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i 

79–493 2013

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–5] 

FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING 

PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY PROGRAMS 

AND AUTHORITIES TO MEET 

21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 14, 2013 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California, Chairman 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

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 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

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

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois 

PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

KIM SHAW, Professional Staff Member 

MARK LEWIS, Professional Staff Member 

AARON FALK, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2013 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, February 14, 2013, Framework for Building Partnership Capacity 

Programs and Authorities to Meet 21st Century Challenges .......................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, February 14, 2013 ................................................................................. 35 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013 

FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY PROGRAMS 

AND AUTHORITIES TO MEET 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................. 1 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Sheehan, Hon. Michael, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and Low Intensity Conflict, U.S. Department of Defense ................................ 4 

St. Laurent, Janet, Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management 

Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................. 9 

Wolff, LTG Terry, USA, Director, Strategic Plans and Policy (J5), Joint Staff, 

U.S. Department of Defense ................................................................................ 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 39 

Sheehan, Hon. Michael .................................................................................... 43 

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

St. Laurent, Janet ............................................................................................ 65 

Wolff, LTG Terry .............................................................................................. 55 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Ms. Bordallo ...................................................................................................... 93 

Mr. Enyart ........................................................................................................ 94 

Mr. Larsen ........................................................................................................ 93 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 93 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Barber ......................................................................................................... 98 

Mr. McKeon ....................................................................................................... 97 

(1) 

FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY 

PROGRAMS AND AUTHORITIES TO MEET 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Thursday, February 14, 2013. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ 

McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, 

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. Committee will come to order. 

I would like to welcome everyone to today’s hearing on ‘‘A Framework for Building Partnership Capacity Programs and Authorities 

to Meet 21st Century Challenges.’’ 

Although building partnership capacity may seem like a broad 

term, this is an important area for the committee’s oversight of the 

recent defense strategy which places great emphasis on the important role of partnerships to U.S. national security. 

Likewise, we have enacted significant legislation in this area because the committee has supported the notion that military commanders need to build certain capacities in partner nations to satisfy specific security theater requirements. 

We heard testimony yesterday about the fiscal challenges the 

military faces as it deals with implementing sequestration, a longterm continuing resolution, and the underresourcing of overseas 

contingency operations accounts. These constraints will 

disproportionally hurt the Department’s operations and maintenance account from which the building partnership capacity authorities are also funded. 

Given this fiscal environment, the emphasis on building partnership capacity and last year’s defense strategic guidance, and the 

global threats to U.S. national security interests, this hearing is 

the beginning of a continuing discussion on what is the proper roles 

for these BPC [Building Partnership Capacity] authorities. 

In spite of our support for these authorities, many questions remain. What is the right amount of funding? What is the right balance between the Defense and State Departments in funding, 

strategizing, and executing these authorities? What is the right 

level of engagement and focus by the combatant commands and 

services on these activities? And is it a plausible assumption that 

partner nations will in fact use their new capabilities to act consistent with U.S. national security objectives? 
2 

Congress is the ultimate decisionmaker on funding. Our oversight responsibilities also require us to understand the impact of 

these authorities on U.S. national security interests and the ability 

of the COCOMs [combatant commanders] and Services to execute 

these authorities without compromising their key priorities and 

core capabilities. 

Furthermore, this committee has expressed concern about the 

proliferation and duplication of BPC authorities. The authorities to 

be discussed today make up at least $750 million per year in authorized funding, not including over a billion a year in counternarcotics activities, and the trend is on the rise. 

In today’s fiscal environment, it is important that the Defense 

Department, COCOMs, and Services prioritize these BPC authorities and activities in coordination and consultation with the State 

Department. And it is critical that the Administration understand 

Congress’s intent in authorizing these authorities and the need to 

strategize, plan, fund, execute, and assess these authorities. 

Mr. Smith. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 39.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding 

this hearing. I think this is an incredibly important topic and a 

central tenet in our national security policy going forward. 

We have global responsibilities and global interests. Go anywhere in the world and there is a U.S. interest there from Africa 

to Latin America to Asia. We have a lot of places that we are trying to influence events and obviously with limited resources. So to 

the extent that we can build partner capacity, develop partnerships 

with other nations, it can be a force multiplier for us in achieving 

our interests and certainly there have been a great many successes. 

I think most notably in Somalia, which was and continues to be 

a significant challenge but has at least been contained with Al 

Shabaab’s efforts there, and we did that with a fairly light U.S. 

footprint. We did it because we were able to build partnerships 

with Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda and other African nations as 

well and work with them to contain the threat there and the capacity that we built amongst those nations was incredibly helpful to 

us and we are going to have a similar challenge up in Mali trying 

to find partners up there that we can work with. 

I think the training that our military does to build the capacity 

of these nations is an incredible asset for our national security 

strategy. You know, it is a broad challenge. I agree with many of 

the chairman’s remarks in terms of what we need to look at in 

terms to make this work better because it is not just Department 

of Defense. 

The Department of Defense has a variety of different programs, 

but when you are thinking about building the capacity of partner 

nations, security is one element, but governance, rule of law, their 

education system, health care system, all of that too is important. 
3 

So it becomes a whole-of-government effort that we need to work 

on, and I do believe the Department of Defense in recent years has 

done a great job of working with the other aspects of U.S. interests, 

you know, USAID [United States Agency for International Development], State Department. 

I was in the Philippines a few years ago, looking at one of our 

efforts down there and was really impressed at how closely the 

Special Operations Command was working with USAID on the 

projects that were necessary to build the capacity of the local population there. 

I think figuring out how those interagency pieces need to work 

is one of the key challenges because we frequently hear the complaint that the Department of State and others have large numbers 

of responsibilities; DOD [Department of Defense] tends to have the 

most money. As a result of that, DOD has developed a number of 

development programs, other things that arguably are crossing 

over into what the lane traditionally would be USAID or other development agencies. 

So figuring that out, figuring how to make sure everyone in our 

Government works together in capacity building is a critically important piece of this, but for our committee’s purposes, first thing 

is to understand the DOD programs and those specific programs 

that are in place to help us build partner capacity. 

So overall, I view this as an incredible success for us in the last 

10 years. We want to figure out how to build on that, how to make 

it work better, how to get the whole-of-government approach to 

maximize the efficiency of this effort. I think this hearing is incredibly important. 

I look forward to testimony and questions. 

I thank the Chairman for holding it. 

I yield back. 

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

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

To testify before the committee today, we have Mr. Michael 

Sheehan, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and Low Intensity Conflict; Lieutenant General Terry Wolff, Director, Strategic Plans and Policy (J5) the Joint Staff; Ms. Janet St. 

Laurent, Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

I would like our witnesses—I would like to thank all of you for 

being here today, for your participation and for your contributions 

that you are making in this effort. And also I would like to note 

that the Department of State who has a key role to play in this 

discussion was also invited to participate, but declined. 

We will continue to engage State in partnership with the Foreign 

Affairs Committee in this ongoing dialogue. 

Secretary Sheehan. 
4 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL SHEEHAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND LOW 

INTENSITY CONFLICT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Chairman McKeon, Ranking 

Member Smith. Thank you for very well framing the issue that we 

are going to discuss this morning. 

And distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to talk with you this morning about building partner 

capacity. I provided a longer statement for the record. Myself, and 

Lieutenant General Wolff will make some brief remarks and get 

quickly to your questions. 

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss these programs, define 

what they are, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and outline 

the way forward in this critical area of our defense strategy. DOD 

has a wide range of authorities to assist partners in developing 

their defense capabilities. 

The most important of these authorities are Section 1206, to 

Train and Equip Counterterrorism Units, Section 1207N, which 

provided funding for two specific theaters of actions against A.Q. 

[Al Qaeda] affiliates in Yemen and in East Africa, and the Global 

Security Contingency Fund, which is a new pilot program. 

The Global Security Contingency Fund, GSCF as you know, is a 

joint program between State and DOD, which authorized a pooled 

fund of up to $250 million to meet emergent security issues. As 

part of this program, we started what we call a soft carve out specifically designed to support Admiral McRaven’s initiative to build 

a global soft network with Special Operations forces around the 

world. 

We have just concluded the first year of this program, and although it was admittedly a bumpy process, I think the fund has 

shown promise as an additional authority to pursue our defense 

needs. 

I also want to mention Section 1208, which is not really a BPC 

authority as it is designed to directly support our operations, but 

it also has the added benefit of building important C.T. 

[counterterrorism], counterterrorism capabilities, in some of the 

most sensitive areas with some of the most sensitive units in areas 

plagued by Al Qaeda presence. 

In addition to, we have various authorities that enable us to 

shape the local defense institutions at their national level to ensure 

the units that we equip and train are properly managed by the 

leadership of the host countries. These programs include Minister 

Defense Advisory Program or MODA, the Defense Institution Reform Initiative or DIRI, and our Counterterrorism Fellowship Program. 

In the counternarcotics arena, we have authorities that help 

build partner capacity to fight organized crime and drug trafficking 

groups, Sections 1033, 1004, 1022 and 1021, that provide training, 

equipment, base operations, intelligence sharing, and other support 

to our counternarcotics programs. 

We appreciate the flexibility of these counternarcotics authorities 

that also enable us to support efforts to attack the nexus of 

counterterrorism and counternarcotics, an area of increasing concern, particularly in Northwest Africa. 
5 

Also providing the Department of Defense a central transfer account for counternarcotics, we are in a stronger position to manage 

these programs and align them with our security priorities. Based 

on our experience with this account in counternarcotics, we may 

want to consider a similar account for our counterterrorism programs. 

As Secretary Panetta recently made clear, the task of training, 

advising, and partnering with foreign military and security forces 

has moved from the periphery of our defense strategy to become a 

critical skill set across our armed forces. We have gained a great 

deal of experience in this in the last decade. 

BPC is often conducted by our Special Operations forces. Their 

training, regional orientation, and language skills make their operators very well prepared to do this type of activity. However, the 

general purpose forces are also preparing for BPC as well. Last 

March the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Odierno, announced 

that Army brigades will be realigned for a variety of purposes, including training and mentoring partnered nation security forces. 

Our track record I think has been solid. Our 1206 programs have 

been critical in supporting our efforts in Afghanistan. For example, 

in the Republic of Georgia, after many years of support from our 

1206 program, Georgia is the largest per capita ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] contributor in the field. 

