U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

i 

97–491 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–57] 

EXAMINING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

SECURITY COOPERATION: WHEN IT 

WORKS AND WHEN IT DOESN’T 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

OCTOBER 21, 2015 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

MARK MOREHOUSE, Professional Staff Member 

KATY QUINN, Professional Staff Member 

BRITTON BURKETT, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Committee on 

Armed Services ..................................................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Fraser, Gen Douglas, USAF (Ret.), Principal, Doug Fraser LLC; Former 

SOUTHCOM Commander, 2009–2012; and Former PACOM Deputy Commander, 2008–2009 .............................................................................................. 7 

Paul, Christopher, Ph.D., Senior Social Scientist, RAND Corporation ............... 6 

Reveron, Derek, Ph.D., Professor of National Security Affairs, U.S. Naval 

War College .......................................................................................................... 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Fraser, Gen Douglas ......................................................................................... 77 

Paul, Christopher ............................................................................................. 52 

Reveron, Derek ................................................................................................. 43 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 41 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

EXAMINING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECURITY 

COOPERATION: WHEN IT WORKS AND WHEN IT DOESN’T 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 21, 2015. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:20 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ 

Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Mr. WILSON [presiding]. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to 

call this meeting of the House Armed Services Committee to order. 

Chairman Thornberry is on his way. He has been delayed, but 

he will be here any moment. 

Additionally, Mr. Smith, we will be working with Ranking Member Susan Davis of California. 

But we would like to thank everyone for being here today. The 

hearing today is certainly very important. And the issues that are 

being discussed are critically important. And working with our allies to increase global security is an important mission for the U.S. 

military, rightfully so, as we have never been faced with a more 

complex or complicated array of threats to America’s security. 

In addition, tight defense budgets put additional pressure on 

many of the accounts from which security assistance is drawn. For 

these reasons and others, the committee has dedicated this week 

for oversight of the Department of Defense [DOD] security cooperation activities, programs, and authorities. This week, the committee’s activities include a background briefing by Congressional Research Service, this opening hearing with outside witnesses, and a 

classified briefing with officials from both DOD and Department of 

State on the status of the administration’s efforts. 

There is general agreement that security cooperation should be 

an important component of our national security strategy. It creates more capable fighting partners and builds relationships that 

promote U.S. security interests. 

But we need to remember what it means, not as an ends. We 

have seen cases where security cooperation has been successful, for 

example, countering narcotics traffickers in the nation of Colombia 

or training Eastern European forces before they deploy to Afghanistan. We have also seen failures, with the Iraq and Syria trainand-equip programs the most notable, sadly, recent examples. 

Through this weeklong review of security cooperation efforts, we 

hope to ask and answer a number of critical questions: What 

makes a program successful? And what can we learn from the fail-
2 

ures? During today’s hearing, we will look into our distinguished 

panel of experts to help us analyze the lessons learned, what works 

and what doesn’t, so that the tool of security cooperation is used 

in the right way to ensure that future programs are set up for success. 

Helping others develop the capability to do things that need to 

be done makes sense. And part of the reason DOD is doing more 

of it is because they actually get it done and, particularly in the 

case of counterterrorism, get it done in a timely way. Security cooperation week combined with the language of the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] requiring the DOD to submit a 

strategic framework for building partnership capacity to Congress 

are the first steps by the committee as part of a long-term effort 

to review the use and effectiveness of security cooperation programs. In fact, this year, the National Defense Authorization Act 

includes important provisions to help improve our security cooperation efforts, such as the requirement for the security cooperation 

framework and a couple of new authorities. 

I would like to make the final point about working with friends 

and allies beyond building partnership capacity and other security 

cooperation. The House and Senate have sent the President a National Defense Authorization Act that passed both Chambers with 

strong bipartisan majorities. The legislation is a result of months 

of collaboration across the aisle, people working together to support 

our troops, making critical reforms to acquisition and military retirement to ensure the country is more secure. Wouldn’t it send a 

strong signal to the country, to our partners and friends, and to the 

rest of the world that the U.S. Congress and our President are pulling in the same direction when it comes to global security. 

With that said, I turn to our ranking member, who has arrived, 

for any opening comments he would like to make. Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate this 

hearing. I think this is an incredibly important topic, building partner capacity, because there are certain realities in the world right 

now. And the U.S. military is not going to be able to go anyplace 

in the world and fix problems on its own. We need allies. We need 

friends. We need partners in order to multiply, be a force multiplier 

basically, to enable us to be successful in parts of the world where 

we have unquestioned national security interests but where the 

U.S. military simply showing up is not necessarily going to fix the 

problem. 

So I think it is an incredibly important part of what we do. And 

it hasn’t always been successful. A lot of folks have criticized some 

of those failures, some of those areas where it didn’t work. And my 

great fear is that will be used as an excuse to say that we shouldn’t 

do this when we cannot succeed in the current national security environment unless we build partner capacity, unless we use allies to 

help us achieve our national security goals. It is critically important. And a couple areas where I think we have been very successful at this: in the Horn of Africa, in dealing with Somalia and Al 
3 

Shabaab and AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] with a 

very, very light U.S. footprint. The exact number of U.S. troops involved is classified, but it is triple digits, not quadruplefold. And 

the reason we have been successful there is we have worked with 

Ethiopia, we have worked with Kenya, we have worked with Uganda, we have worked with Burundi. We have helped build their capacity, and we have been able to contain the threat. Now, it is not, 

you know, 100 percent a peaceful, rosy scenario. But it certainly 

hasn’t spun out of control. And we have had no attacks against 

U.S., Western targets come out of Al Shabaab and Somalia because 

we built that partner capacity and because we were able to successfully partner. And I think that is just critically important. 

Also in the Philippines, the relatively light footprint, we have 

worked with the Philippine Government to contain insurgencies in 

the southern islands in the Philippines. Again, not a 100 percent 

success, there are still challenges down there. But we have built 

the capacity of the Filipino military to deal with that problem rather than sending in tens of thousands of U.S. troops. And I think 

that is going to be the model going forward: finding partners that 

we can work with to contain these threats. 

We have that challenge now in northern Africa, in Mali and elsewhere, finding those partners. But, in that case, we have worked 

to some degree with some of our European partners like the French 

who have better connections, better relationships down there. We 

still have a long way to go, obviously, with the chaos coming out 

of Libya. But I think building that partner capacity and finding allies who can help us is a critical piece of it. 

The final thing that I would add is that partner capacity sort of 

includes the Department of Defense building its partner capacity 

with our other two elements of national security, diplomacy and development. That is areas where I think we can better coordinate. 

I have been to dozens of countries where this has been tried. In 

some places, it works. And in some places, it doesn’t. And I think 

one of the big factors is how well the State Department gets along 

with the Department of Defense in those areas. In some cases, you 

have ambassadors who have great partnerships with the Department of Defense. In other cases, they are going at each other all 

the time and always in disagreement about how to proceed and 

who exactly is in charge. Building up the level of cooperation between the State Department and the Department of Defense is 

very important. 

And I would also say that building up development capacity— 

when I was in the Philippines, there was a great project, there we 

had an ambassador who worked very closely with our local special 

operations commander at the time and also worked very well with 

USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development]—went to one 

of the southern islands when they were cutting the ribbon on a 

new school that they had built. And that partnership on our side 

between defense, development, and diplomacy is the building block 

to successfully build the partnerships with the local countries 

where we are working to build their capacity. So that has to be 

part of it as well. 

With that, I look forward to testimony and questions from the 

members. 
4 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 41.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

And we now want to welcome our witnesses for the purpose of 

this hearing, which is ‘‘Examining Department of Defense Security 

Cooperation: When It Works and When It Doesn’t.’’ We are very 

grateful to have three distinguished witnesses with us today: Dr. 

Derek Reveron, Ph.D., professor of national security affairs at the 

U.S. Naval War College; Dr. Christopher Paul, who is, again, a 

Ph.D., a senior special scientist at the RAND Corporation; and also 

General Douglas Fraser, U.S. Air Force, retired, principal of the 

Douglas Fraser LLC, and former SOUTHCOM [United States 

Southern Command] commander and former PACOM [United 

States Pacific Command] deputy commander. 

Each of you, we are really grateful for your participation today. 

And we will begin with Dr. Reveron, and then we will proceed 

down the dais. 

STATEMENT OF DEREK REVERON, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF 

NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE 

Dr. REVERON. Thank you very much and good morning. It is an 

honor to speak to the committee today about security cooperation. 

The ideas are my own and largely reflect my work and my book, 

‘‘Exporting Security.’’ 

Security cooperation is not an abstract concept to me but something I participated in firsthand as an academic and as a naval officer. My study began in the late 1990s, when I observed military 

diplomacy firsthand, and continued through the last decade working with security assistance officers around the world to include 

dozens of militaries, Iraq and Afghanistan included. Additionally, 

my students at the Naval War College have been very helpful in 

my thinking on this. 

During this time, there has been no shortage of foreign policy crises. In an effort to reach for peace, the U.S. seeks to prevent conflict by helping regimes through security cooperation, which includes all Department of Defense interactions with foreign defense 

establishments. By sending weapons, trainers, and advisers, the 

U.S. helps other countries meet their national security that is challenged by intrastate, transnational, and regional challengers. Security cooperation is much bigger than building partnership capacity 

in combat zones. It seeks to empower U.S. partners rather than address security challenges through American force alone. Since coalition operations are a norm, security cooperation also ensures partners are interoperable with U.S. forces. For example, in Afghanistan, we operated with 50 partners who brought capabilities that 

we could not, such as police training. In Bahrain, a U.S. officer 

today directs 3 naval task forces composed of 30 partners who collectively protect vital trade routes. And in Key West, Joint Interagency Task Force South serves as a fusion center supporting 

international efforts to eliminate illicit trafficking into Caribbean 

and Latin America. 

Security cooperation enables these coalitions to work. The programs ensure partners have access to the U.S. defense industrial 
5 

base. And U.S. sponsored military exercises promote interoperability. Known as the indirect approach, the U.S. helps countries 

fill security deficits that exist when a country cannot independently 

protect its own national security. American generosity helps explain this, but U.S. national security benefits too. For example, by 

providing radars and surveillance technology, Central American 

countries can control their airspace and can interdict drug-filled 

planes bound for the United States. By providing logistic support, 

Pakistan can lead a coalition promoting maritime security in the 

Indian Ocean. And by selling Aegis destroyers, Japan can counter 

North Korean missiles and provide early warning of missile threats 

to the United States. 

