The Iraqi central government treatment of 

the Kurds, sometimes militias, sometimes maybe not militias but 

negligent in not paying oil revenue. There is a lot to complain 

about that. 

The debate was really about can we support a group like the 

Kurds that really have been good allies without undermining a policy if we want the central government to work. We really grappled 

with that. I still find that that was a tough one even looking in the 

rear view. 

If we were going to think about doing security cooperation with 

non-state or sort of lesser-than-state entities, what would your advice be to us about how we do that without weakening—because 

part of what we are trying to do with security cooperation is ultimately build up institutional capacity and strength. We do not 

want to do it in a way that will weaken institutions or more atomize a situation that is already too atomized. What would be some 

advice you could give us on the general topic? 

Ms. DALTON. It is a great question, Senator. 

I think that, as with all things, taking it on a case-by-case basis 

and evaluating what the tradeoffs are in a particular instance. The 

example of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria—were we betting on the 

fact that they are the most capable militia that has proven in battle and that could create some space for us in that part of both 

countries and help push back against ISIS, but on the other hand, 

undermining the Government of Iraq, fraying relations with the 

Turks, a whole host of issues? 

I think in this broader question of should we be partnering more 

with non-state actors, it is really going to be a calculation of risks 

and tradeoffs to does it make sense to potentially empower that 

actor and then diminish the broader fabric of that country, or is the 

trajectory already such that the country is already fragmenting and 

so we need to place our bets on a group that could be a part of the 

future of—you know, whether it is a constellation of—you know, a 

federated approach. Taking it on a case-by-case basis I think will 

be key. 

Mr. EGGERS. Senator, I would just add that while I think it is 

obvious that the 21st century power is shifting from states to nonstate actors and we have to monitor and try and kind of adapt in 

keeping with that trend, I think we should be cautious about shifting to the mode of kind of working with non-state actors in the 

same way until we kind of fully kind of shift off the Westphalian 

world order. Our track record in picking these types of course is not 

always good. I think that there is a risk of slipping from perhaps 

in this case backing what happens to be a very effective force fighting for our interests to having unintended consequences where we 

are stepping in the middle of kind of a larger regional dynamic 

among rivals with proxies or in other cases backing kind of an ethnicity without a state. There are serious consequences I think that 

49 

have to be considered as long as we are still more or less trying 

to work with kind of the Westphalian world order. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I would say, Senator, if you can find ways to 

help that non-state actor in a way that reinforces the eventual institutions of the central government, then it can be valuable, but, 

as Mr. Eggers said, that can be a pretty tricky thing to navigate. 

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Kaine. 

I would like to thank all three of you for being here today. The 

information you have provided will be most valuable to us. Thank 

you very much. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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