They are now able to occupy their own battle space and play a 

key role in our counterinsurgency strategy to clear, hold, and build. 

They are a very important contribution that eases the burden on 

U.S. forces in Afghanistan. 

Outside of ISAF, we have had great success in the Philippines 

against the Abu Sayyaf Group, in Yemen against AQAP [Al Qaeda 

in the Arabian Peninsula], in Colombia against the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] and narco-trafficking groups, 

and in East Africa as Congressman Smith mentioned in his remarks, against Al Shabaab. 

In the coming years we can and must build on a record of success. Programs like 1206, 1207N, and our CN [counternarcotics] 

authorities and other institution building programs have been critical to develop these programs. 

After 9/11, the Congress and the Executive Branch called a series 

of audibles. The Congress created a series of temporary authorities 

for the Department of Defense, and they have largely succeeded in 

their intent. I think it is now an appropriate time for the Congress 

to consider extending some of the specific year-to-year authorities 

and perhaps make them permanent. 

In addition, we support finding appropriations to these funds 

such as GSCF [Global Security Contingency Fund] and 1207, that 

as the chairman mentioned, are funded out of O&M [Operations 

and Maintenance] and other accounts, to provide a more steady 

stream of appropriation. These programs are proven winners. Not 

perfect by any measure, but worthy of continued support and refinement. 

In conclusion, let me say that we expect combined operations 

with capable partners to continue to be an effective way to respond 

to the emerging security challenges worldwide and particularly in 

counterterrorism, but in a wide range of other ones. I am focusing 
6 

a lot on countering the proliferation of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] as well. These may be important instruments for those 

programs. 

And Mr. Chairman, I am quite aware that foreign assistance is 

not always the most popular program with the public, especially in 

times of fiscal constraint. However, the programs that you have authorized and funded in this committee have brought real results to 

our national security. These are not foreign aid giveaways, but 

these successes should remind us that we cannot measure progress 

on a day-to-day basis. 

These efforts take many months and years to get results, and the 

most important measure of effectiveness is on the battlefield in denying Al Qaeda and its affiliates the ability to organize strikes 

against our homeland from foreign sanctuaries and in protecting 

our Nation from other emerging threats to our security. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the 

committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today and testify in the Department’s efforts to build partner capacity. That concludes my statement. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Sheehan can be found in 

the Appendix on page 43.] 

STATEMENT OF LTG TERRY WOLFF, USA, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC PLANS AND POLICY (J5), JOINT STAFF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

General WOLFF. Chairman McKeon, Ranking Members, members 

of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify here today, 

and I am pleased and honored to be here with Assistant Secretary 

Sheehan and Ms. St. Laurent from the GAO [Government Accountability Office], and I ask that my oral remarks be entered into the 

records. 

From our strongest allies to our newest relationships, strengthening partner engagement increases stability and security around 

the world, and these engagements are specifically constructed to 

enable a range of results from developing trust and furthering 

partnerships to strengthening coordination, interoperability, and 

mature allies. 

The January 12th, the Defense Strategic Guidance states that 

building partner capacity remains important for sharing costs and 

responsibilities for global leadership. Looking ahead, the Department and the military will remain globally engaged providing a 

stabilizing presence through a network of alliances and presence 

through partnerships and cooperative approaches to address common security problems. 

Across the globe we seek to be part of a security partnership of 

choice—we seek to be the security partner of choice, pursuing new 

partnerships with a growing number of nations. The Department 

and the military undertake a number of security cooperation activities to enable and encourage our foreign partners to work with us 

to achieve common security objectives, and these activities are 

aimed at preventing future crises and should these preventive efforts fail, ensuring that the Department and our partners are sufficiently trained and equipped to respond, as necessary. 
7 

Building partner capacity is a complex interwoven system of multiple lines of effort and throughout the Department and certainly 

across the interagency. Our main goal is to help our partners develop effective and legitimate security institutions that can provide 

for their own country’s internal security and contribute to the 

greater regional stability as well as participate in multilateral operations. 

Our coalition in Afghanistan stands as an example of the importance of interoperable and capable partners. Throughout the war, 

well-trained and highly effective partners have been fighting side 

by side U.S. forces. Many of our coalition partners deployed without caveats to some of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan 

and performed admirably. 

As ISAF and USFOR–A [United States Forces—Afghanistan] reshape our presence in Afghanistan as we move towards 2015, our 

reliance on these partners will continue, and as we work collectively with the Afghanistans it will be important to help them provide for their own Nation’s security. 

As we turn the page on a decade of a war, the Arab world is in 

a period of turmoil and change imparting across the region, as you 

well know, with somewhat of an uncertain future, and while the 

wave of unrest has changed the security environment, many of our 

long-standing U.S. goals in the region certainly endure. 

And while the new strategic guidance directs us to a re-balance 

of the Asian Pacific region, we remain committed to our enduring 

strategic security interest in the Middle East, including maintaining freedom of navigation, confronting the proliferation of weapons 

of mass destruction, countering violent extremism, and continuing 

to advance towards Mideast peace process. All while supporting 

and watching political process and reform. 

The task of training and advising and partnering with foreign 

military and security forces has moved from the periphery to become a critical element of our strategy. The successful implementation of this effort has paid dividends in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, 

UAE [United Arab Emirates], among others. 

In Jordan, the evolution of the Jordanian armed forces as a regional enabler has facilitated their ability to house multilateral 

special operating force exercises, such as Eager Lion which occurred last spring. Our partnerships with the Lebanese armed 

forces through Central Command’s joint capabilities review resulted in increased capacity to secure and defend their borders. 

Qatar and the UAE continue to support regional security and 

they provide support to both Operations Unified Protector and Enduring Freedom. 

As I turn to the Western Hemisphere we are seeking opportunities to build partner capacity, develop, and continue to develop 

these security partnerships and create innovative, low-cost, and 

small footprint approaches to these hemispheric security objectives. 

The security assistance to Colombia, Central America, and the 

Caribbean as well as the deployment at the El Salvadorian military 

in support of OAF [Operation Allied Force] and OEF [Operation 

Enduring Freedom] underscore the opportunity for expanding these 

capabilities and capacities to further regional stabilization efforts. 
8 

We have tremendous partners in the U.S. Southern Command’s 

area responsibility who are dedicated to our shared principles. Our 

efforts in the Asia–Pacific region are part of a synchronized wholeof-government approach that are aimed at refreshing and reinvigorating our military and our military-to-military relationships with 

established allies as well as other key emerging partners. 

So we use building partner capacity events to engage our partners in this region. Exercises augment and supplement this. If you 

think about Pacific Command over the past few years, they have 

continued to grow their engagements in quality and quantity to 

achieve the best training value. 

I use RIMPAC [Rim of the Pacific] as an example, which had 14 

countries in 2010, which moved to 22 countries last year in the 

largest naval exercises that exist. 

So PACOM’s [Pacific Command] regional exercise has helped 

train not only the U.S. but partner forces, and they help reinforce 

our commitment to the Asia–Pacific region, improve interoperability, and send a strong message to the nations across the region. 

The reliance on Asia represents a strategic adjustment that acknowledged the growing importance of the region as well as an 

area full of developing economies and the emergence of new security threats, but it doesn’t mean a departure from established alliances. 

And if I think to Europe, it has to do with how we are adjusting 

our presence there and we will reduce the conventional army presence there to only two brigades, but that doesn’t mean European 

commands, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine and Special Operating 

Forces won’t continue time-honored partnership efforts with NATO 

[North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies and others through a 

robust exercise program. 

African states and regional organizations are making progress, 

as the Assistant Secretary talked about, and this is about helping 

them deal with their security concerns and sources of instability. 

Nevertheless, our partners in Africa still lack important capabilities and the capacity to address varying results of instability across 

the region. 

Facing this reality, the Department, in conjunction with State, 

continues to assist on the African continent to build their capacity 

to respond to these threats. These tailored efforts, as you know, include security assistance, exercises, some rotational presence, advisory efforts, and training and equipping, and all this is being implemented in a low-cost, small-footprint approach. 

So in conclusion, as we face the security challenges of the 21st 

century, we have allies and partners who share an intent and in 

helping us advance this common security vision and shouldering a 

burden of global security, we believe that building partner capacity 

is a prudent investment which deepens our strategic ties and helps 

defend our interests in an area of diminishing resources in a fiscally constrained environment. 

Globally integrated operations do place a premium on partnering 

and our forces must be able to operate effectively with U.S. Government agencies, partner militaries, indigenous and regional stakeholders and security forces through technology, command, and control, and a low-cost, low-footprint partnering capability. 
9 

So whatever form building partner capacity efforts take over 

time, in the end they have to be agile, flexible enough to respond 

to a rapidly changing world, and they must be conducted steadily 

over the long term to instill partner confidence with our commitment and reinforcement all with the State Department’s role in 

leading to U.S. foreign policy efforts. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before 

the committee today and testify on the Department and our military’s efforts to build partner capacity, and I do want to thank you 

and this committee for your continued support to our men and 

women in uniform. I look forward to your questions today. 

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

Appendix on page 55.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. St. Laurent. 

STATEMENT OF JANET ST. LAURENT, MANAGING DIRECTOR, 

DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith, 

and members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today to discuss DOD’s efforts to build the security capacity of partner nations. 

Our work, over the past few years, looking at a variety of these 

programs, suggests that three key management practices are critical in helping DOD to achieve meaningful results and outcomes 

from these efforts. These practices include identifying clear goals 

and terminology for the various programs, coordinating and sharing information among program stakeholders, and evaluating program performance. 

The first area, setting clear goals and defining terminology, is 

important to help ensure that DOD focuses its activities on the 

highest priority activities in light of resource constraints rather 

than undertaking a diffuse set of activities. 

Our work has shown that some programs are well aligned with 

broader goals, while others need to be better aligned. For example, 

following our review of a joint task force in the Horn of Africa, we 

observed that the efforts being undertaken there needed to be reassessed and better aligned with Africa Command’s priority missions. 

My understanding is that is in the process of being addressed. Our 

report on this topic was done a couple of years ago, so there has 

been some action. 

We have also found that DOD uses a wide variety of terms to describe its partnership building activities, and some of this terminology does lead to some confusion. For example, in May 2012, we 

reported that the combatant commands and the military services 

had different views and perspectives about what the term ‘‘Security 

Force Assistance’’ means and how it differs from other DOD terms, 

such as ‘‘Security Cooperation,’’ which is somewhat of a broader 

term that encompasses exercises, military-to-military exchanges, et 

cetera. 