The rationale for security cooperation has been based on the assumption that instability breeds chaos, which would make it more 

likely that the U.S. or the international community would face 

pressure in the future to intervene. Given America’s global foreign 

policy, many countries have large expectations for assistance from 

the United States. But the U.S. also derives benefits from security 

cooperation. Among these are obtaining base access as a quid pro 

quo; augmenting U.S. force structure by providing logistics and intelligence support to coalition partners in the Middle East; promoting a favorable balance of power by selling weapons systems 

and training programs to Gulf Cooperation Council countries to 

balance Iran; harmonizing areas of cooperation by working with 

Japan and Israel on missile defense; promoting self-defense 

through the Georgia Train and Equip Program; reinforcing sovereignty, like programs such as the Merida Initiative with Mexico; 

and supporting the U.S. industrial base and creating interoperable 

air forces through the F–35 program. 

At times, security cooperation can be limitless, dissatisfying, and 

futile. Further, risks abound. First, the non-exclusive nature of 

these activities will produce more failures than successes, which 

negatively impacts confidence in security cooperation as a tool. 

Second, the personnel system is not producing sufficient talent to 

support these missions. American forces no longer operate in isolation and need an appreciation of the historical, cultural, and political context of where they operate. 

Third, there is a tendency to over-rely on partners, thinking they 

can accomplish U.S. objectives when they either lack the political 

motivation or the skills to do so. Without indigenous political legitimacy, programs can only have a marginal impact on a country’s 

security and stability. 

Finally, other countries will rely on the U.S. to subsidize their 

own defense budgets, creating a free rider problem. 

Given the disappointments in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, there 

is the potential for the value of security cooperation to be ignored. 

But these programs are not confined to combat zones alone. When 

thinking about security cooperation, we should look at how international partners contribute to coalition operations, peacekeeping, 

and global security. U.S. budgetary declines will likely reinforce the 

importance of security cooperation, as the U.S. will need more partners and allies to augment its own defense capacities. 

I hope this hearing can show those inside and outside of the government of the challenges of the by, with, and through partners ap-
6 

proach and why security cooperation is an important pillar of U.S. 

defense strategy. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Reveron can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Professor Reveron. 

We now proceed to Dr. Paul. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER PAUL, PH.D., SENIOR SOCIAL 

SCIENTIST, RAND CORPORATION 

Dr. PAUL. Thank you for inviting me here to testify today. My 

remarks today will draw on research on security cooperation that 

I have led at RAND over the last several years. In one study, we 

used detailed case studies of 29 countries over 20 years. In a follow-on study, we did deep-dive case studies of four countries chosen 

specifically because they highlighted the range of possible challenges. 

The research has found several factors that are critical contributors in security cooperation. I will review them. 

First, matching matters. Efforts to build partner capacity are 

most effective when what is being offered aligns well with partner 

nations’ forces’ baseline capabilities and with their ability to absorb 

training and technology. 

Second, relationships matter, and they can take time to establish. Relationships contribute a necessary level of trust and understanding. And relationships also include the alignment of objectives 

between the United States and the partner. 

Third, context matters. Certain characteristics or features of 

partners improve their prospects for success. Specifically, partners 

with relatively robust governance and relatively strong economies 

have historically had more success in this area. Having a functioning ministry of defense and having sufficient resources and 

willingness to invest in sustainment are also helpful. 

Fourth, consistency and sustainment are key. By ‘‘sustainment,’’ 

I mean the provision of logistics and personnel services necessary 

to keep something going. That includes maintenance; spare and replacement parts; and some kind of plans for manning and personnel sustainment. In historical cases in which the United States 

provided consistent funding and effort over several years and some 

kind of sustainment effort was in place, be it provided by the U.S. 

or the partner, capacity was much more likely to be built and 

maintained. 

While our research highlighted several elements conducive to security cooperation success, we have also highlighted various challenges that can reduce the prospect for success. I will list some of 

them. First among them is partner willingness. One of the findings 

of our research is that you can’t want it more than they do. Lack 

of willingness can disrupt security cooperation at many different 

levels, any of which can result in delay, diminished success, or outright failure. Examples include partners who are unwilling to participate in security cooperation activities, partners willing to participate but unwilling to focus their efforts in areas of interest to 

the United States, and partners unwilling to use the capacity that 

has been built for the purpose that it was intended. 
7 

We found that many of the challenges to security cooperation 

success stem from shortcomings in U.S. practices, specifically that 

U.S. funds and delivers security cooperation inconsistently and that 

decreases effectiveness. Inadequate sustainment planning hurts security cooperation effectiveness too. As noted, unless they are sustained, forces and capabilities rapidly atrophy. Similarly, a lack of 

flexibility in security cooperation is a constraint on effectiveness. 

The administrative requirements lack needed flexibility. And these 

last three problems stem, in part, from some weaknesses in the legislative authorities. 

While the patchwork of authorities available to fund and support 

security cooperation enable a wide range of activities, they rarely 

support an activity for more than a year or two, resulting in uncertainty about continuation. They also leave insufficient room for 

flexibility. 

To support progress in this area, I will highlight five recommendations. 

First, reform legislative authorities can improve flexibility and 

simplify procedures. 

Second, revise or add new authorities to support a wider range 

of activities over longer periods of time and sustain them. This may 

entail new needed authorities, specifically to add a sustainment tail 

to existing programs and authorities. 

Third, consider whether partners have the attributes or characteristics that are associated with effective security cooperation. Use 

the results of that consideration to manage expectations accordingly. 

Fourth, regardless of the partner or context, review how well security cooperation goals and activities correspond with what the 

partner wants or needs and what that partner is capable of using 

and absorbing. As we have noted elsewhere, security cooperation 

must find the right ladder, find the right wrung, when aligning activities for partners. 

Fifth and finally, emphasize sustainments when reviewing security cooperation programs and ask whether planners have identified means at the outset for the sustainment and maintenance of 

any capabilities to be built. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Paul can be found in the Appendix on page 52.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Dr. Paul. 

We now proceed to General Fraser. 

STATEMENT OF GEN DOUGLAS FRASER, USAF (RET.), PRINCIPAL, DOUG FRASER LLC; FORMER SOUTHCOM COMMANDER, 2009–2012; AND FORMER PACOM DEPUTY COMMANDER, 2008–2009 

General FRASER. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and 

members of the committee, it has been over 3 years since I last had 

the opportunity to appear before you. I am honored to be here 

again—this time out of uniform—to share my perspective on the 

value of security cooperation programs and what they provide the 

Department of Defense and our Nation. 

It is also a pleasure for me to share this table with such two distinguished scholars in Professor Reveron and Dr. Paul. 
8 

My comments today are based on my experience in planning and 

executing security cooperation programs in two separate geographic 

combatant commands, U.S. Pacific Command and the United 

States Southern Command. According to the U.S. National Security 

Strategy, maintaining the security, confidence, and reliabilities of 

our allies is one of the key national security interests of the United 

States. Department of Defense security cooperation programs provide the tools that enable the services to support this national security interest. Increasingly, international security threats require a 

coalition of nations to counter and defeat them. To this end, the 

Armed Forces of the United States routinely trains with partner 

nations to be ready to form and fight as coalition when called. Department of Defense cooperation programs enable this training. 

Therefore, Department of Defense security programs provide 

three valuable contributions to the security of the United States. 

First, they build important relationships between the members of 

the Armed Forces of the U.S. and our partner nations which in 

turn enhances their capability to form and fight as the coalition in 

times of crisis. In conjunction with the Department of State’s security assistance programs, security cooperation programs help build 

the capacity of partner nation armed forces to maintain security 

within their borders. And, third, these programs grow the professional understanding of partner militaries on the importance of adhering to international standards of conduct, to include respect for 

human rights, the rule of law, and the role of elected civilian authorities. On the flip side, I often think we think that security cooperation programs can accomplish more than they are designed to 

do. 

Therefore, let me mention what I think security cooperation programs cannot do. First, they cannot prevent political change in the 

nation. Security cooperation programs encourage the armed forces 

of our partner nations to support the democratic process and defend the rights of their citizens to decide their political future. In 

maintaining these standards, political change can happen that does 

not support U.S. interests. And, second, security cooperation programs will not significantly reduce the breeding grounds of conflict, 

poverty, income inequality, or poor social infrastructure. 

Mr. Chairman, while this hearing is focused on security cooperation, because the responsibility for helping partner militaries resides at both Defense and State, I think it is important to acknowledge the close relationship that exists between the Department of 

Defense security cooperation programs and Department of State security assistance programs. The training and exercise programs 

conducted under security cooperation mesh closely with the education and equipping programs conducted through security assistance programs. And in my experience in working in two combatant 

commands, the relationships, as Congressman Smith said, between 

the Department of State and the Department of Defense is very 

close and really works closely to manage and maintain those capabilities. By supporting each other, these programs actually increase 

the success for both. 

Finally, security cooperation programs are important for the defense of the United States. We live in a globalized world. The 

United States will increasingly rely on our partners to help main-
9 

tain peace and security around the world. As I said earlier, security 

cooperation programs play a key role in enabling the U.S. and our 

partners to train and fight together. I am concerned that declining 

budgets will have a disproportionate impact on these programs, 

cutting them to a higher degree than other defense programs and 

thereby reducing their effectiveness. I thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Fraser can be found in the 

Appendix on page 77.] 

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Let me thank you all for being here. 

And I apologize for being a little late. But I very much appreciate 

testimony. 

I want to yield my 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina, who I appreciate filling in for me. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

each of you for being here. And I appreciate—there was a reference 

to Colombia. And people only hear really the negative. But Plan 

Colombia has been a success. I am really grateful that I have had 

the opportunity to serve, along with my wife, as the co-chair of the 

Partners of the Americas Program, an association of our State, 

South Carolina, with Colombia. So I have had the opportunity to 

visit the country, an extraordinary country of 40 million people. 

Also two of my sons actually were exchange students at a high 

school in Cali. And then we have had students come and live with 

us as exchange students. And we have seen the transition from a 

circumstance of narcoterrorists controlling extensive areas of the 

country and thousands of lives being lost, to Colombian families 

being protected. I wish more people in the United States knew of 

the success of the cooperation between the United States and the 

people of Colombia. 

With that in mind, for each of you, what factors should we use 

to evaluate how well security cooperation activities are having with 

their intended effects? Beginning with Dr. Reveron. Professor. 

Dr. REVERON. Thank you, sir. I think as we start thinking about 

success, just to reiterate what my colleague said, first is, the alignment of national interest is essential. And, in your case, that we 

highlight Colombia, I might add a couple of points and then certainly defer to General Fraser. 

First, I thought what Congress did was limit the number of uniformed personnel that could be inside Colombia. I think initially it 

was 400 and then increased to 800. I think that had a very positive 

effect. One, it really sent the message to the Colombians that it is 

their fight, and we are here to help in terms of enable through 

planning, logistics, and then some critical missing capabilities, such 

as rotary wing. 

Second, related to that, is really the absorption capacity, how 

well a partner can absorb U.S. aid. Sometimes we tend to treat 

other militaries as equal to our own. And I think in a professional 

setting, that, of course, is the right way to approach it. But when 

we start looking at training and absorption capacity, we sometimes 

get the standard wrong. So as I think about success and nonsuccess, it is really, I ask the question, to what standard should we 

be training partners? To the U.S. standard? To the NATO [North 
10 

Atlantic Treaty Organization] standard? Or to some other standard? 

And, finally, in terms of success, I think, these are U.S. Government programs. And in my own experience, I find they work best 

when they are coordinated at the U.S. Embassy level. And my favorite quote, I can’t name, but a combatant commander described 

himself or herself as the four-star, but when meeting with the U.S. 

Ambassador, that is the five-star. And when we see good bureaucratic alignment inside the U.S. Government in programs driven at 

the country level, I think we tend to see greater success. 

Dr. PAUL. Thank you. I actually have a third report that addresses assessments and evaluation explicitly. I will make just a few 

points from it. I think when we are looking for criteria to evaluate 

success in security cooperation, it depends in large part on what we 

set out to do and how well we have specified that. One of the 

broader recommendations of my research and that of others is that 

objectives be specified in a way that is SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—both short-term intermediate objectives for individual programs and program years and 

long-term objectives and strategies. 

I think Colombia is a very interesting example because part of 

the story of Colombia is how it took time for the security cooperation relationship to mature and evolve. There was initially a mismatch in objectives. The United States was primarily concerned 

with drugs, the Colombians were primarily concerned with international security. And so because of that mismatch, there was 

often ineffective action. But as the relationship evolved and especially after 9/11 when our focus changed, that relationship became 

much more effective and the security cooperation did as well. 

General FRASER. Thank you, Congressman Wilson. 

I guess I would put mine into three different categories. One is 

strategic patience. And I think security cooperation programs require strategic patience. Plan Colombia happened, but the United 

States had been working with the Colombian Government and the 

Colombian Armed Forces for 20 to 30 years prior to that, helping 

build the institutions within Colombia to be successful, primarily 

the military, with some corollary in coordination with the Department of State with the police. And so when Plan Colombia was put 

in place, the conditions were right in the country to help do that. 

So strategic patience I think is important. 

Commitment also. And at the time that Plan Colombia happened, there was a lot of things came together in Colombia. And 

a lot of focus came together in the United States also. And we had 

a common commitment. Although, as Dr. Paul said, I think we 

were misaligned there. And going back to the earlier point of authorities, we had a misalignment of authorities. Our objectives 

were counterdrug. And we limited the use of the capabilities that 

we were supporting the Colombians with to that mission when 

there was an intertwined problem within Colombia of terrorism as 

well as counterdrug. And when we changed those authorities was 

when the support of the United States really helped make a difference in key areas for the support of Colombia. 
11 

But I also think it is important to remember that while United 

States support was very helpful and made a difference, it was really the Colombians who won Colombia’s struggle. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask two questions. How important is development policy to the partner capacity issues that we are talking 

about in building those partnerships? And how can we improve the 

U.S. in terms of our development policy? Of course, I think it can 

be very important. I don’t think we have the best, most coordinated 

development structure. But as you have gone in these places and 

tried to build that partner capacity, obviously, we have the military 

training component; we have the State Department diplomacy. 

Whether you are talking about Colombia or, as I talked about, the 

Philippines or the Horn of Africa, where does the development 

piece fit into this building partner capacity? 

General FRASER. Congressman, let me start. From my standpoint, they have to be very much linked. In many cases, when I 

don’t think security cooperation in our security overall foreign assistance isn’t working well, it is when they are all working their 

own problems and where they see the problems as the most need 

but they don’t fit together in the overall capacity of where the strategic direction of the country is. Colombia, going back to that example, was successful because the Colombians actually put together a 

very coordinated strategic plan of how they were going to move 

from one part of the country to another, gain secure locations in 

one part of the country, and then bring in the development programs to help secure that area while they maintain the security 

within the country. 

In other parts of the region, and I will use Central America as 

an example, our efforts at times are very uncoordinated as they are 

applied at the tactical level in a country. So it is misapplied. And 

it is not necessarily well aligned within those countries. So it is 

that discussion, I think, between all the areas of foreign assistance 

that we have that conversation to really align those projects. And 

I think overall strategy of foreign assistance as it applies to the 

country matters also. And it is applied inconsistently or varies by 

embassy by embassy on how it is applied. So the roles of ambassadors are critically important. 

Dr. PAUL. I think that how important development policy is depends in part on our objectives. But within that, development is 

clearly tied to absorptive capacity, clearly tied to ministerial capacity, and clearly tied to the partner nation’s focus. So to the extent 

that our objectives rely on those things and those things are all correlated with success in security cooperation, it becomes important. 

As to what we can do to improve our development policy, that is 

not my area of expertise. So I will defer to the other gentlemen. 

Dr. REVERON. I won’t take that last part. But I think your question is very good. It also goes to the pace. And so as we think about 

the 3–D approach—defense, development, and diplomacy—the pace 

is very different. And so the example I like is the military can build 

a school pretty quickly. But it needs the Department of State to say 

where the school should be built. But it needs AID to train the 

teachers and provide the school supplies. And if we keep going back 
12 

to the Colombia case, we could point out they took a—reclaimed a 

pretty big part of territory held by the FARC [Revolutionary Armed 

Forces of Colombia] relatively quickly, but then that created the 

development challenge because then where the local farmers were 

growing coca and encouraged for crop substitution, there was no 

transportation system for them to get that out—the legitimate 

crops—out. And so that created a problem. And so sometimes with 

the pace, military can go in pretty quickly and maybe establish security in months, where development can take decades. 

Mr. SMITH. As far as how we reform development policy, I think 

the best thing we could do is centralize it. Development policy in 

the U.S. is spread out amongst way too many agencies. When you 

think of USAID as being in charge of development policy, but they 

only control about 14 percent of the development dollars that are 

spent by the U.S., I mean it is a patchwork. But that is another 

discussion. 

Just a quick question about Afghanistan, I thought something 

you said about Colombia was really important, that capping the 

number of troops in Colombia was an important part of the success 

because it made the Colombians aware that we would help but it 

was their fight. And I am just wondering, General Fraser, now that 

you are retired, speak frankly and clearly about, you know, this 

has been a great debate in Afghanistan, it was a debate in Iraq too, 

for that matter, is, you know, well, we can’t possibly maintain the 

security environment because our troops are better than theirs, you 

know, we need more U.S. troops. And I think every military commander’s first instinct is to say: Give me another 30,000 troops, 

and I can save the situation. When, in fact, I think that the opposite tends to be the case. And in Afghanistan, I think that is critically important. And though we certainly have struggles in Afghanistan, you have seen the military, even the police in Afghanistan 

become much more capable in the last several years as we have 

drawn down. 

Now, it is a balance. You didn’t say: Cap Colombia at 50 troops. 

There has to be a certain level where we can train and meet certain missions. But I am wondering if you could apply that logic to 

Afghanistan and where you see appropriate troop levels to be sufficiently supportive, but also to make it clear that it is the Afghans’ 

fight. 

General FRASER. I am going to—— 

Mr. SMITH. Punt? 

General FRASER [continuing]. Give you a little bit of a coordinated, because my expertise is not in Afghanistan. So the first 

thing I will tell you is what happened in Colombia has a model, 

but it cannot apply specifically to Afghanistan. It is a completely 

different culture, completely different terrain, has differing issues 

that they are dealing with. So to apply them and use that as a 

comparison I think is unfair. 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. But the basic principle of too much U.S. 

presence creates dependency instead of a sustainable situation, are 

you saying that they are so different that that doesn’t even apply? 

General FRASER. Sir, I think it needs to be applied to the situation that you find within Afghanistan. And I am not smart enough 
13 

on that or learned enough to be able to tell you, to answer that 

question. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Paul. 

Dr. PAUL. I would be happy to speak to this because I have actually done other research on reaching negotiated settlements, which 

is, I think, optimistically the outcome that we are hoping for in Afghanistan at this point. 

Mr. SMITH. A piece of it, yes. 

Dr. PAUL. Yes. So I think your observation that, making it clear 

that it is the Afghans’ fight is absolutely central in this. In our research on negotiated settlements, the first step of seven steps towards achieving negotiated settlements is the perception of stalemate. And stalemate is not just the military reality, it is a perception. And as long as the opposition in Afghanistan perceives that 

the U.S. is the reason there is a stalemate, then that may slow 

those perceptions because the classic statement from the Afghan 

perspective is: The Americans have all the watches, but we have 

all the time. 

So the opposition is waiting for the coalition forces to withdraw, 

so they get a chance to fight just the Afghans and see how well Afghanistan security forces will fight. If when that happens, there is 

a stalemate, then we are well on the path towards settlement. 

Mr. SMITH. But we have to get to that point. Okay. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

And, gentlemen, thank you for being here and sharing your expertise in areas of the world that many of us are not that familiar 

with. And probably Dr. Paul, because of your expertise, I will start 

with you. Many of us in the Congress are very concerned about the 

continued spending of billions and billions and billions of dollars 

and not being able to show the taxpayer—I am talking about Afghanistan now—how they are benefiting or how we are helping to 

improve the life, if you will, of people in Afghanistan. 

An article on January 29, 2014, and the title is this, ‘‘U.S. Literacy Program for Afghan Military Comes Up Short.’’ These are 

comments from John Sopko. I will be very brief. But as of February 

2013, roughly half the Afghan forces were still illiterate, despite 

the Pentagon’s expenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars on 

a literacy program there, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko, an independent auditor. 

One other sentence: Moreover, the United States military’s stated goal of 100 percent of first grade literacy for the entire force by 

December 31, 2014, is probably unattainable. Now, the reason I 

wanted to ask this question because we have in our military, most, 

if not all, that go into the military are high school graduates. Okay. 

Then if we are trying to build the Afghan security forces—we have 

been there for 14 years I believe, and we are going to be there another 8 years. That is 22 years. What level in 22 years would you 

anticipate we could get that Afghan who maybe is not even at the 

first grade level now, what would you, what would be your projections as to where he or she might be in 22 years? I mean, this is 
14 

where General Fraser was saying declining budgets; they are declining left and right quickly. 

We are going to raise the debt ceiling in just a few days and 

spend more and more money over in foreign countries that we can’t 

even account for. And this is what is frustrating to the American 

people. And, quite frankly, that is why Donald Trump is getting 

these big crowds. So, Dr. Paul—and one of my dearest friends, by 

the way, is Ron Paul. I don’t know if you all are kin or not, but 

he is one of my dearest friends. Would you respond to this concern 

about trying to train people to be able to fight and carry weapons 

and to do the things that need to be done to build a security force 

when they can’t read at the first grade level? And it doesn’t seem 

to be making a heck of a lot of progress. Please share your 

thoughts with me on that. 