But as a result, combatant commands and the services were not 

totally clear about what steps they should take to implement DOD 

guidance on security force assistance, develop long-range strategies 
10 

and programs, and adjust training for general-purpose forces which 

are potentially going to play a greater role in this area in the future. Therefore, we recommended that DOD clarify its intent and 

expectations for the combatant command and the Services. 

The second area involves the need for DOD components to effectively coordinate both within the Department and with civilian 

agencies to plan and execute security cooperation activities and 

share information. This is an area where DOD has taken some 

positive steps. 

For example, U.S. Southern Command has involved over 10 

intra-agency partners as it developed its recent planning and strategy documents, thereby helping to ensure a whole-of-government 

approach. 

Still, opportunities for improvement remain. For instance, JO’s 

[Joint Office] review of the National Guard State Partnership program found that the Guard bureau and combatant command’s information systems did not always have accurate or consistent information on program activities and funding in this area. 

Moreover, in a recent review of security assistance programs that 

supply equipment and training to foreign nations, we found that 

program officials do not always have accurate information on the 

status of acquisitions and equipment deliveries because DOD information systems contain limited information and are not always 

kept up to date. As a result, some of these equipment deliveries to 

foreign partners have been delayed and additional costs have been 

incurred. 

The third and final area that I would like to discuss involves sustaining programs and measuring their results. Since 2010, we have 

reported the need for improvement and evaluation across a range 

of programs, including the section 1206 Train and Equip Program, 

DOD’s humanitarian assistance efforts, counternarcotics activities, 

and the National Guard State Partnership Program. 

Without good information on the impact of security assistance activities, it may be difficult for these programs to compete for funding during a time of tight budgets. For example, in 2010, we reported that DOD and other U.S. agencies need to place additional 

emphasis on how initiatives funded through the Section 1206 program will be evaluated and sustained over time. 

Only 26 of the 135 proposals we reviewed addressed how projects 

should be sustained. We understand DOD is taking some actions 

to help address this area recently. 

During our review of the National Guard State Partnership Program, we also heard positive, anecdotal accounts about the program’s usefulness; however, DOD did not have a set of metrics and 

was not collecting information on results systematically. Without 

such efforts, along with greater focus on sustainment issues, the 

benefits of DOD partnership building activities could quickly erode. 

In conclusion, by setting clear goals, coordinating activities, and 

sharing information and evaluating progress, DOD can better focus 

its efforts on helping U.S. partners enhance their capabilities in 

meaningful ways. 

Effective management will also help DOD steward its resources 

and provide Congress with the information it needs to evaluate 
11 

current programs, consider future funding levels, and modify programs and funding approaches to the extent needed. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to respond to any 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. St. Laurent can be found in the 

Appendix on page 65.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Secretary Sheehan, General Wolff, yesterday this committee 

heard testimony about the readiness crisis and the significant fiscal 

difficulties facing the Defense Department. BPC activities, such as 

1206 and the Global Security Contingency Fund are funded out of 

the operation maintenance account, which is already in extremis, 

but it will take significant further cuts if sequestration is implemented. 

What priority will BPC authorities get under the C.R. [Continuing Resolution] sequestration and shortfall in the OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations]? Are these activities more important 

than the training and deployments that cannot currently be funded? 

If the Department does plan and execute BPC activities, how will 

the Department prioritize which BPC activities it must complete, 

not simply in term of COCOM activities, but in light of the other 

O&M deficiencies that the joint staff is dealing with? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a very important question as we face sequestration. 

The Secretary has been very clear about the potential catastrophic effect of sequestration on the Department. And we are 

going to be forced with some very difficult choices in the weeks and 

months ahead. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, a lot of our programs in BPC are 

funded by defensewide O&M, which are not always applicable to 

supporting Navy operations. So they are not necessarily out of the 

same pot of money, but the general question that you ask in terms 

of setting priorities among these is an appropriate one and a difficult one. I would say, however, though, that our support for building partnership capacity programs remains a very high priority. 

When you think about these programs that are funding units 

that are directly engaged in pushing back Al Qaeda sanctuaries in 

different parts of the world, these are in direct interest of the 

United States; places where we cannot either for our own political 

decisionmaking process or the political decisionmaking process of 

the host country, that we cannot or should not deploy in those 

countries, the units that we are training and supporting are directly confronting those organizations that threaten our national 

security. 

So I would say, Mr. Chairman, these programs are going to remain a priority to support, and if you look at 1206, of course is a 

counterterrorism program, and in the other programs, for instance 

in 1207N and then Global Security Contingency Fund, those programs are primarily designed to support the specialized 

counterterrorism units of countries where there is a significant Al 

Qaeda presence, and so those will remain high-priority issues, Mr. 

Chairman. 
12 

The CHAIRMAN. How would they rank as compared to readiness? 

I have heard stories that troops are not getting the same training 

that they were a year ago, that they are not having as much opportunity to fire their weapons and other things, cuts that are already 

being made in training which affects readiness. How would it compare to that? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, obviously the readiness of 

our forces are always a paramount priority in the Department. 

The CHAIRMAN. Would that be like number one? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I would—yes. Yes, Mr. Chairman. However—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Okay. 

General. 

General WOLFF. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

I would just say I think readiness would remain number one, 

and there will be a delicate balance that we will have to work our 

way through as a better understanding of the impacts are assessed. 

As the Assistant Secretary has said, and so have you all, the 

building partner capacity efforts are fairly small in the grand 

scheme of things, and it is fairly economical. So we have to figure 

out how to retain the appropriate balance and make the right 

trade-offs so that we can continue to deal with helping build those 

capacities out there where we watch these emergent threats continue to change. 

The CHAIRMAN. Most of the choices that we will be forced to 

make aren’t between a good thing and a bad thing. They are between two good things, and that is why it is difficult. 

Ms. St. Laurent, your testimony mentioned several systemic 

challenges facing the implementation, execution, evaluation of the 

BPC authorities. What role do you think multiplicity, duplication, 

and overlap of all these authorities has in complicating these systematic challenges? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Many of the programs do have some similar features; however, 

they also have differences. So for example, a number of them are 

focused on enhancing counterterrorism skills. Also, a number of 

them are focused on enhancing partner nations’ capacity to participate in stability and reconstruction operations. 

So to some extent there are similarities, but in other cases there 

are differences. GSCF, for example, provides multiyear funding, 

also has some additional authorities to do other kinds of activities. 

We have done a large body of work on duplication and overlap in 

Federal programs over the past few years at GAO in response to 

a congressional mandate, and I would like to point out a couple of 

key themes from that work. 

First of all, there are probably some additional administrative 

costs, legal review costs, management costs associated when there 

are large numbers of programs operating in a particular Government area, whether it is education and training programs, or in 

this case, security cooperation or building partnership activities. 

To the extent that there can be some consolidation of programs 

to create fewer broader programs, that may reduce the amount and 

time of management attention needed to focus on the administra-
13 

tive costs of those programs. So it may be possible to do some potential consolidation in this area. 

However, there is always a trade-off because these programs are 

not identical and they have been set up, for example, in some cases 

to focus on specific countries and in other cases to focus on specific 

types of activities, like counterterrorism. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we are going to have to realize that we will 

be having trade-offs, but in times of this really tight fiscal constraint, I think we are going to have to look at all possible areas 

where we can cut duplication certainly be one of those very important ones. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If I can actually follow up on that, I guess one of the questions 

that occurs to me, why are there so many different authorities to 

accomplish a similar task? And you have mentioned some of the 

programs work better than others. 

And it is a question for Mr. Sheehan as well. 

I guess the example I would take is when you are looking to— 

you have a partner capacity challenge like we have now I guess in 

the area of North Africa, and you are trying to piece together. You 

say, well I need, I don’t know, $30 million or a lot less than that. 

How do you sort of look at the menu of authorities and say, I can 

get some from here, I can get some from there? So how do you 

piece that together now? 

And second, Ms. St. Laurent, I would be interested, what would 

make more sense. You know, how would you say, well, we don’t 

really need that, let’s consolidate that and make it more simple? 

How do we make greater sense of these authorities? 

Because I think at the starting point, it would be hard to figure 

out how much money you have available until you go look at a 

whole wide variety of authorities and say, okay, what is out there. 

So there is a couple questions in there, but Mr. Sheehan, why 

don’t you start. 

And then Ms. St. Laurent, if you could offer a comment on that, 

it would be great. 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Congressman Smith. 

Actually the reason we have these multiple authorities, I believe, 

because this committee and others recognized that we had a very 

changing, evolving security landscape at 9/11, and they reacted by 

creating special authorities to deal with certain evolving threats, 

and I believe it has been effective. 

So yes, we may want to consolidate, but if you look at the purposes of these authorities, they were specifically targeted at very 

specific defense requirements; 1206 is a counterterrorism authority. 

It is very narrow in its application, and that is not necessarily a 

bad thing. 

We then went to 1207 when the Congress recognized the evolving 

threats of Al Qaeda in Yemen and the evolving threat of Al 

Shabaab in East Africa. 1207N funding was directly targeted to 

those areas, and I think that was appropriate and effective in focusing the resources of our Government on those threats. 

Counternarcotics authorities are obviously designed to prevent 

the scourge of drugs coming into the U.S., but also the flexibility 
14 

of those authorities that enabled us to use counternarcotics funding 

on the nexus of terrorism and counternarcotics is a good thing. 

So yes, they are different, but I think there is sometimes 

strength in the differences of these programs and the focus they 

provide and the flexibility they provide to go after certain aspects 

of our national security. 

These programs, I want to underscore this to me as a member 

of the Department of Defense—and I also was a senior official in 

the Department of State also—these programs are very important 

to the Department of Defense. They enable the Department of Defense to focus its effort. 

Other programs that are run by the Department of State are also 

very, very important, but they are different. They do not enable the 

Department of Defense to respond quickly and effectively to these 

emerging threats like these authorities have over the past 6 or 7 

years. 