Dr. PAUL. That is a great question, sir. And I have a lot of relevant thoughts, so please be patient with me. First, the kernel of 

that latter issue is about absorptive capacity. And that is a really 

rough baseline, to take Afghan provincial tribesmen who have very 

low baseline literacy and any kind of education. So what your goals 

are has to align to that. Is it feasible? Is it really necessary to 

achieve desired end states? How many people do you really need 

to educate to what level? Let’s look at the history of Afghanistan. 

A lot of Afghans have been fighting very effectively for a very long 

time without being literate. So some of that is a product of mirror 

imaging, that if we imagine that we want them to have conventional, mature, professional forces like our own, that, of course, to 

have a force like the United States’ force, you need a high level of 

baseline literacy. That probably isn’t feasible in Afghanistan. 

But, sir, your broader question about what do we tell the American people, how do we account for the money spent, and what we 

have to show for it, that is fundamentally an assessment and evaluation question. And if we were doing more and better assessment 

and evaluation, we would have something to show them. All of this, 

the subtext to all of this is the chain of logic connecting the things 

that we are doing with how we think they are going to work with 

how that is going to get to our end states. And a well designed assessment framework considers the whole progress along that path, 

from the SMART objectives at the end, from the SMART intermediate objectives that lead and connect those paths. 

Assessment and evaluation can be used to ask questions when 

you are planning operations and efforts, formative research: How 

is what I am planning to do likely to turn out? Assessment and 

evaluation can be asked of efforts in process: How is this effort 

going? Am I delivering the products and services and training that 

I planned to? How is that going? 

And then, of course, assessment at the back end, when you are 

done with an effort: How well did it go? Was attendance at the 

level that was expected? Did the number of trainees that actually 

passed the course reach our target or not? So that as you continue 

to move on, you can revise and improve. So assessment supports 

planning. It supports process improvement. And it enables accountability. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis. 
15 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to all of you for being here. 

Nice to see you, General Fraser, as well. Yesterday, we met with 

the Congressional Research Service. And I think some of the folks 

are here now. And in some ways this follows with my colleague’s 

question and adds to, one of my questions has always been, you 

know, what about State Department capacity? Do they have the capacity that is needed to do what needs to be done essentially? And 

one of the issues that was raised yesterday, which has been, I have 

heard this ever since I have practically been here after 9/11, is that 

the State Department doesn’t have a bench, a wide enough bench, 

a deep enough bench, as does the military, to provide people to be 

together in an initial planning. And I think some of the questions 

raised by, you know, the answer just now are, what skill sets are 

needed to assess these things? Do people need to be embedded in 

a situation in order to really truly evaluate what is happening 

rather than always being brought in at the end? 

We obviously have a budget problem. And this committee is not 

charged with having to budget the State Department. But at the 

same time, this is just such a recurring theme. How do we get our 

hands around this? Is that the problem? Or do you think they do 

have the capacity and that maybe it is within other departments, 

it is not just the State Department and the military, it is Commerce, it is Treasury, it is a whole host of things? 

General FRASER. Well, good to see you again, Congresswoman 

Davis. Thank you. From my standpoint, the State Department is 

not resourced well enough. And if you look across the board at our 

foreign assistance, depending on what we want that foreign assistance to accomplish, we have to resource it accordingly. And that 

goes not just to the State Department, but that goes to many of the 

other agencies who provide foreign assistance throughout countries. 

If I look back at General Kelly’s last posture statement from 

SOUTHCOM, his comment was he couldn’t do what he is doing 

without the teamwork of everybody else in the Federal Government 

who is working this. So I think this overall, as the NDAA this year 

has put in a requirement for the Department of Defense to come 

back and give a strategy on security cooperation, I think there 

needs to be—the Congress would be well served by bringing multiple committees together and developing a strategy of foreign assistance. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Foreign assistance strategy particularly, yes. 

Dr. PAUL. I would concur. The State Department’s role is absolutely critical. And the State Department is woefully undermanned. 

I routinely point out to colleagues in the Department of Defense 

and in the military services that the Department of State has fewer 

than 1,000 deployable officer equivalents. And that kind of helps 

them understand the manning mismatch. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Did you want to comment? 

Dr. REVERON. I think it works, all this works best when there is 

great cooperation. And State doesn’t seem to have the personnel to 

be able to do this. But the cooperation is essential. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Are there instances where you could see the need to 

have more professional skill sets available to do these evaluations 

and assessment? I mean, where do we look for that? I know that 
16 

we have people who have gained some expertise in this area. But 

to what extent are they really activated in these areas today? And 

what would you change? 

Dr. PAUL. Evaluation isn’t as hard as we often think it is. So if 

we provided more personnel with some basic evaluation training, 

they could do a better job. One of the big threats to effective evaluation is continuity. And often we see situations because of rotations both on the military and on the civilian side that some evaluation or assessment framework is in place, but then the next person on the job recognizes some deficiencies in that framework and 

starts a new one. So we need to inculcate a culture that says even 

mediocre evaluation done consistently is better than starting the 

baseline and starting evaluation over and over again. But there is 

certainly opportunity to bring in civilian experts and to identify positions both in defense and on the civilian side specifically for assessment and evaluation with possible considerable benefits. 

Mrs. DAVIS. General. 

General FRASER. Ma’am, I would just add one other thing. And 

that is with declining budgets, I think we have to focus very much 

on where we want foreign assistance to be successful and why. But 

that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be cooperation efforts undertaken with a bunch of different countries because I think maintaining relationships is an important outcome of security cooperation 

and foreign assistance. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Fraser, your last comment with declining budgets, we 

have to figure out where and why, I appreciate that. And that is 

something that has been one of my big concerns since I have been 

on this committee and watching the funding for the U.S. military 

and the number of men and women in uniform. And I look at the 

world and Africa’s 50-plus countries with a billion people. We are 

talking about Latin America today; 20 or better countries with 600 

million in population. And it certainly seems to me like we get 

more bang for our buck, if you will, in the Latin American and 

Central American countries with our partnerships there. 

So to me, building that partnership capacity is the key to the 

U.S.’s ability to influence things in the right direction. And certainly you have been a big part of that. How would you rate the 

progress we have made in building partnership capacity in Latin 

America? And where do you think we can best spend our dollars 

to improve those partnership capabilities? 

General FRASER. Congressman, thank you for that question. I 

would say that it has been episodic. At some points, we have success when we continue and, as you heard earlier, when those efforts are sustained. But they need to be focused. They need to be 

sustained. They need to have clear objectives that can happen in 

3 to 5 years. And I would argue that is not the long-term objective, 

that is a stepping stone to a long-term objective. 

So in support of Latin America, what happened in Colombia, 

which everybody uses as an example, took a long time to happen. 

But it got very focused. And it was very much a U.S. Government 
17 

effort supporting a Colombian Government effort. Both of them 

working together. And it had strong leadership on both sides of 

that coin. I think that remained a critical part. 

Where should we spend that effort right now within Latin America? I think what General Kelly and the State Department is doing 

in focusing on the northern tier of Central America is the right 

place to continue to focus our efforts. But we need to maintain 

those relationships with other parts of the region as well. 

Mr. SCOTT. Schools like WHINSEC [Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation], Western Hemisphere School for Security Cooperation, that helps build those military relationships 

with the future military leaders or current military leaders, really, 

of these other countries seems to be a cost-effective model. Is that 

something that we could extend to other regions of the world? Or 

is that a scenario under which cultural differences would create 

problems? 

General FRASER. No, sir. I think we, in many cases, I think we 

already have those schools in many places. There are different 

names. For example, in Hawaii, the Pacific Command has the Asia 

Pacific Center for Strategic Studies, similar school, similar types of 

programs focused in the same areas. So I think a lot of those 

schools are already in existence. The real focus, from my standpoint, is they need to be continued to be funded. 

Mr. SCOTT. Are we bringing those men and women from other 

countries to the U.S. to train them at those schools as we do at 

WHINSEC? 

General FRASER. The Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies is 

in Hawaii. It is in Honolulu. I can’t answer for the other combatant 

commands. 

Mr. SCOTT. That is great. Thank you. I was not aware of that. 

It might be a good place for a CODEL [congressional delegation]. 

Mr. Chairman, I would yield the remainder of my time. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service to our country. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cooper. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am worried that two topics have not been explored. One is the 

very nature of security cooperation, it is usually way more lucrative 

for the receiving nation. That is where the big money is, right? And 

I don’t want to exaggerate that, but we have already heard some 

discussion of how meager State Department resources are. And 

General Fraser mentioned that one general with four stars was 

kind enough to refer to the ambassador as being the five-star. That 

five-star ambassador had no transportation, no bank account, no 

resources. So it sounds more like brown-nosing than a genuine 

compliment. 

So to what extent in your analysis—and I know it is difficult to 

generalize and we should be country specific—we should be implementation plan specific, but, in general, security cooperation is almost a host country stimulus program compared to what the State 

Department can offer, right? 

Dr. REVERON. Sir, I would say it is a part of it. Promoting international security, I think, is a key dimension of U.S. foreign policy. 

The partner certainly benefits. I think benefits have come back to 

the United States. I like the current—there is currently three mari-
18 

time coalitions operating out of Bahrain. Not one is led by an 

American anymore. But the United States provides that backbone 

and lets three countries lead these efforts. And I think we benefit 

in that perspective. The other example that I like is when I was 

in Afghanistan, we had Mongolians guarding our base. And so we 

felt, we were able to gain that benefit. And we also didn’t need 200 

U.S. soldiers to guard our base because the Mongolians—— 

Mr. COOPER. I don’t think you are really getting my point. The 

scale of the resources offered, whether in cash or in kind, are just 

amazing, like it was our base, and some others are guarding it. It 

was our flotilla, and some others are leading it. But this is amazing. Just transportation around Africa can really only be offered by 

AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]. The State Department 

doesn’t have its own fleet of planes. 

So just in terms of scale, I think it is important in your analysis 

to emphasize scale. If I were a receiving country, hey, I would go 

where the money was. And we did a lot of this in the Cold War 

era when some countries were almost pretending to be leaning 

communist so they would get more help from us. This is, as Walter 

Jones mentioned, a lot of our constituents are worried about foreign aid. And they are particularly worried about military aid that 

really ends up being foreign aid and that produces no real result. 

But another aspect of this security cooperation that worries me 

is it tends to be incumbent protection. Because almost by definition, you talk to host militaries. You know, those are the folks in 

power. And General Fraser was kind enough to acknowledge that 

this cannot stop political change within the country, but sometimes 

it can certainly inhibit it. And money is fungible. And you really 

don’t know where if you free up resources in the host nation, where 

those could be put. And some host militaries are so embedded in 

the economy, like, for example, the Egyptian military, it is kind of 

an amazing thing when they own appliance companies in Egypt 

and divert resources that way. And, yet, we are helping them with 

tactics, techniques, and procedures. 