So I just want to underscore that yes, they are different. It looks 

like there is some duplication, but there was purpose in their creation, and in my view, they have been extremely effective in 

terms—if you look at the foreign aid programs of the last 50 years 

since the old Cold War, if you look at these and stack them up, I 

would argue that they have been extremely effective because of 

their focus. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. St. Laurent, you want—— 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. I would agree that often the reason why new 

programs do get added is because there is a gap in some of the existing programs and new authorities are needed. What sometimes 

happens is over time then in a particular area, there are a number 

of programs and some of the earlier programs are not necessarily 

evaluated to see if they need to continue. So I think this is an area 

of—— 

Mr. SMITH. Can you give us an example right now of one that 

might fall into that category within the BPC? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Well, I think one of the issues over the long 

term to think about is how, for example, there are a number of 

military-to-military exchange programs. 

So the National Guard State Partnership Program contributes to 

some extent to that, but the theater commanders also have a number of other tools and programs that facilitate military exchanges. 

It may be that Congress and the administrations decide to retain 

all those programs because they do serve different purposes, but 

that is an area where there is some commonality. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. The other point I would like to make is when 

programs can be established to focus on providing a capability that 

we want to create in a partner country, in a partner country’s military forces, that may be an appropriate way to structure programs. 

For example, one of the things we hear when we travel to the combatant commands is that they often have to piece together numerous funding sources to accomplish an objective. 

So for example, the state partnership program may pay for the 

cost of transporting National Guardsmen to participate in activity, 

but then the combatant commander also has to find other funding 

sources to help round out all the other costs associated with what-
15 

ever the particular activity is. So to the extent you can focus on capabilities that could be beneficial. 

Mr. SMITH. One more quick question. There is also a fine line between BPC programs and development programs because I know 

DOD has been, you know, there is like the MIST [Military Information Support Team] program for instance, and some others out 

there, and there is a lot of concern—Secretary Gates had expressed 

the concern that DOD was doing stuff that frankly the State Department and USAID ought to be doing, and we ought to transfer 

those authorities over to them. 

Now part of the reason that DOD’s doing that is because they 

have the money. You know, sequestration could change that, but 

certainly they have more money than either State or USAID. You 

know, I know this isn’t directly, you know, listed as a building 

partner capacity program within DOD, but I think they are very 

linked. 

How does the BPC programs match up with the development 

programs? And where might there be some crossing over of authorities there that could be rationalized? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. My response to that would be that the BPC 

programs are more focused on building the capabilities of other 

countries’ military forces for counterterrorism, stability operations, 

et cetera. 

However, DOD has other programs, for example, some of the humanitarian assistance and civic aid programs under OHDACA 

[Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid] where DOD is 

engaged in activities like building schools, building wells, things 

like that. Those activities do tend to look like some of the activities 

that AID and State Department fund. So there is a tremendous 

need to ensure that there is good coordination. 

We have found that there is room for improvement in that area, 

and we have a report on that topic that identifies where some of 

that overlap occurs and makes suggestions for enhancing the coordination. So that is one area where further improvement would 

be needed. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Thornberry. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would just say that I agree with some of the comments Mr. 

Smith made at the beginning. I think this is a very important part 

of our national security. 

From my standpoint of looking at this, it is a dangerous world. 

We can’t be everywhere. Helping others develop the capability to 

do the 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; 

particularly on counterterrorism in a timely way. 

But as the chairman points out, money is tight and part of what 

we have got to look at is whether these authorities that have kind 

of sprung up in various ways and various reasons on an ad hoc 

basis can’t be improved in some way, and I think that is an important area for us to discuss. 

Ms. St. Laurent, let me just ask a couple of quick questions right 

quick. 
16 

You talk about metrics and I am a big fan of being able to measure what we are getting for our money, but as I think back about 

some of the great successes in building partnership capacity, Philippines, Colombia, et cetera, what metric would you use to measure 

year by year the effort that is being made in situations like that? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. That is an excellent question, and we do recognize that this is a challenging area but however, there are different 

types of metrics. 

So first of all, I think it is important for all the programs to 

think about metrics and establish, perhaps, a mix of metrics that 

they are going to use to gauge program success and those could be 

a combination. For example, in the counternarcotics area, you 

know, there are both output measures in terms of the number of 

interdictions, the number of individuals trained, things like that. 

So that is one form of metric that is perfectly acceptable. The harder and more difficult metrics to get at is the actual outcome. 

So in this case for example, in training of the security forces, 

there could certainly be metrics about the numbers of individuals 

trained, the types of capabilities that they are trained in, but then 

there are ways to assess, we do it with our own forces through our 

readiness indicators, et cetera, the extent to which those capabilities are actually being enhanced. 

And I think of the 1206 program DOD has begun to do more of 

these evaluations. You often need some baseline data as well to 

identify where you are starting from or where these countries are 

starting from and then be able to assess the progress over time. 

So it is difficult to do—— 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Yes. 

Ms. ST. LAURENT [continuing]. But it can be done and we understand that it is not necessarily going to be perfect, but I think it 

will be very important so that these programs can demonstrate 

their value. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Yes, well I appreciate that. 

Let me ask one other brief question, and then I want to get to 

Mr. Sheehan on something. 

You talk about sustainability, and I think what you mean is 

starting something that the host country can then continue, but 

also something about sustainability are these programs that are 

just temporary. 

So if a program is going to expire in 3 or 4 years, how can we, 

much less the host country, have that kind of sustainability? So do 

you agree that part of the issue here is that these are all temporary authorities and that some sort of permanent, rationalized 

authority would make some of these sustainability questions a little easier to deal with? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Again, I agree. This is a challenging area, 

funding can vary from year to year. It is often challenging for DOD 

to know exactly what funding they are getting, when they are getting it, and to create a longer term plan. 

I do agree that in some cases either multiyear authority and 

more continuity in funding would be helpful. Congress has to 

evaluate that, of course, as to when they want to give that kind of 

authority and when they don’t, but a key point is, again, sustain-
17 

ability of something that needs to be thought about at the beginning of programs—— 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Okay—— 

Ms. ST. LAURENT [continuing]. When they are being created. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

Mr. Sheehan, just right quick, to fight terrorism, it is not always 

militaries in these countries that are needed. 

To fight narco-terrorism, sometimes it is Coast Guard-like functions and law enforcement. You know, that is what the global security fund was supposed to do, but in the first years—I don’t know— 

I think there is a fair amount of disappointment in the first year. 

Is that fair or not? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I, as you know, I have been 

frustrated to a degree in this first year working with this new authority. There is no question about it. It has been a difficult and 

bumpy process. We didn’t nearly get to as many programs as we 

have liked to have, but I would say that some good came out of this 

program and I think there is some positive aspects in the future. 

First, what we call the global soft carve-out was very, very important for Admiral McRaven and the special operations community to build the soft relationships that can be so crucial for our 

programs down the road, and we opened up some funding programs for that in what we call the Mainline GSCF. 

Also, we were able to work with our State Department partners 

to focus those efforts in some very important countries for our national defense interests. In Libya with a border security program 

and obviously with the flow of weapons out of southern Liberia into 

the Sahel, this is a major, major problem that is upsetting the entire balance of security in North Africa. 

In Nigeria, we have gotten into Nigeria with a counter-IED [improvised explosive device] program to start to build a relationship 

with the Nigerians, give them some capability to deal with Boko 

Haram in the northeast which is, again, is a looming problem for 

Africa that threatens the stability of that part of the region, not 

only with Al Qaeda, but with other aspects of sectarian violence 

that is very troubling. 

We also supported a program in the Philippines, a very important partner both for counterterrorism and maritime programs, and 

as you mentioned Mr. Chairman, the GSCF enables us to provide 

funding to other than military organizations like Coast Guard and 

police, Minister of Interior organizations that are very important 

for our counterterrorism efforts. 

So GSCF, although difficult, first year problematic did enable us 

to do some things that our authorities didn’t, so I would give it 

overall a passing grade in terms of moving our interests forward 

and we hope to improve it in the years ahead. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for being before us. 

I have been on for 17 years on this committee and worked 

through a lot of the issues with respect to Colombia when President Uribe was there and some of the work that we have done and 
18 

have gone down several times especially with some of the training 

that we have done there from a military standpoint. 

I mean, obviously we were in there for a lot of reasons; lack of 

stability, FARC, and others who we thought might at some point 

be negative towards the U.S. if we lost ground in Colombia, and 

of course, the drug trade, all which effect in particular California 

because we are on the Pacific. 

So my question to you is—and by the way, I also sit on 

WHINSEC [Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation] so you know the whole training up of—or interchangeability 

of trying to do civilian control over some of these military over in 

South America. 

And so my question is, where do you see—where do you see some 

of the programs expanding with respect to Latin America, Mexico, 

Central America, the Caribbean, where do you see some of the efforts happening? What do you do when countries are so continuously changing maybe zinging back from left to right politically 

speaking, what are the things that concern you and what types of 

programs do you see for the future going into these countries south 

of us? 

And I guess it would start with Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Congresswoman Sanchez. 

And I think by bringing up Colombia is obviously one of the models of our building partnership capacity. I first went to Colombia 

as a Lieutenant in 1980. I went to their commando school as a 

young Special Forces officer. At that time, we were beginning a 

partnership with the Colombians. 

Over the last 30 years has been extremely close tight, growing 

every year and this is the point I want to make here is that the 

persistent engagement with the Colombian Army and the Colombian police as you know, has yielded results. We have invested the 

time, the money, the relationships that has reshaped their army, 

reshaped their police dramatically since I was there in 1980. 

And I believe that it—Colombia represents a model for moving 

forward. What we did in Colombia is a combination of many, many 

authorities, both counterterrorism, counternarcotics authorities, to 

build their institutions from the top to the bottom, reforming them, 

ensuring that to try to protect them from the scourge of corruption 

involved in these huge sums of narcotics monies to strengthen their 

institutions to provide them the equipment, the training, and the 

wherewithal to deal with this nexus of narco-terrorism—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. So Mr. Secretary, I see something like that and 

then I see for example what has been going on in Mexico, which 

has just been so much more difficult for us to help that country to 

get things together there. 

So—— 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I think Mexico, I think, is a very special, 

unique case as you know. They are much more sensitive to American military presence in their country than say, Colombia where 

we had hundreds of advisers there operating in a very smooth and 

effective way. 

Mexico is a different equation and actually what is interesting 

now to see, the folks that we worked with in Colombia over the 

years, it is easier for them to operate in Mexico and they are now 
19 

assisting the Mexicans in providing their experience in dealing 

with this threat in Mexico. And I think though in Mexico, we will 

find a way with the new government with the PRI [Institutional 

Revolutionary Party], to find a way to help them deal with this 

scourge and we will move forward. 

I think perhaps one of the more promising areas or one of the 

most challenging and difficult areas would be in Central America, 

which also is now being affected by the narcotics trade through 

their territory. I think we will look to Colombia for examples of 

how we can strengthen those institutions in Central America that 

are under assault from the violence and the corruptive monies of 

the narcotics industry moving through there. 

And in the Andean region as well, where we have been engaged 

for a long time with the cocaine and opium threats, we will again 

look to the Colombia model to build a comprehensive program to 

strengthen their ministries to deal with the threat. 

General WOLFF. I would add just one thing or two things. 

Number one, that SOUTHCOM [Southern Command] I think has 

it about right with Operation Martillo. It is a good way to empower 

others to help work these tasks, and additionally, there are other 

partners in the hemisphere who can help us. The Canadians want 

to help down in Central America as well. 

So you build this network of partners that can help you so it is 

not always you in the lead and there are others that can help 

where there is historical baggage. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank Congresswoman Sanchez for raising the 

point about Plan Colombia. 

I wish the American people knew what a success that is—and 

Secretary Sheehan that you were there, that is great. 

But I know firsthand, we have exchange students who have 

stayed with us from Cali. Two of my sons went to high school as 

exchange students in Colombia to see this success, and, truly, the 

American people should be very proud of the American military efforts to provide stability in that extraordinary country. 

I know firsthand, too, of the success of the relationship with the 

Republic of Bulgaria, the Slovak Republic. I am the co-chair of the 

Bulgaria caucus. 

I am a member of the Friends of Slovakia caucus—to visit with 

our allies, our partners in Afghanistan, working side by side to promote peace in that country and the success there and the friendships that are being developed and the partnerships, the modernization, the professionalism, truly, they are success stories that 

should be told. 

Additionally, Secretary Sheehan, a recent Government Accounting Office report raised concerns about the National Guard State 

Partnership Program. GAO highlighted concerns about the oversight funding and training and effectiveness of the program. 

Do you believe it is appropriate for Congress to amend Title 32 

in order to codify the National Guard State Partnership Program 

regarding the funding sources, purposes of the program, and speci-
20 

fying certain limitations on the use of funding? I appreciate very 

much that Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo of Guam and myself have introduced legislation that I hope would be of assistance. 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I thank the congressman. I believe that the 

weaknesses of have been—excuse me. I am sorry. 

Mr. Congressman, I believe that the weaknesses identified by the 

GAO are very important for us to strengthen our programs with 

the National Guard. At this point, I am not really prepared to say 

that we are ready to make those changes, but I will get back to you 

as soon as I can to come up with the DOD’s response to the weaknesses found in this program, and I owe you an answer on that, 

Mr. Congressman. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mr. WILSON. And as a former National Guardsman myself, I 

know that the Guard members truly—and I—we have the A.G. 

[Adjutant General] up front and former reservists here, too, but 

good people—we have had the privilege of working with our partners and it can be very positive. 

A question I have for each of you; how will our counternarcotics 

funding be utilized in relation to the Afghan police and military in 

Afghanistan post-2014? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Congressman, we haven’t made all our decisions regarding the post-2014 equation right now. That is being 

carefully considered, and we will review those over the next weeks 

and months ahead, but I will say that there are some aspects of 

the counternarcotics program in Afghanistan that have been very, 

very effective, particularly where we work with vetted units within 

the Afghan Ministry of Interior, have been very important in tackling the narcotics threat there. 

So as we move forward with our final package for the post-2014, 

we will be evaluating what role the counternarcotics authorities 

will have there. 

Mr. WILSON. And how does the counternarcotics partnership fit 

into the Administration’s Asia–Pacific strategy? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Mr. Congressman, I think the counternarcotics program is important for all of our theaters, the narcotics 

monies that fuel these organized crimes have often had relation 

with terrorist organizations, or also provide smuggling networks 

that can be used to smuggle terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, or other threats to our security are extremely important in 

the Pacific as well as our theaters. It will be central to our strategy. 

Mr. WILSON. Again, I would like to thank each of you for your 

service and it really is a success story that—I had the opportunity 

to also visit with the Armed Forces in Ghana, and we have had 

nearly a 50-year relationship that—it really would be positive for 

the American people to know, understand, and know how appreciative the people are and how successful. 

I yield the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your service. 
21 

I want to come back to Mr. Sheehan’s comments that this is not 

foreign aid. I notice that the fiscal year 2013, 1206 notifications, 

the first tranche, is about $71 million, give or take, if you add it 

up. It has $7.63 million for Bulgaria. I think most of my constituents would say, why in God’s name are we engaging in some joint 

security operation with Bulgaria? What does it possibly have to do 

with us? 

And it is a fair question. The question was answered last July, 

a bus carry—would have carried 47 Israeli tourists near the airport 

was blown up by a bomb attack. 

In recent days, the Bulgarian Government has identified 

Hezbollah as the likely perpetrator of the bomb attack. An account 

of that report from the New York Times last week says Bulgaria 

was chosen as a target not only because of the Black Sea’s popularity with Israeli tourists, but because security there was more lax 

than in other European countries. 

It goes on to say that Bulgarians living along the scenic Black 

Sea coast did not fear for their safety or expect a terrorist attack. 

The network of terrorists around the world, as you well know, is 

agile and intelligent. It finds the soft spots in the world and then 

attacks there where it seems to be the most likely case. 

And one thing I think we need to keep in mind here, I think Mr. 

Thornberry said this very, very well, that this is a real investment 

in securing our citizens around the world. I did a little math on 

this. The money we are sending to Bulgaria this year represents 

$1 out of every $100,000 the United States spends on defense. 

So out of every $100,000 we spend in our defense budget, $1 goes 

to Bulgaria or will go to Bulgaria for the purpose of providing 

interoperable command and control capabilities for force protection 

companies and military assistance teams, which, as a lay person, 

I take to mean, you know, figuring out the bad guys, where they 

are before they could strike and hurt other innocent people. 

I think that this points out that we have three options in a world 

that is globally dangerous. The first is to adopt a catastrophic 

strategy of passivity, just sort of hoping this won’t happen in Croatia or Estonia or Hungary or Latvia or Lithuania or any of the 

other countries. I think that is a major mistake. 

The second option would be to increase the number of personnel 

we have and increase our global footprint. You know, put more 

U.S. troops or put U.S. troops in Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary. I am not for that. I think it stretches us economically; it creates all kinds of geopolitical problems that we don’t need. And I 

think it is not—the benefit is not worth the cost. 

What you are suggesting and advocating for—and I agree with— 

is a strategy of making alliances and partnerships and enhancing 

the security capabilities of those strategic partners. Now I know a 

lot of that funding has come from our OCO accounts, or overseas 

contingency accounts, and those accounts are obviously going to 

drop pretty dramatically over time, as they should. 

What is the importance of us replacing those OCO expenditures 

with regular baseline budget expenditures in order to continue 

strengthening these partnerships? 
22 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Congressman Andrews. I 

think—I am glad you raised the issue of our support, not only of 

Bulgaria but our East European partners. 

And I think this is, again, one of the most significant strategic 

relationship changes we have made over the last 10 years and it 

is based on them participating in ISAF, which supported 14 mostly 

East European countries and of course, these are not poor countries. So you asked the right question. 

Why would we support them? But I would say that these modest 

investments in those countries gave us the ability to help shape 

their forces so that they could participate successfully in ISAF, 

thereby reducing our requirement to put additional U.S. forces on 

the ground. I think it was an exceptionally good investment. 

And I think I will turn to General Wolff also to follow up on that, 

as he has much more experience on that. 

General WOLFF. Sir, I just merely suggest that we have got 

about—they have about 580 or so Bulgarians in Afghanistan right 

now as part of ISAF, and so as those units have trained to go 

there, it has been about increasing and improving their capability 

so they can be a contributing member of the coalition. So this has 

grown over time as we have watched these countries improve their 

capability. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. I think this is a good investment. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Yes, thank you for what you are doing. I look at 

most of the work that you are doing as a form of prevention in 

many areas of the world and avoiding larger-scale conflict. 

My question is logistically does every BCP program or mission 

have an estimated end game or exit that is a goal or part of the 

metric, as we referred to it before, where we are planning to leave 

or at least have a minimal presence in these efforts? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Congressman, the issue of exit strategies 

and exits is an appropriate one, and we want to—our goal, as a 

former Special Forces operator, our goal is to work ourselves out 

of a job. When we are effective, we are able to go home. 

I would caution, though, that normally the places where we go 

to operate are countries that are broken. We are not going to operate in Switzerland or in Germany or France. These are countries 

that are really—been broken up by years of internal conflicts, by 

scourges of narcotics or terrorism there that are surging through 

their countries. 

So it often takes a long, long time, but I think it is very incumbent upon us, particularly even with our East European allies that 

are so important, to work ourselves out of a job with those countries as they gain their footing, as they gain their strength, that 

we exit ourselves out of that job. 

General WOLFF. Sir, I might say that, you know, when I look at 

the NATO class of 1999 and then the NATO class of 2004, having 

watched how they contributed in OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] in 

Iraq and now OEF, I think it is a success story. So over time, they 

do get better. They improve their own capabilities and their institu-
23 

tional ability to man, equip, train, deploy, and then employ forces, 

and that is kind of the graduation exercise, I think. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, and thank you for your efforts. 

And I yield my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

It is good to see you all here, and it is actually refreshing over 

the years, when we started talking about interagency and then 

whole of government and this is all part of that discussion. 

In—and I appreciate—I know that Secretary Sheehan and General Wolff, you both talked about the importance of and the role of 

the State Department here in building that capacity. 

And I am actually sorry, Mr. Chairman, that we weren’t able to 

have the State Department here as well, because I think that is 

such an important relationship. 

There are areas—and David Berteau yesterday in our Emerging 

Threat Subcommittee, talked about the fact that the DOD has actually accepted missions that they weren’t necessarily trained to 

handle. We know that some of the missions morphed and in many 

ways were more the mission of the State Department, and yet we 

see some reluctance, I guess, to give that up in some areas. 

And I wondered if you could speak to that, whether you think the 

DOD is willing to relinquish their lead in some of those areas? 