So to me, in your analysis, it would be more accurate—and I am 

not the expert; you all are—if you focused on the quantum difference in resources and also the incumbent protection nature of 

this. Almost by definition, you have to go with the host nation’s incumbent military. And that puts a real bias in the process. And we 

are not even talking about upholding lines drawn primarily by the 

British Empire on the map in many regions of the world that have 

almost nothing to do with ethnicity or tribe or current conditions. 

As I have stated many times before, we are almost executors of the 

British estate here as we, unthinkingly, enforce those lines on 

maps. Maybe they make sense. Maybe they don’t. But we just seem 

to automatically pump big dollars into incumbent governments, 

and we call it security assistance. And that does relieve us often 

of the obligation of putting U.S. troops in more directly. And we 

want friendships and partnerships. But sometimes we care more 

about these nations than even their host governments. To what extent do we monitor kleptocracy? 

General FRASER. Congressman, let me attempt to answer a little 

bit, and that is—but I am going to talk specifically from a military 

perspective, not from a political perspective because we are sup-
19 

porting those militaries, if you will, that are in existence. From 

supporting the incumbents, at least from a military perspective, my 

experience has been is it has not protected the military leadership. 

I have seen lots of military leadership changed. And there hasn’t 

been a change in that country. And there hasn’t been a change 

within that military. 

From a political standpoint, I think it varies country by country 

what impact that may or may not have. 

Speaking from a military standpoint with some of my counterparts, they would come to the United States looking for assistance 

that they were either unable to or unwilling to go to their own government to seek for assistance. So that is one that we have to always be watchful for and understand when it is happening. And 

one of the things, from a military standpoint, and I would argue 

from a U.S. in a lot of cases, we tend to mirror image our perspective on other governments and other cultures. We need to do a better job of understanding what is important within that culture and 

what means something as we develop these programs. 

Mr. COOPER. I agree, General, we should never mirror image. 

When I was last in Bogota, I asked where the wealthy part of 

town was, and I was told by our folks that, ‘‘Oh, the wealthiest Colombians, they all live in New York and Miami.’’ You know, what 

is going on here? You know, they have to care as much about their 

country as we do. 

General FRASER. Again, I don’t want to speak for the Colombians, Congressman, but I would argue that if you look back over 

the last 15 years, Colombians have owned their problem. The Colombians instigated a war tax. That tax was focused on the 

wealthy. The wealthy stood behind it, and that is a large measure 

of why the Colombians have been successful, is because they paid 

for it. 

The United States has encouraged other countries within Central 

America to follow that model to finance the needs for their own security. 

Mr. COOPER. General, my information may be dated, but when 

I visited Colombia, it had the highest income inequality in the 

world. 

General FRASER. Yes, sir, it still does. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank this panel for being here today. I am sorry I 

missed your opening remarks, but I had another committee assignment that I had to take. 

You know what is striking, though—I was in Afghanistan in 

2011 and with a bunch of Marines. And we went to a location that 

they took back from those that were fighting us in Afghanistan; rebuilt the school, not like the schools that we know of. Obviously, 

you have been there. What was striking is the Marines at the time 

were paying the headmaster to teach. I mean, they were paying his 

salary. But what changed was, you know, as we wanted to get out 

of Afghanistan, we were pushing more of it on the central government to take care of that particular issue, even though it was our 

foreign dollars, our foreign aid going to do that. But the headmaster wasn’t getting paid, you know, for months at a time at that 
20 

point. And he risked his life. The school was burned down. He was 

chased; risked his life to come back to train the Afghani schoolchildren, girls and boys for the first time. But when I asked the 

State Department, you know, what are we doing on checks and balances—I mean, you were out here, why wouldn’t we make sure this 

guy gets paid? If the Marines were paying them at one point in 

time, and now we are giving money directly to the central government, and we know it is not getting to him—I guess what I am 

hearing from you is that they were underresourced to do it, but it 

was a real flippant response from the State Department in regards 

to, ‘‘Well, that is not our problem.’’ But it is our dollars. 

And so I guess in our rush sometimes to leave a country—and 

I get it, I have three kids in the Army that have been to those 

great places, like Afghanistan and Iraq—but if we are putting our 

dollars there in foreign aid, how do we make sure that those dollars are being spent correctly? I know that is really not the discussion here, but it is because, you know, the military, General, from 

your aspect, obviously that was important to stabilize a country, 

but when do we rush into it and—when do we draw the line and 

say, ‘‘Listen, yes, I know we want to get this government up and 

running, but maybe they are not ready yet to do it with our dollars’’? Do we ever make that decision and say, ‘‘Hey, listen, no, we 

shouldn’t do that’’? Does the State Department ever do that, are 

you aware of? 

Dr. REVERON. Sir, as it related to CSTC–A [Combined Security 

Transition Command-Afghanistan], the NATO training mission, I 

can explain at least what they tried to do because the corruption 

in Afghanistan is very well documented. There is no modern banking system and so at least when it went to—because U.S. taxpayers 

pay the salaries of Afghan military and police. So what CSTC–A 

did, I don’t know if it is still active, but tried to set up an electronic 

pay system with an ATM card, but this is where the illiteracy challenge came in. 

Mr. NUGENT. Right. 

Dr. REVERON. As well as do regular census to monitor to make 

sure there weren’t kind of ghost cash till, kind of ghost muster 

sheets, to make sure individuals were getting paid who actually existed. But many challenges, without a doubt. I think in Afghanistan it is probably the hardest problem because the civil war devastated society and the economy. And my own opinion, without the 

$4.5 billion or so that the U.S. taxpayers provide, the system would 

collapse. 

Dr. PAUL. If I may, I have a couple of thoughts about this as 

well. One of the things I mentioned in my opening remarks was the 

importance of flexibility. Sometimes we, unfortunately, encounter a 

situation where we begin security cooperation with a partner; it is 

authorized and funded; and delivery begins. And then some level 

in the partner hierarchy becomes reticent and stops cooperating. 

And, unfortunately, often the executors on the U.S. side don’t have 

the authority to turn the tap on and off. And so how do you 

incentivize a partner to resume cooperation when deliveries are 

still being—— 

Mr. NUGENT. And I think you probably answered a question I 

didn’t really lay out clearly, but you are answering the question. 
21 

Once we get on a track, do we ever reel it back? Do we ever, like 

you say, turn off the tap and say, ‘‘Hold on a second, you are not 

meeting the goals’’? And you talk about goals and coming in and 

looking at a program to see if it is actually doing what it is supposed to do. That should be one of those. I would think it would 

give the commander on the ground a whole lot more responsibility 

because I know that Marine, the Marine major that was there, he 

was frustrated because it didn’t seem like anybody was listening to 

him, and he is out there with these guys every day. 

So how do we do that? How do we give them the flexibility to 

turn the tap off? 

Dr. PAUL. I am not sure in process exactly what has to happen, 

but I think some of it has to be at the level of authorities, and then 

some of it has to be in the bureaucracy. Sometimes that authority 

is held somewhere in the bureaucracy, but the major on the ground 

in some province doesn’t know who to talk to, to make that happen. 

I think there is periodic reviews of these programs, but usually 

that is on an annual or semiannual basis. So, again, a push for assessment and increased flexibility in the authorities should help because that is a real problem, sir. 

Mr. NUGENT. General. 

General FRASER. If I could add in one thing, I think one, you 

have to have clearly defined objectives with very clearly defined 

metrics that you measure and then decide. But I also think not 

only an authorities part to this, but sometimes, at least within the 

Department of Defense, if you give money back or you hold money, 

then somebody else takes it. And so there has to be an incentive 

within the organization that I can make smart decisions and I can 

apply that money to other places without a large effort to try and 

make that happen, that I have the flexibility, as Dr. Paul says, to 

be able to move those funds to where they are going to go have the 

biggest impact and I can then—and then I need to be accountable 

for those decisions. 

Mr. NUGENT. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me a little 

extra time. 

Thank you, and I appreciate your comments. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing. 

To some degree, you all mentioned the need for enduring relationships with partners that are actively looking for our cooperation. But you didn’t, not one of you, mention one example of a successful program that accomplishes this goal. And it is the National 

Guard’s State Partnership Program [SPP] that does an outstanding 

job at creating long-term relationships with countries and results 

in increased capabilities for the nations that take part. The Guard 

provides unique capacity-building capabilities to combatant commanders and U.S. ambassadors via 68 comprehensive partnerships 

between the National Guard units across the United States and, 

gentlemen, 74 partner nations, with more being developed. 

Now this program has been operating for more than 20 years, 

and I will be working to enhance the program. I would like to highlight one partnership in particular, the partnership between the 
22 

California National Guard and Ukraine. When conflict began in 

Ukraine, it was that relationship that gave us some of our best insight into what was actually happening on the ground, thanks to 

the long-term and often personal relationships that had developed. 

Not only did this put the Ukrainian military in a better position 

to respond, but it also gave us access that would have been very 

difficult to obtain in any other way. 

Now my question is, how do you see the National Guard contributing to security cooperation in the future? Can any of you comment on the value of the State Partnership Program and how we 

can enhance it or other programs that develop these long-term relationships? 

Now I realize, gentlemen, that most of our security cooperative 

programs aim to address counterterrorism, so how can we shape 

these programs to be broader in scope like the Guard program? 

And I would like to ask each one of you. 

General FRASER. Ma’am, let me start, if I may. You are exactly 

right, the National Guard programs are critical tools for every combatant commander, and they make a big difference. One example 

when I was assigned in Alaska, the Alaska Guard had a relationship with Mongolia. When the President of Mongolia visited the 

United States, one of his stops was to visit the adjutant general in 

Alaska before he went back to Mongolia because the relationship 

was as close. So it is a critical tool, and we need to continue to use 

it. 

We also, as well as building capacity, there is a lot of effort that 

goes into training and exercising with partner nations. And that is 

really that relationship that continues to grow. So those opportunities where we have to do that I think will help build the capacity. 

Where there are opportunities to support their ability to do disaster response and to help support disaster response training and 

efforts within differing nations, I think that is a real strength that 

the Guard brings to any relationship that we have. 

And then just the overall relationship that they bring into our 

military departments also is beneficial. So, from my standpoint, we 

always look to as much of the Guard’s participation as they could 

afford. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Dr. Paul. 

Dr. PAUL. Thank you. The State Department partnership program is a great program, and it is very cost-effective because it 

doesn’t require that much additional resourcing with potentially 

modest payouts. And I think that is a kind of program that often 

gets overlooked or can be in danger in times of austerity, a program that doesn’t cost a great deal but doesn’t have gigantic payouts. Many of the payouts are fairly modest but important, especially in long-term relationships. And that is something that as we 

think about assessment, that we have to keep in mind. Every mission has a primary mission that should be spelled out very clearly, 

but there may be other forms of ancillary benefit. So usually the 

primary mission of a National Guard engagement is to do some 

kind of building partner capacity exercise or some kind of interoperability exercise. But the ancillary benefit is the relationship. 