General WOLFF. Congresswoman, if I might lead. I think a lot of 

this is, we are talking about complementary efforts in a way, and 

some of the things that the Department of State does through Title 

22 versus what we are talking about, I think, create a complementary effect. And the issue here is how can you ensure that that is 

economized and complementary in nature. 

So out in Iraq and in Afghanistan we do interagency things at 

the tactical level, and then back here in Washington, we try to 

bring that together at the strategic level so that we have an understanding of what USAID is trying to do, as well as what the rest 

of State is doing. 

I would merely suggest that it is not about them or us. It is really about the complementary nature of how we do things, and so we 

routinely deal with Assistant Secretary Shapiro from P.M. [Political-Military Affairs] who works so much of that for the Department of State. So it is complementary. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Is there a collaboration piece of this thought that 

quite honestly, you know, whether it is cultural or otherwise, that 

there are some barriers to it that we still are having some difficulty 

addressing? And I guess if you could bring that, not just with necessarily with the State Department, but just with other entities of 

Government to try and do a number of the things that we are talking about here? 

And Ms. St. Laurent in terms of sharing that data aligning better, is there an area particularly that we really do need to focus 

on a lot harder than we are doing today? 

General WOLFF. The efforts by the whole-of-government approach that was mentioned previously in what we saw both in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, ultimately, what I found in my three tours in 
24 

Iraq was that, if you were going to try to help their security forces 

make changes, it was all going to be tied into the rule of law. 

And so while there, I then went to find the Treasury attache, because I needed help trying to work through rule of law issues, so 

we could better ensure that their security forces could legally apprehend bad guys in their system and then keep them in their jails 

properly, and then try them in their courts versus a system we 

would try to impose through really a lack of understanding of the 

culture. So it really is a whole-of-government approach that we 

have to better bring to bear. 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Congresswoman Davis, I would like to follow 

up on General Wolff. 

I agree that the area where we need, where there is the grayest 

area, is in the Ministry of Interiors, and the police law of order 

functions. In our Government, in the United States, we know our 

police departments, they are local, and they stick to criminal activity. 

In many other countries, to deal with the internal security 

threats that they have, it is a combination of their army doing it 

and police units. Some of these police units are paramilitary in nature, and so in that area there is a blending of both State functions 

and authorities and DOD authorities. 

And I do believe that the flexibility that we have got under 

GSCF for instance, to train Minister of Interiors that are conducting paramilitary operations that are much more similar to 

what we do in the U.S. military, is important. 

And so we need to stay very closely aligned with the State Department in those areas of where we work with Ministers of Interior. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And Ms. St. Laurent do you believe that in the work 

that you have done in trying to look at some of these areas, and 

the three practices that you identified are, what kind of timeline 

I guess would you like to see to go back and look at those areas 

where we lack some capacity to deal with, whether it is the data 

collection or alignment or whatever. What should we be looking at 

6 months from now? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Well, I think it kind of varies by program. 

Overall, I think this is a work in progress and we do recognize 

these are very challenging areas. Putting good evaluation mechanisms in place, even doing the interagency coordination, we have 

seen improvement over the past few years in a number of areas in 

terms of State and DOD collaborating more. 

Each of the combatant commanders has a process for doing their 

security cooperation plans that they engage with State Department. However when we do our field work, we still see examples 

where State Department or embassies are not aware of things that 

DOD is doing. 

So it is an ongoing, ongoing challenge and at times there is, for 

example, in the Trans-Sahel area of Africa, you know, sometimes 

there is a need for specific plans to be put in place, for example, 

to get at some of the counterterrorism issues there and do more of 

a plan that recognizes both what State is going to bring to the 

table as well as DOD. 
25 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Mrs. Hartzler. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I was visiting with a National Guardsman the other day who was 

sharing an incident that he had heard about in Central America 

where he was shot at in a law-and-order event while on duty there, 

and it just raised the greater question I have, since I believe they 

weren’t allowed to carry firearms outside of the line of their duty, 

how is our National Guard resourced in these partnerships around 

the world? And how can they protect themselves in these dangerous countries? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Congresswoman. It is a difficult 

issue. We put people in harm’s way every day; both Active Duty, 

National Guard, Reserve, reservist, and often we send them to 

parts of the world that are dangerous and they do not carry weapons. That is happening right now in many parts of the world. 

If we feel that to go to a part of the world and they are not allowed to carry weapons and it becomes too dangerous, we will call 

them back. Unfortunately, though we do take some risk when we 

go to these parts of the world; criminal activity, terrorist activity, 

others, but I think we are very prudent in evaluating those threats 

and trying to protect them. 

But generally speaking in many of these countries our trainers 

and advisers will go unarmed, and it is incumbent upon us to make 

sure that we provide them the best protection they can and if becomes too dangerous, not to send them. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Have there been discussions in allowing them to 

carry, I mean, like concealed carry we have here between the foreign country as a prerequisite for us providing the aid, allowing our 

people to defend themselves or have that option? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. If I might add, generally, I don’t know the 

exact incident to which you are referring, but normally the host nation has the responsibility to provide that sort of security for us 

normally when we operate there. 

In many of the countries they won’t want us to bring weapons, 

because they will say, ‘‘We will provide that security for you. We 

want your training value not to be on your own force of protection, 

but to help us in other areas, and we will provide that security.’’ 

But we can certainly research the incident that you have referred. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. I am not sure—we will consider that, but I 

thought I did raise a very important vulnerability that we are 

sending our citizen soldiers abroad and they are vulnerable to people. 

On another front, to what extent of all, if at all, does the Department of Defense conduct follow-up monitorings to ensure that partner military assets provided under BPC authorities, both equipment and trained units, are being used in support of U.S. national 

security objectives for which they were provided? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. We in the Department have recognized that 

we need to improve our ability to assess, particularly in for instance our 1206 programs, which is a big program. And we are now 

in the process of developing a formalized process to evaluate our 

1206 programs, and those are currently under way. These weak-
26 

nesses were identified by the GAO and others and we are taking 

some major steps now to put those processes in place. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Ms. St. Laurent, do you have anything to add on 

that? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Well, I would say there is also an upfront piece 

of this, that processes that Congress and requirements that Congress has put in place to ensure that we are giving the assistance 

to countries that do not engage in gross violations of human rights. 

So there is that check up front also that is a part of many of these 

programs. So that can be helpful. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. What is the U.S. response if units trained 

and equipped by the U.S. misuse our equipment? And have there 

been any such misuses for instance in Yemen? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I think the record in Yemen is a very strong 

one. Obviously this is an army and a police force that has a lot of 

challenges, but we have been highly encouraged by President Hadi, 

who stepped in about a year ago, in reforming, restructuring both 

the army and the other ministries to align itself with the professional standards that we would expect in one of our partners. 

So we think Yemen is moving in the right direction. Our investments there are paying dividends in the professionalization of their 

force, and in concrete, on the ground, denying of Al Qaeda sanctuary in a country that is a major threat to our interest. 

General WOLFF. If I might say, the partnering occurs at multiple 

levels from their Ministry of Defense as well as enabling that ministry to lay out its way forward as it reforms its military and all 

of it is conventional forces, to the C.T. portion which is ongoing as 

well. So this will be a many-year project, but at President Hadi’s 

request, Central Command has a team that has been working this 

to lay out the reorganization that they desire. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here this afternoon. 

It is an important hearing. 

My colleague, Congressman Joe Wilson mentioned that he and I 

have co-authored a bill. We introduced H.R. 641. This bill would 

codify the National Guard State Partnership Program, he brought 

this up earlier, to the Secretary. 

The bill is nearly identical to Section 335 of the House-passed fiscal year 2013 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act], but it 

wasn’t included in the final conference report, and I believe the 

State Partnership Program provides the Department of State and 

the combatant commands with a tremendous tool to partner with 

our allied nations. 

Now, the conference report required DOD, Mr. Secretary, to ensure compliance with the Anti-Deficiency Act. What is the status 

of this report? Does the Department of Defense place this in any 

kind of a priority? You didn’t mention anything in your report to 

Congress, your testimony. 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Congresswoman, I did not mention it. It is 

a priority, and we do owe you an answer to that, and I will get 

back to you as soon as I can after the end of this hearing. 
27 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

Also, I have a question for Ms. St. Laurent of GAO. I note that 

the GAO report from May 2012 highlighted some concerns with the 

management of the state partnership program. The report raises 

concerns about the oversight framework, as well as the amount of 

guidance and training for the use of the program activities. 

So beyond the internal efforts, do you believe that additional 

statutory authority would be helpful to address the use of funds 

and to clarify the roles and the missions of the state partnership 

program? And would changes help to ensure better oversight with 

the program by Congress? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Thank you. Yes, you are correct. Our report 

did identify a number of areas for improvement in managing the 

state guard partnership program. Specifically, we talked about the 

need to clarify the goals of the program, and again, put some procedures in place to evaluate the results, as well as ensure that the 

Department has accurate data on the activities being funded by the 

program. 

Many of those issues can be resolved by DOD guidance and direction, and DOD is in the process of doing that. They did put out 

a new directive in December that clarifies some of these areas. Particularly, the guidance points out that the activities of the partnership program should be in support of the combatant commander 

and State Department priorities. So I think that is very helpful. 

While DOD guidance could probably rectify many of these issues, 

additional legislation that would clarify from a congressional perspective the purposes of the program and also reaffirm that these 

activities should be in support of State Department and also combatant commander priorities, may be helpful. 

Ms. BORDALLO. So your answer then would be affirmative to better oversight with the program by Congress? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. I think, again, it could help to clarify 

Congress’s intent. We would say it is not absolutely necessary. The 

DOD could address many of our management issues on its own. If 

Congress chooses to clarify congressional intent and purpose, that 

would be appropriate. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

My final question, Mr. Chairman, is for General Wolff. Can you 

comment on the value of the State partnership program to the combatant commanders? I have noticed a real focus and effort to expand this program with our allies in the Asia–Pacific region. So 

from your role in the J5, can you comment on the value of this program in building partnerships? 

General WOLFF. Thank you for the question. I see enormous 

value added. It has got to be the right mission set though. So we 

can’t ask the state partnership element to try to do something that 

far exceeds its capabilities. We have seen phenomenal return on investment with the OMLTs [Operational Mentor and Liaison Team] 

and the POMLTs [Police Operational Mentor and Liaison Team] 

that have basically gone out and worked with their partner countries and then accompanied those forces into Afghanistan. 
28 

So the linkage, the person-to-person linkage that is established 

by our, you know, our military service folks linking up with those 

national militaries and then accompanying them on a mission is 

quite enormous. So I see a good economy of effort there and an 

economy of opportunity. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And I certainly hope that now our focus will be 

to the Asia–Pacific area, which we are looking at currently. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mrs. Walorski. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My question is for Mr. Sheehan, and thanks for what you do. I 

appreciate it. Can you describe the vetting process the Department 

of Defense uses when they determine which foreign military or 

other security units receive U.S. equipment and training through 

the BPC? And how long is that process, the vetting process? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. You are referring to vetting of the country 

or vetting of the unit? 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Vetting of the country and then also of the unit. 

How is the determination made? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. We do both. What we do in my office is 

when I look at the map, I look at those parts of the world that are 

directly threatening U.S. interests both to the homeland and to our 

interests abroad, and we do an analysis based on our intelligence 

understanding of where those threats are. 

And our resources align very, very closely with those threats, 

only modified by the extent that we can work with some partners 

more than others. And some parts of the world where we have 

some threats we are unable to establish the types of relationships 

we would like to, and we work on those. 

So I would say it is directly correlated with the threat to our 

country that determines where we put our resources. That is where 

the vetting goes, and that is done in coordination with the Department of State, and I would say generally we have a tremendous 

consensus on that. 

When it comes to the units and the individuals, for the units, 

again, we work in the country team to make sure that we are identifying the proper unit that is going to accomplish our goal, and 

particularly that that unit has the right mission within its national 

force, that it has the proper commanders that can execute the mission, and we vet it at the country team. 

Then all the way down to the individuals, we are required under 

the Leahy vetting requirements to ensure that the people that receive our training uphold the standards of human rights and respect for the rule of law, and we consider those attributes as important as their ability to conduct combat operations. So there is vetting that goes from the strategic right down to the individual who 

receives the training. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So how long does that take then? So if you identify an area, how long does that vetting process take? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I would say we look at the countries annually, and sometimes it changes rapidly. If situations evolve like 

they have in the Sahel in the last year, we are able to shift resources where we see Al Qaeda making rapid gains. 
29 

Although we were anticipating this, we saw it, but the landscape 

changed in North Africa since the Arab spring, and we have been 

able to respond and shift resources to that area. In terms of—so I 

think that is sort of on an annual basis. 

In terms of the vetting of the individuals, I think that can be 

done in weeks and months at the country team level. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you. 

I yield my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Larsen. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Ms. St. Laurent, can you—has GAO looked at how much total 

spending there has been for the—all the BPC authorities? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. We have looked at selected aspects, the Section 

1206 program, and certain other accounts, but—and the State partnership fund—but probably not the entire range of programs. 

Mr. LARSEN. Have you made any assessment about whether 

there ought to be one person in the Pentagon who looks across all 

the BPC authorities and programs to prevent inefficiencies and duplications? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. We haven’t specifically made a recommendation on that. I certainly think that Mr. Sheehan’s office is, you 

know, the key lead there in terms of trying to provide oversight. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Sheehan, is there a difference between being a 

key lead and actually being one person in the Pentagon who has 

authority across BPC authorities? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Mr. Congressman, I think I have enough authority in this realm to provide oversight to most of our most important programs, if not all of them. I think it is fairly well established, although it probably could use a scrub to make sure that 

it is properly designated as the—— 

Mr. LARSEN. Have we let the Pentagon evolve into that, or is 

there enough direction? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. There is a certain degree of evolution that 

has happened over the years, but I think it is settling in to reside 

in my office and with the J5 in partnering to manage these programs. 

Mr. LARSEN. How much total spending then in fiscal year 2012— 

spending in fiscal year 2012 did you all across these programs have 

in BPC authorities? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I don’t have that number at my fingertips, 

sir. I will get back to you on that. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mr. LARSEN. Please do that. Considering countries that have received assistance, there has been discussion about those who have 

graduated, and it is perhaps telling that the ones you noted that 

have graduated were NATO countries that you pointed to, General 

Wolff, as examples. 

But are there countries that have flunked out, have graduated, 

or are they all similar to every parent’s nightmare, which is the 

college student who is on the infinite year plan? 
30 

General WOLFF. Sir, I think we have some teenagers still in our 

midst who are learning and growing, and there are setbacks as 

they—you know, as they learn to kind of spread their wings a bit. 

I would use Mali as a good example where we did make some 

investment into the Mali military, and it didn’t particularly pan 

out very well. We have gone back and taken a hard look at that. 

Chairman Dempsey has asked us to go do kind of a complete topto-bottom review with Africa Command. 

And we have taken a hard look at why some of the previous investments didn’t, you know, generate kind of the outcome we had 

hoped, and I think we learned from these, and there are a lot of 

reasons in this particular case. So we kind of take those into play 

and try to ensure that we can learn from that experience. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Sheehan. 

Secretary SHEEHAN. I would agree that Mali is clearly our biggest failure. We spent tens of millions of dollars in Mali with that 

army and they got their butts kicked in northern Mali by the Tuareg rebellion, which was subsequently highjacked by AQIM [Al 

Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], creating a major problem for us. 

However, part of the reason of that was outside of their control. 

The amount of weapons pouring in from Libya definitely made 

their job more difficult, but it is no excuse. We didn’t do very well 

there, but I would contrast that with a tremendous record of success on the African continent in the last 5 years. 

When you look at the partnerships we have established in East 

Africa with the Ethiopians, the Ugandans, Djiboutians, the Burundians, the Kenyans; these have been extraordinarily successful in 

not only building the partnerships, successful militaries in action. 

I can tell you that one of the NATO partners told me that the 

Kenyans would never get the Kismayo in Somalia. They weren’t capable of doing it. They weren’t up to the task, that they were a parade ground military. 

Well, the fact of the matter is they are there. They did the job. 

We were there with them. We helped train and equip them, and 

we are very proud of our partnerships there. So we have some failures, but I think the record of success far outweighs them. 

Mr. LARSEN. Great. I have a follow up. Mrs. Hartzler asked a 

question earlier that I think you gave an answer to a different 

question, and it is probably just because you didn’t connect one and 

one here to get two. 

What she asked is to what extent does the DOD conduct followup monitoring to ensure partner military assets provided under the 

authorities are being used to support U.S. national security objectives for which they are provided, as opposed to being used for objectives that are not our objectives. 

You answered a question about assessing 1206 generally. This is 

a question about are the military assets we provide being used for 

the things that they are supposed to be used for, or are they being 

misused, and if they are, what are we doing about it? 

General WOLFF. Congressman, I would say there is a time factor 

here. So, you know, as the training is applied, as the military 

grows in capability and capacity, the question then is at some point 

if they are not contributing to, let us say ISAF—I will use that as 
31 

a very simple example, the question then is will those trained 

forces continue to contribute with inside their system? 

And I think the return on the investment, if the answer to that 

is yes, if we have trained them, if they have contributed to the mission at hand, but then the capability they bring back in their own 

military becomes, you know, additive in nature, then I think it is 

still a good investment on our part. 

Mr. SCOTT. [Presiding.] The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Enyart. 

Mr. ENYART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Sheehan, I, too, would like to know when the SecDef [Secretary of Defense] plans to certify the regulations regarding the 

State partnerships programs, if you could provide me that, I would 

appreciate it. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 94.] 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ENYART. And, Mr. Sheehan, I appreciate your comments, 

that these are proven programs. 

And General Wolff, I appreciate your comments that these are 

agile, flexible programs, that they need a steady state in order to 

instill partner confidence. I agree with you. I think that is a critical 

element in the success of these programs. If we are not building 

partner confidence, then we are not succeeding in the programs. 

In line with that—and I appreciate Mr. Thornberry’s comments 

and question regarding metrics, and perhaps for Ms. St. Laurent, 

this is more anecdotal evidence, but my experience with the state 

partnership program has been that particularly the relationship between the Illinois National Guard and the Republic of Poland has 

been very productive—dates back to 1993—and that when the Republic of Poland was asked to provide military forces into Iraq, 

their first requirement for that was we will go if the Illinois National Guard goes with us. And for the last 10 years, there have 

been Illinois National Guardsmen directly incorporated into that 

Polish battle group’s staff. 

And today, as we speak, there are 17 Illinois National Guardsmen serving with the Poles directly incorporated into that battle 

group staff. I understand the difficulty of measuring quantitatively 

that leveraging, that synergy that has been developed. 

However, what I would ask you is do you have an idea or do you 

have a concept of how we might be able to measure, to provide a 

metric that will establish how that partnership between the National Guard, particularly the Illinois National Guard—and Poland 

in this case—has led to the success in Afghanistan of that Polish 

battle group. 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. Again, I think we recognized in our report that 

we heard, first of all, very positive remarks by both combatant 

command staff and others about the value of the program. So we 

did recognize that. The program itself did not have any systematic 

effort to collect data. So we think it is important. 

We also recognize, as I mentioned earlier, that it is challenging 

to get real good outcome measures, but there are some ways to do 

that and a variety of measures probably need to be put in place, 

both in terms just to document the range of activities that is going 
32 

on in this particular program, in terms of number of contacts, the 

extent of contacts, because we found that kind of data was incomplete in both the combatant commands and the Guard’s records. 

And I think, again, over time, there may be some ways 

through—I think you have to also maybe take a look at how other 

mil-to-mil exchange programs are evaluating their results, but 

through a combination of even surveying periodically other governments, certainly unless there is an actual operation that comes up, 

so you have got a data point that a country actually participates 

because of this, you probably can’t do them on a systematic basis, 

but I understand that that is a significant outcome. 

Mr. ENYART. Thank you. I will yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Carson. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have all heard stories about how American-supplied weapons 

had been used against our troops in Afghanistan, both those provided to combat the Soviet Union and those recently that were 

used in ‘‘green-on-blue’’ attacks. 

Could you describe what Afghanistan has taught us about military aid and training and how those lessons are being used in pursuit of new partnerships? Do you believe that there is some level 

of inherent risk present in these partnerships that we should perhaps prepare for? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Mr. Congressman, clearly our most important capacity-building exercise we face in the Department of Defense is with our Afghan partners there, and we have learned a lot, 

particularly in the last several years, in trying to accelerate their 

ability to take on their responsibilities to secure their territory 

within their country. We have learned a lot of lessons. It is a very 

dangerous and risk-filled environment. 