And those relationships can be hugely important, like the instance 

you mention with Ukraine and in other countries where there is 
23 

turmoil. And someone from the United States who is still in uniform can call up someone in the partner nation who is still in uniform and ask what is going on and open a dialogue that way. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Dr. Reveron. 

Dr. REVERON. Thank you very much for the question. It is a brilliant insight because I think security cooperation really works best 

building these long-term relationships, and the Guard is really 

suited for that because members of the Guard don’t rotate as frequently as they do on Active Duty. And so if you are in the California Guard, you tend to stay in the California Guard, and you 

can keep going back to that country year after year after and all 

the different positions. So I think the SPP, you are absolutely right, 

ma’am, it is a fantastic program to develop these relationship. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, I thank you very much for your comments 

to my question. I just wish it were mentioned in your opening 

statements. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to the witnesses for your testimony today. 

Members of this committee understand that security cooperation 

has long been a component of our national security strategy, and 

it has become more of a central figure over the last decade. 

My question is a broad one, but I wanted to get each of you on 

the record. Can security cooperation be a substitute for U.S. forces? 

And the reason I am asking that question is I am concerned that 

some may assume that security cooperation can replace U.S. forces 

as a justification for the further drawdown. So I would like you to 

each comment on whether it can be a substitute. 

I will start with you, General Fraser. 

General FRASER. I would tell you that a lot of our security cooperation programs exist today because of the size of our force, and 

that it is an ancillary part to our ability to train and exercise and 

provide capacity and work with other countries. A drawdown in the 

size of our forces would mean that we have less opportunity to 

train with our partners because we would be focused on maintaining our own readiness and we would have fewer, smaller capacity 

to be able to do that. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Dr. Paul. 

Dr. PAUL. I think the idea of security cooperation is to lighten 

the load on our military forces and to decrease the frequency with 

which we have to deploy them in order to help other countries and 

other parts of the world help themselves. With that said, I don’t 

think there is any danger of disbanding the Marine Corps in favor 

of the Peace Corps. 

Ms. STEFANIK. So just to get it on record, security cooperation is 

not a substitute for U.S. forces? 

Dr. PAUL. Correct. 

Dr. REVERON. No, and I would add, in fact, it probably enhances 

U.S. power in general. And so, for example, we are very concerned 

with civil war in Somalia, don’t want to put U.S. boots on the 

ground in Somalia. But by training and equipping Ethiopians, 

Kenyans, Burundians, and others, they can provide that force and 
24 

then the U.S. incurs that benefit of stability, an attempt of stability 

in Somalia. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Speier. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to the panelists. 

Dr. Paul, you said in your comments and I paraphrase them, we 

can’t want it more than they want it. And in some respects, I think 

we suffer from superimposing what we believe they want or convincing the leadership that it is what they want when it is not 

what the people want. The revelation that in Syria, after all the 

money we spent, $500 million, we have four or five individuals who 

have been trained and equipped, is more than an embarrassment. 

And had that not become public at a Senate hearing, I think we 

would be moving forward, spending more money. How do we put 

in place some form of governance of these efforts so that when they 

are failing, we just fess up to it and pull that plug? 

Dr. PAUL. Ma’am, I view that as an assessment question. That 

is part of assessment. I don’t know anything more about the Syrian 

program than what has been discussed in the popular press. It is 

not an area of personal expertise, but thinking in general about 

these kinds of efforts, if there was assessment in place, clearly 

when you get to the point of measuring your measures of performance—is money being spent on what? What are you delivering? 

Well, we only have five trainees. That has got to be a concern, and 

there has got to be internal revisions to the program. There has to 

be a feedback loop. And then when you come to output, the output 

is the number of trained personnel produced, five. That has got to 

be well below the target, and there has to be accountability. 

Ms. SPEIER. Well, yes, there should be accountability. But to just 

say we are going to put in an assessment tool, supposedly we have 

persons in authority that can make that assessment and should be 

making that assessment without the benefit of an assessment tool. 

I mean—— 

Dr. PAUL. No, fair enough that one is so clearly and obviously not 

successful that it shouldn’t require much of an assessment framework, but if there were an assessment framework and assessment 

mindedness in place, that call would get made earlier. The whole 

benefit of assessment is, what can we learn from this? Why did this 

program go awry? How were we allowed to spend so much money 

over so much time without recognizing that things could be different? What could be different so that the next time we do this, 

it doesn’t happen that way? 

Ms. SPEIER. General Fraser, with our pivot to the Pacific, what 

or should there be efforts undertaken to improve our military relationship with China and create greater predictability in the South 

China Sea? 

General FRASER. I think there is. And there is ongoing effort— 

at least from what I understand, again, from press, that there is 

an ongoing effort on the part of the Pacific Command as well as 

U.S. military to build those relationships. But we have to also remember the relationships are two-way streets. And so there has to 

be the same willingness and the same openness and the same abil-
25 

ity on the part of whomever we are building that relationship with. 

But we find across, at least my experience, that the more we are 

able to understand one another—we may not agree with one another—but the more we can work and at least know what my counterparts’ views are, that is important. So, yes, I think we should 

continue our efforts. 

Ms. SPEIER. Is there anything else you think we should be doing 

that we are not doing? 

General FRASER. I think it is a slow process. It is a step-by-step 

process. And we just need to work our way down that path. And 

it is going to take, in my opinion, a long time. 

Ms. SPEIER. For all of you, are there any examples that you can 

give us of security cooperation in nondefense sectors that have been 

successful? 

Silence is golden, I guess. 

Dr. REVERON. I am not quite sure I completely understand the 

question. 

Ms. SPEIER. Well, we are providing training and equipping, but 

we are also doing things in other nations that are non-security-related that you could argue are creating security cooperation. Can 

you point to any of those that are nondefense-related that have 

paid back in dividends? 

General FRASER. Ma’am, the one I will use is really focused on 

the Department of Justice, if you will, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and a lot of the work that they do within Latin America and 

within counterdrug operations all over. 

I think if you go in and look at some of the international narcotics logistics out of the Department of State that also fund similar types of programs, those are very helpful, but there is a close 

relationship and I will use the effort, the counterdrug effort, within 

the Caribbean led by JIATF-South [Joint Interagency Task Force 

South]. A lot of the intelligence that they get comes out of law enforcement organizations and relationships, then it moves into a 

military sphere if you can for an intercept, but once that intercept 

is taking place, then it is law enforcement who is then engaged 

again so that there is a legal procedure that continues from that, 

and then it goes into the court system from there. So that is a lot 

of different agencies who have found the ability to work together, 

and I think that is the real model, as we look at it, is we shouldn’t 

try and divorce any of these programs from one another, they work 

best when they work together. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to follow up on some questions that have been asked 

about tough decisions that we have to make when our short-term 

security interests or those of our partners conflict with longer-term 

strategic interests or even just the standing of the United States 

in a given part of the world. The example of Egypt was used earlier 

where there is a prohibition on the kind of military assistance we 

would give that regime, the current regime, if it is a regime that 

is in place due to a coup. And we have essentially looked the other 

way because of very real, short-term immediate problems. ISIS [Is-
26 

lamic State in Iraq and Syria] I think was one of the reasons given 

for contravening that part of U.S. law or policy. 

To move back to this hemisphere, you can use the example of 

Guatemala in the 1950s or Chile in the 1970s, El Salvador, Nicaragua in the 1980s to see where that short-term focus has caused 

us long-term problems, and probably more importantly, it causes 

the people in those countries significant suffering and long-term 

harm. 

Tell me, and I will start with General Fraser, your thoughts on 

the administration’s recent decision to withhold 15 percent of 

Merida funding to Mexico because of human rights concerns. I 

know that is not strictly military aid, but it is connected to military 

aid that we have given that country. Is that a step in the right direction to begin to hold regimes accountable for things like human 

rights and their conduct using the money that U.S. taxpayers have 

supplied? 

General FRASER. Congressman, thank you for that question. I 

think that—and there has been a big focus at least in my time in 

Southern Command. I know General Kelly continues it and has actually expanded the program on the focus on human rights and the 

importance of militaries sustaining their focus on human rights. 

But as you say, there are very hard decisions that have to be 

made as we go through and look at what the results are. So I will 

argue that we need to have a very clear focus there as well and 

determine what we are trying to achieve and measure how we are 

able to do that. It is a situation that will always be troublesome 

as we go through it. I don’t know all the specifics around the specifics of the Merida, but I know there is a lot of focus and effort 

that the Armed Forces put in to vetting organizations with whom 

they work for with abiding by human rights vetting and then supporting those organizations that we should. 

And, in fact, the example I will use is during my time in Southern Command, we had a problem where one of the countries decided to shoot down airplanes. And we had to stop aid going in to 

them very specifically for that reason. 

But on the other side of that, the current militaries, I have a 

hard time if nothing—if they have not had any human rights violations in 20 years, that we hold them accountable for what happened 20 years ago. There is somewhere in there, there has to be 

a balance. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yeah. I don’t know if other members of the panel 

would like to address this issue of how we balance what we stand 

for to ourselves and much of the rest of the world, you know, democracy and freedom and human rights, with some of the regimes 

and nonregime actors that we support who don’t help us to achieve 

those things for the people in those countries, and does that diminish our standing in those regions and those countries, and is it 

counterproductive ultimately? 

Dr. PAUL. It is definitely an issue because, as you have highlighted, we often have conflicting objectives. We have a short-term 

objective that is about improving the security situation or improving the capability of partner forces. But we have long-term objectives that have to do with our national values, things about human 

rights, things about democracy and other kinds of issues. So I 
27 

think we have to recognize that sometimes these objectives are in 

conflict, and there has to be some prioritization. From some of the 

cases I have examined over 20-year periods, we find that yes, if 

there is a suspension of the relationship due to human rights violations, that does unsurprisingly impair our ability to build partner 

capacity. But, pleasantly, in most of those cases, it has also caused 

the partner to improve their behavior. 

Dr. REVERON. And maybe to add, I share your concern because 

while we might not have a deep appreciation for history, our partners certainly do. And we have to be very careful in protecting 

what the United States holds dear. And because we have a very 

nonexclusive list of partners, I really think what we need to make 

sure is that when we inculcate with these programs, that we are 

doing it in accordance with American values. And I think the officers that at least I teach understand that, and I think programs, 

like Leahy vetting, ensure that we identify that. But there are 

long-term consequences because our history shows we will support 

a wrong side. A U.S. graduate of an IMET [International Military 

Education and Training] program will stage a coup. That happens, 

as you know, sir. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Let me zoom back out for just a second. It kind of goes back to 

some things that Ms. Stefanik was talking with you all about. I 

mean, my assumption is we can’t do everything in the world, so we 

have to have some partners of different capabilities. Some are sophisticated like NATO countries; some are lesser developed sorts of 

countries. 

So if you had to give a grade for our security cooperation efforts, 

how are we doing when you look at this range, which is us and the 

Brits and the Australians at one level and, you know, a few advisers we are sending to Cameroon on the other—or wherever—at 

that level? How are we doing? 

Dr. PAUL. I will take a stab, sir. In our study, we looked at 29 

cases. In 23 of those 29, we evaluated there being some level of success in building partner capacity. So if we use a conventional 

American high school grading system, 23 out of 29 probably comes 

in the B range? 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. You all agree? 

Dr. REVERON. Yes, sir. I mean, I think one of the things I look 

for is we empower our partners, and so it is everything from a 

country like Japan that not only wants to buy our weapons but operate with us but provide us host nation support, but also countries 

like Ethiopia that is willing to deploy into Somalia. 

General FRASER. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the B rating. I 

think as you look at—focus it specifically on relationship building, 

I think we are probably in a B-plus, maybe a low A. But as you 

look at it the from a capability standpoint, I would argue we are 

probably down in the C range, maybe a little bit lower than that 

because that is a harder issue to take on. It requires a lot more 

focus and a lot more discipline and a lot more patience, if you will, 

than just the building relationship part of this. 
28 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I made note of your comments, General, on 

strategic patience because that is not a quality with which we are 

always associated in this country. 

So let’s just think for a second because a lot of attention recently 

has been on our disappointment at the Afghan forces not advancing 

faster, although they have made tremendous strides, but disappointment they haven’t advanced faster. The Iraqis, it didn’t 

work out very well when ISIS confronted them, and then, as Ms. 

Speier was talking about, the Syria thing. From those examples of 

trying to train and equip security forces in the Middle East and 

South Asia, without asking you all to be experts on any particular 

case, do you think there are lessons to be learned from those disappointing results? 

Dr. PAUL. I can highlight two lessons just off the top of my head. 

First is about whether the glass is half full or the glass is half 

empty. Afghan security forces have made remarkable strides from 

their baseline state. Arguably, Iraqi forces made pretty impressive 

strides from their baseline states. The question is then, are they 

good enough to face the threat that they face? And the answer in 

both cases is equivocal. 

The other key issue is about willingness to fight. This is an incredibly difficult thing to assess. It is incredibly difficult to know 

how willing to fight a force is until they are battle tested. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Dr. REVERON. If I can add, sir, 100,000 U.S. troops didn’t defeat 

the Taliban, so I am not completely surprised that the Afghan 

forces we trained and equipped didn’t either, haven’t either, and 

struggled as well. Maybe the general lesson for me is military cannot solve a political problem. And so unless there is a legitimate 

semi-stable political authority that can control a border and actually run a government, efforts to reinforce another country’s military are going to go have limited success. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

General FRASER. Mr. Chairman, what I would say is I think 

there are important lessons that we can take from all three. I am 

not an expert on any one of them. But I will capsulize it in that 

the three areas that we are talking about were all combat zones, 

and they were all security cooperation being conducted in combat 

and in a combat zone. That differs, I would argue, from security 

cooperation programs that we have other places. 

And I would argue that it is much more difficult because the security situation is much, much more different. The security that 

the people feel is much different. The relationships, the political relationships are much more tenuous than they can be in other situations. So I think we really need to take a hard look at it from that 

standpoint and not just capture all security cooperation in one 

bucket. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, and, General, the Congressional Research 

Service were looking at a variety of test cases makes that exact 

point. The thing that we have the hardest time with is doing this 

sort of thing in war zones because, obviously, you have a war to 

fight while you are also building the capability. It is just hard. So 

I appreciate that. 
29 

You all talked a lot today about Colombia. Are there other examples of successes that you think deserve our attention? Various 

things I have read mention the Philippines as having some success, 

you know. Are there other examples? 

Dr. REVERON. No. I think my favorite example is really South 

Korea because if you look at it over that 60-year period, you see 

what the country, government, military have really become, and it 

is still very capable. Another example is Israel. We don’t really discuss Israel as a case of security cooperation, but if you look at from 

a funding perspective, it clearly is. And in that case, the U.S. benefits tremendously from the relationship because there are common 

areas of technology transfer. And then, on other examples, I would 

look to the peacekeeping programs funded under the Global Peace 

Operations Initiative, in particular, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya. 

Dr. PAUL. I will toss Jordan onto the pile. This is an example of 

a country where we have invested a great deal with a great level 

of success, so much so that they have become a regional center for 

training peacekeeping forces. So it is a pay-it-forward security cooperation model and success in that regard. 

General FRASER. The only thing I will add, Mr. Chairman, is I 

think the Philippines is a good example also. 

But I think it is important in this equation also as we look at 

those successes is to put the political dimension into this. To just 

apply a security cooperation program and expect it to achieve the 

results without having a companion political effort to get a political 

decision to follow that same path and follow that success were misaligned. And so I think we have to follow it in a holistic approach. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, no, I agree, and I appreciate all those examples. I don’t know, it seems to me the challenge is, okay, what 

if you are in a messy place without a strong political infrastructure 

to work with. I am thinking of Mali, for example. We spent a fair 

amount of time trying to develop security forces there. It didn’t 

work very well. And so the question for us is, do we not engage if 

there is not a strong political infrastructure, you know, with which 

to work? Do we engage with much lower expectations of what can 

result in it? And I don’t know the answers. I guess I am literally 

thinking out loud here. 

But I was listening as you all were talking with Mr. Smith and 

others about the importance of development assistance, the importance of the political engagement, the inadequacies of the State Department, the need for strategic patience. It is true: We need to 

know what works, and then the hard question is, okay, if you don’t 

have all of those things, do you engage anyway? And, you know, 

I guess maybe that is a case-by-case sort of situation. 

You all don’t have to comment on that, but you are welcome to 

if you want. 

Dr. PAUL. It seems to me that you have identified the right 

issues, that it is a challenge and that expectation management is 

key. So the decision should be made in each of those instances 

based on the realistic expectations. 

Another observation from some of our research that might be relevant is the value of ministerial capacity building, so in a situation 

where you lack a lot of the contextual factors that make security 

cooperation more likely to be successful, some of the political sup-
30 

port, baseline absorptive capacity. Well, investing in ministerial capacity can both help improve future absorptive capacity if you have 

strategic patience and is investing in the government, albeit 

through the defense ministry, and can make that more robust. 

In fact, we noted a number of cases where we were able to successfully contribute to ministerial capacity building, and then, later 

on, historically later, 6, 7, 8, 10 years, they are able to start building actual forces capability. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thanks. 

Let me touch on just one, maybe two other things right quick, 

and then I want to yield to Mr. Franks. 

Dr. Paul, in your testimony, you talked about authorities and basically said we need more flexibility, that we get kind of wrapped 

around—CRS [Congressional Research Service] says we have 80 

different authorities in DOD, and that doesn’t even include State 

Department authorities—we get wrapped around that. What wasn’t 

clear to me from your testimony is how big a problem this is. How 

much of a problem is caused by having all of these different complex authorities and signoffs and so forth? 

Dr. PAUL. I actually think General Fraser may be able to speak 

to this better because of his experience. But I will say from what 

I know, talking to operators, doing interviews, looking at the histories, it is a problem in concert with other problems. So there is 

what is described in the community as a patchwork of authorities. 

There are a lot of different authorities to do a lot of different 

things. And if you are an experienced and practiced bureaucrat and 

invest a lot of time into it, it is amazing the kinds of things you 

can pull together to get stuff done. 

Unfortunately, we have a rotational culture on both the military 

and the civilian side. So someone who has had a prior security cooperation billet and falls in on a very well-orchestrated set of programs may be able to make that transition and go smoothly. But 

if someone new rotates in and has transferred from some other aspect of the service and doesn’t have any experience there and there 

isn’t a good transition folder and there is changing needs in that 

country, they may well be quickly overwhelmed. 

General FRASER. Sir, my perspective is, in a lot of cases, I would 

argue people trying to manage their way through the authorities 

becomes, results in, how are we going to do this to get a little bit 

of something done rather than what we need to have done? So they 

are just trying to help. They are trying to align with our partner’s 

requests, but it is very hard when our partner says this, but my 

authority will only let me do a very small part of what you are asking to be able to do this. And it is all normally the authorities that 

we get placed on in various different places I would argue come 

from individual instances where we need an authority to go do 

something for some limited amount of time, and then they either 

sustain themselves, or they get patchworked in another way. 

My thoughts are for security cooperation to be successful, security assistance, we need to have a longer range strategic objectivity. 

Then I am a believer—and then build the authorities to help 

achieve that objective rather than the patchwork that I have to 

manage along with all the other pieces to go out and to achieve 

that goal. 
31 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we talked about lots of things today; some 

of which is in the purview of Congress, and some of which is not. 

This is ours, you know. We can make this better, and I am just trying to figure out if it is worth the effort. You know, how much of 

a benefit comes from it I guess I should say. 

Let me yield to Mr. Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank all of you. I will try to just keep this to one general question because I think it goes to the core of what we are all talking 

about, and I am sure you have already touched on this substantively prior to that. 

But, I mean, it is a very compelling concept, this building partnership capacity, because we are able to kind of lighten our load 

and try to bring in new friends. And there is something very compelling about that, but of course, sometimes we succeed pretty effectively, like we have with Israel and the Iron Dome and missile 

batteries. Those have been marked successes. And then sometimes 

we don’t do as well, like the training and equipping program in 

Syria. And so it seems to me that the key here is to ascertain ways 

that we can make sure that those we are dealing with are the right 

ones that we should be dealing with. And I would look to you to 

tell us, what metric do you use to ascertain what you think has 

been a successful effort? And how should Congress measure that in 

our oversight capacity? 

General Fraser, I will start with you. And thank you for your 

service here. 

General FRASER. Thank you, sir. I guess I am struggling a little 

bit with how we put this together. I guess to be successful, in my 

mind, it has to be a two-way street. And a lot of times I think we 

go into this and we have a capability we think—and it is in our 

interest to help build your capacity in this way, but that partner 

may not see it exactly that same way. So we have to have a twoway conversation that matches and makes our goals match. 

And then I would argue, then we have to stay very focused on 

whether or not we are doing that, through good assessment and 

metrics, but I would also argue, much as we rotate through a lot 

of people, our partners also rotate. And so sometimes when one 

senior leader in a government changes—or in a military—changes 

to another, the successor doesn’t always agree with the program 

that was then put in place, but we continue that program along. 

So we have got to have another agreement every time leadership 

changes, I would argue, to help us be successful. And then put 

small goals, achievable goals, in a timely timeframe that will then 

step on, build on one another, rather than say that we have got [to] 

have the whole enchilada tomorrow. 

Dr. PAUL. Sir, I believe that both of your questions about how do 

we deal with the right partner and how do we assess success hinge 

on objectives and interests. If we are clear about what our objectives are and what our interests are, then that can allow us to examine a potential partner or a partner that we are considering 

changing our relationship with and see whether our objectives 

align with their objectives so that we have shared interests and 

how much distance there is between their baseline condition and 
32 

where we want them to be and what we want them to do to meet 

our objectives. 

And then, for assessment, how, again, the clarity of our objectives and the distance between where you start and where you are 

going to end up because I am aware of a lot of cases where security 

cooperation objectives were met. We dramatically improved the capability of a partner, but national security objectives were not met 

because that partner was not, at the end of the day, sufficiently robust to deal with whatever the threat or the challenge was by himself. 

Mr. FRANKS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity. And 

I yield back right there. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke, do you have further questions? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yes, I wanted to follow up on a question that the 

ranking member asked about whether it is helpful to put some 

kind of absolute cap or horizon on aid to reduce the risk of a moral 

hazard. In other words, we don’t want the partner country to think 

that U.S. assistance is going to be there no matter because then 

they will fail to develop the capacity and capabilities necessary for 

them to be able to take on their challenges without U.S. aid in the 

future. 

Is that in fact the right approach? And Colombia was mentioned 

as an example. But are there examples where we set some kind of 

fixed amount of U.S. intervention or aid or a date certain that has 

been effective? 

Dr. REVERON. You are absolutely right. I mean, there is a moral 

hazard in all of these. And an easy example, you look at NATO 

spending, NATO sets the target of 2 percent of GDP [gross domestic product] on defense. I think it is only 4 of the 28 make it. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Right. 

Dr. REVERON. And there is that tendency. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. They know the United States will be there. 

Dr. REVERON. Absolutely, but I would also say, too, I am concerned if we get too narrowly focused on achievable objectives. 

Sometimes we give assistance because we gain base access. Sometimes we give assistance because we liked, we would joke, 50 flags 

over ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] in Kabul. We 

got legitimacy on that, and even you get a little moral upbringing 

when you saw the Bosnian flag flying because 20 years earlier, we 

were dealing with the ethnic conflict in Bosnia. And so I appreciate 

the concern and the question, and I think it is always there. And 

that is where I think really at the U.S. embassy level in those 

countries really have a better feel for it to capture some of this subjectivity that is involved in providing these programs. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I think you could argue the other side and use 

Iraq and Afghanistan as examples where you set a fixed deadline 

I think with the intention of forcing that partner country to step 

up and recognize that, at some point, they are going to go have to 

take these issues into their own hands, and it seems in Iraq not 

to have worked certainly. And in Afghanistan, the President has 

changed course and recommitted the current force size until conditions on the ground change. So would you argue that it is a caseby-case, condition-by-condition issue and that it is not helpful then 
33 

to set a deadline? Or is there some other way to resolve the potential for a moral hazard and perpetual U.S. presence? 

General FRASER. My answer directly is it depends. I just don’t 

think there is one standard that fits every situation. And I would 

argue that when you get into security cooperation, when you get 

into especially combat zones, those are morally hazardous zones. 

And there is no way, whether a number of troops or a standard or 

anything like that will avoid the fact that there are going to be 

some conflicts there. And so, from my standpoint, we need to realize that. We need to accept that, and then we need to understand 

where interests and those moral hazards come in conflict with one 

another and make very clear decisions on which way we need to 

go, but bottom line to it is it depends. 

Dr. PAUL. I will echo and agree with it depends, but it should be 

a consideration as we are laying out our investment and our plan 

for engagement in a country. As I said earlier, you can’t want it 

more than they do. And if you are in a situation where there is 

moral hazard, where there is some danger of us wanting it more 

than they do, then it is critical that we identify the right levers in 

order to retain some kind leverage over the partner so that we can 

influence them, so we can say: Well, you need to achieve this 

benchmark by this date, or there will be a consequence. And then 

we need to be willing to put those consequences in place, whether 

specific drawdowns of forces or changing the resource allocation or 

things like that. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yeah. I think because this is so hard and the consequences are so significant, I am looking for some certain rules of 

the road, kind of like we have on the military intervention side, the 

Powell Doctrine, these eight preconditions must exist before you 

commit U.S. forces—I think you are saying that it is not going to 

be that easy and you cannot simplify it to that degree. And it is 

going to be on a condition-by-condition basis. Although I think you 

have given us some really important principles, like you can’t solve 

a political problem militarily. And you have mentioned the need to 

resource and staff the State Department side of this so you have 

the corresponding diplomatic and political aspect covered. And I 

think that is helpful. So if, you know, we look forward to anything 

additional you can point me and other members towards that 

would help us to make better decisions as a country going forward. 

Thank you very much. 

General FRASER. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add one thing 

here. I think the real focus as you talk about this—because we are 

really talking about moral judgment, and we are talking about individuals having moral judgment in horrific circumstances—education is the focus. We have to build the capacity of military personnel on both sides, whoever we are working with, to be able to 

have that moral judgment that will meet international standards. 

And absent that, then it is a crap shoot. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to get to that in just a second. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It really goes along with this, but sort of the leverage that we 

have and whether we use it or we don’t, the conditionality, I think 
34 

these are things that the public responds to. And often I hear from 

people that feel like, you know, we don’t use it when we should. 

The example in Mexico recently is one; obviously Pakistan, another 

where the Congress has weighed in. And, you know, we are probably out of time now, but I am just trying to wade through that, 

sometimes muck, is really difficult. And, General, maybe you have 

had an example of where you wanted to use it, weren’t able to use 

it. What was at stake there? What was occurring? 

General FRASER. A lot of the zone, the same topics we are talking 

about are combat zones, but there have been examples where—and 

I will just air my frustration. We have had very strict rules on 

what we can and can’t do with certain armed forces, and those are 

valid. But my concern has been to put a benchmark on what that 

means and what that means for current day leaders via something 

that happened in the past. And when is good enough good enough? 

Because, in some cases, good enough—a government took seriously 

what we were talking about. They made positive steps, and we 

changed the conditions. That shouldn’t stand either. So we have to 

do some of our own understanding of what do we really want, what 

do we really expect as you look at, in combination with our other 

interests, as that understanding and conditionality, if you will, 

needs to be there, but it has to be put in a bigger context and not 

just something as a whole, from my standpoint. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. 

Obviously, in every situation, it is going to be different. And, you 

know, we are going to set an objective, and then we have to look 

at the pieces on the chessboard, if you will. Where is this country 

now? For example, in Iraq, should we have kept the military in 

place and started from there? Those types of discussions probably 

should take place long before we act and intervene and get in 

place. And I would agree with you wholeheartedly: there is a big 

difference between trying to prop up a military in the middle of a 

war and create a new military in the middle of a war, and that is 

a greater challenge. 

One of the things that you mentioned today, a couple things: 

One, it comes down to dollars, will, and politics, I think, in a lot 

of cases, right? And to that point of will, I just have one question. 

I should know the answer to this. In Afghanistan today, are they 

operating under a draft, or are they a volunteer military? 

Dr. REVERON. It is an all-volunteer force, sir. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. That says a lot to their will, I would say. And we 

do hear more positive things about their will as opposed to other 

places. That is really all I have. Thank you very much for being 

here today. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just get to one other thing. 

General Fraser, you talked about the rotational culture and the 

need for us to be better trained at training, if it will. And so one 

of the questions I have had is, how do you all evaluate our institutions, our organizations, for engaging with other countries? There 

have been suggestions, for example, that we need to form different 

organizations within the military who specialize in this. Of course, 

special forces has always been a key capability of theirs, but just 
35 

give me, if you will, you all’s evaluation of how well prepared we 

are for the various sorts of things we have been talking about 

today? 

General FRASER. Congressman, Mr. Chairman, let me start with 

that. In a lot of cases, I think where we are not as prepared as I 

would like to see us is in our understanding of whatever culture 

and whatever military we are working with. I just don’t think we 

are very good at that, and even with those officers and enlisted personnel that we trained and who are embedded and really study 

those environments, they don’t always understand the military organizations and what really drives some of the military organizations. For example, some of them in Latin America, we say, okay, 

they are just as committed to this program as we are. And what 

we found out in some cases is, well, no. In one case, 90 percent of 

an organization of an army was committed to helping private security because they don’t get very much money from their government for this so this was a way for them to help build up the capacity of their armed forces. We don’t understand that relationship 

and that intricacy a lot of times, so from that standpoint, we need 

to be able to do better than that, but that is an ongoing issue, and 

that is a rotational issue. 

We are always going to have a problem with the expertise there 

because people cap out at a certain level within our Armed Forces 

normally who are in security assistance and security cooperation. 

And they have to have a skill set. To just be knowledgeable of another country’s culture and how they operate when you are trying 

to build a military capacity, you need to have some military expertise also, and you have to build that somewhere. That has to happen within our organization. But I think what the Marines are 

doing today with designated special-purpose MAGTFs [Marine airground task forces] on a regional basis. The Army is doing the 

same thing with brigades. The Navy, I would argue, in some cases, 

routinely does that, in a lot of cases, better. I think that is a good 

step in the right direction. And that brings that combat expertise 

in our relationships, and that is valued by our partners. 

Dr. REVERON. Mr. Chairman, at the Naval War College, for example, our intermediate course for O–3s and O–4s, it is regional 

focused. And so we divide the students by region, and then we give 

them sort of the problem over the term, how do you translate national strategy into regional strategy? And that is an attempt to 

kind of get at the broad base. I think, within the force, the FAO 

Program, Foreign Area Officer Program, is the gold standard. And 

then you see these different programs that have popped up over 

time, the AFPAK [Afghanistan-Pakistan] Hands, or I think the 

Navy has the Asia Pacific Hands. And those have limited life because we are a global force and you never quite know where the 

next resource is. I would argue then for across the entire force 

more programs that really emphasize the study of regions, cultures, and histories. And you see the Army, too, that designated 

their regional aligned force concept I think is another way to get 

at that. 

Dr. PAUL. I concur with all of those remarks and note that we 

are really good at training ourselves. We habitually take men and 

women from civilian life and inculcate them into a highly effective 
36 

military and build our own capabilities quite well. We are really 

good at working with partners who are very much like us, with our 

NATO partners. The interoperability exercises we do with them are 

great. Where we struggle is in different contexts. We are too vulnerable to mirror imaging, and we don’t have enough of a mindset 

of recognizing the kinds of things that can be different and how 

that can impact outcomes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, well, that is helpful. You know, this is a 

complex area, and yet, as people have said, it is a central part of 

our security. So thank you all for helping to enlighten us and think 

through some of the issues. We may well draw on you again in the 

future. Again, we appreciate your testimony. 

And, with that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

OCTOBER 21, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

OCTOBER 21, 2015 

(41) 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 
52 
53 
54 
55 
56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 
82 
83 
84 
85 
86 
87 
88 
89 
90 
91 
92 
93 

Æ