Obviously, and when you have a situation of internal stability, 

the enemy has the ability to penetrate the national security forces 

of the host country, particularly when they are so large, as in the 

case of Afghanistan, because of the nature of that threat. 

It is a very large force and they have been able to penetrate, 

which has its inherent risks of this green on blue or even green on 

green violence that we see in Afghanistan. So we have learned a 

lot, and we are making great progress, and but there is a lot more 

to do, and I will turn to General Wolff. 

General WOLFF. Sir, I would say there is an inherent risk, and 

as the Assistant Secretary has said, we are concerned about it. As 

you know, based on the rash of incidents last fall, General Allen 

instituted a series of requirements within the ISAF forces, but 

equally important he put additional and huge pressure on the leadership of the Afghan national security forces, beginning with the 

Minister of Defense, all the way down. 

So while General Allen’s directives to his command were to try 

to do everything possible to minimize this, the Afghans were also 

expected to do the same, and a lot of that had to do with revetting. 

A lot of that had to do with embedding CI [counterintelligence] 

sorts of forces in to take a look and see what was happening in 

those organizations, and doing a better job of looking at Afghan security forces coming back from leave, where we knew they were 

being possibly touched by extremists. 
33 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. And also if I could just add a point, we just 

put out a report within the past few days on Afghanistan issues, 

and one of the points we made is that certainly more progress in 

trying to reach agreement with DOD and the Afghan Government 

about sharing a biometric information would really help also in this 

situation. 

Mr. CARSON. Sure. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Yemen. During 

the 2011 unrest in Yemen, did units trained and equipped by the 

U.S. misuse the U.S. equipment, and how extensive is the U.S. end 

use monitoring in Yemen? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Thank you, Congressman. 

Let me go back and review the 2011 period. I was not on the job 

at that point, but in 2011, of course, the president at the time, 

President Saleh, was in charge. He is subsequently gone from that 

and President Hadi is now the leader. That has been a positive 

step in the right direction, and as we met—and both General Wolff 

and I mentioned before—we believe he is instituting the proper reforms of their military. 

And right now, over the last, I would say, last year or so, our 

partnership with the Yemeni military and some of their Ministry 

of Interior forces, have been extraordinarily effective and have contributed to a major progress against AQ in the Arabian Peninsula; 

AQAP, which is a major threat to U.S. homeland from Yemen. 

So I think that, over the last year or so, with the new leadership 

at the top, we have much more confidence that our training and 

assistance is being used properly. 

Mr. VEASEY. Okay. 

My next question I wanted to ask you about drone strikes in 

southern Yemen and how are the locals—how are they perceiving 

the drone strikes? What is your—— 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Congressman, I don’t want to avoid the 

question; we normally don’t discuss those types of operations in an 

unclassified setting. 

Mr. VEASEY. Okay. Okay. I understand. 

Thank you. 

I yield back the time. 

Mr. SCOTT. Ma’am, General, Mr. Sheehan, I don’t think there are 

any further questions, and thank you for your time. This meeting 

is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:46 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 14, 2013 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 14, 2013 

(39) 

Statement of Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon 

Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services 

Hearing on 

Framework for Building Partnership Capacity Programs 

and Authorities to Meet 21st Century Challenges 

February 14, 2013 

I’d like to welcome everyone to today’s hearing on a framework 

for building partnership capacity programs and authorities to meet 

21st century challenges. Although ‘‘building partnership capacity’’ 

may seem like a broad term, this is an important area for the committee’s oversight of the recent defense strategy, which places great 

emphasis on the important role of partnerships to U.S. national security. Likewise, we have enacted significant legislation in this 

area because the committee has supported the notion that military 

commanders need to build certain capacities in partner nations to 

satisfy specific theater security requirements. 

We heard testimony yesterday about the fiscal challenges the 

military faces as it deals with implementing sequestration, a longterm continuing resolution, and the underresourcing of Overseas 

Contingency Operations accounts. These constraints will disproportionately hurt the Department’s operations and maintenance 

(O&M) account, from which building partnership capacity authorities are also funded. Given this fiscal environment, the emphasis 

on building partnership capacity in last year’s Defense Strategic 

Guidance and the global threats to U.S. national security interests, 

this hearing is the beginning of a continuing discussion on what is 

the proper role of these BPC authorities. In spite of our support for 

these authorities, many questions remain. What is the right 

amount of funding? What is the right balance between the Defense 

and State Departments in funding, strategizing and executing 

these authorities? What is the right level of engagement and focus 

by the combatant commands and Services on these activities? And 

is it a plausible assumption that partner nations will, in fact, use 

their new capabilities to act consistent with U.S. national security 

objectives? Congress is the ultimate decisionmaker on funding. Our 

oversight responsibilities also require us to understand the impact 

of these authorities on U.S. national security interests and the ability of the COCOMs and Services to execute these authorities without compromising other key priorities and core capabilities. 

Furthermore, this committee has expressed concern about the 

proliferation and duplication of BPC authorities. The authorities to 

be discussed today make up at least $750 million per year in authorized funding—not including over a billion a year in counter-
40 

narcotics activities. And the trend is on the rise. In today’s fiscal 

environment, it’s important that the Defense Department, 

COCOMs, and Services prioritize these BPC authorities and activities, in coordination and consultation with the State Department. 

And it’s critical that the Administration understand Congress’s intent in authorizing these authorities, and the need to strategize, 

plan, fund, execute, and assess these authorities. 

To testify before the committee today, we have: 

• Mr. Michael Sheehan, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict; 

• Lieutenant General Terry Wolff, Director, Strategic Plans 

and Policy (J5), Joint Staff; and 

• Ms. Janet St. Laurent, Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

I’d like to thank our witnesses for being with us today and to 

note that the Department of State, who has a key role to play in 

this discussion, was also invited to participate, but declined. We 

will continue to engage State, in partnership with the Foreign Affairs Committee, in this ongoing dialogue. 
41 

Statement of Hon. Adam Smith 

Ranking Member, House Committee on Armed Services 

Hearing on 

Framework for Building Partnership Capacity Programs 

and Authorities to Meet 21st Century Challenges 

February 14, 2013 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our witnesses for appearing before us today. Building partnership capacity is an integral part of the way the United States addresses our national security concerns. However, from the outset, I want to be clear that 

while I understand that today, in this context, we are talking about 

Title X programs that are designed to address a specific U.S. national security concern by, with, and through the efforts of our foreign partners, I take a broader view. Instability as a byproduct of 

insecurity is in nobody’s interest. Regardless whether or not we 

have a pressing national security concern in a given region at the 

moment, we do have an overarching interest in reducing instability 

so that it does not breed the conditions that develop into a pressing 

national security concern. 

But in terms of the more narrow family of BPC authorities under 

consideration in this hearing, it is important to understand that 

they are separate and distinct from what we think of as traditional 

foreign aid that responds to the needs our international partners 

perceive as their own national security requirements within the 

context of our larger U.S. foreign policy framework. BPC programs 

are designed to address a U.S. national security problem that a 

combatant commander, through the Secretary of Defense, has identified and thus enable our partners to assist us with a mutual security concern that is a priority for the United States. In some cases, 

with our help, they are better positioned to address it. In other 

cases, we are using an economy of force approach. But in all BPC 

cases, we are addressing a very real U.S. national security problem. 

In the past few years we’ve seen some successes in our BPC efforts. We’ve been active in the Philippines and they have developed 

a significant counter to the insurgency in Mindanao, for instance. 

With our assistance, Uganda and Burundi have really taken the 

fight to Al Shabaab in Somalia and that country is beginning to 

turn around. Certainly our European partners who have deployed 

to Afghanistan with our assistance have been indispensible. But 

we’ve also had some problems in places like Mali, where it was 

clear that our efforts to build capacity of their Army were ineffective when it came time to oppose AQIM’s march to Bamako. So, we 

must be judicious about with whom we choose to partner, what 

shape that partnership takes, and how we evaluate the return for 

our effort. 

Returning to the broader view, security assistance programs 

shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. In instable areas the problem is rarely 

the lack of guns. In general, our security assistance programs, in-
42 

cluding those conducted under Title 22, ought to be a component 

of broader efforts to reduce the conditions that breed instability. 

Where feasible, BPC programs should be implemented in combination with programs that reduce poverty, improve governance, and 

encourage economic development. This is why the State Department and USAID have an essential role in the development of our 

BPC programs. It is both a check that the BPC program is consistent with U.S. foreign policy and an opportunity to fit these activities in the regional engagement architecture the State Department oversees. 

Lastly, today I’d like to hear some discussion about what enduring form BPC authorities ought to take. Now it seems like it is a 

jumble of complementary, overlapping authorities that makes it a 

challenge to piece them together to address one complex security 

challenge. AFRICOM loves to brief a slide that shows a Ugandan 

soldier and how it took many different authorities to get him ready 

to deploy to Somalia. The Global Security Contingency Fund we 

passed into law in 2011 was supposed to get at some of that, but 

I’ve been disappointed about how it has seemed to get bogged 

down. Certainly, there’s not a common understanding of its purpose, both here on the Hill, and, it seems, within the interagency. 

I’d like to get at some of that today. 
43 

EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY 

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD 

BY 

THE HONORABLE MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS/LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICT 

ON 

BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY FOR 21 ST CENTURY 

CHALLENGES 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FEBRUARY 14,2013 

1 
44 

EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY 

INTRODUCTION 

Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of the 

committee: thank you for the opportunity to talk with you about the Department of Defense's 

efforts to build partner capacity. I am pleased to provide you with infonnation about this critical 

element of our national security. 

Upon release of the new defense strategy in January, President Obama emphasized that 

"we are joining with allies and partners around the world to build their capacity to promote 

security, prosperity, and human dignity." Secretary Panetta expanded on this point in a speech at 

the U.S. Institute of Peace on June 29. when he noted that working with key allies and regional 

partners to build their military and security forces became a major component of U.S. national 

security strategy after World War II. This approach has endured long beyond the Cold War, and 

for the United States military it has gained new and appropriate importance as a mission in 

the decade since 9/11. 

STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY 

For the Department of Defense, Building Partner Capacity (BPC) is a fundamental aspect 

of our strategy, tied to the realization of U.S. defense objectives and the success of current and 

future military missions. Specifically, BPC is a key part of our transition strategy in Afghanistan 

and the commitment we have made with other International Security and Assistance Force 

partners to provide training and financial support to Afghanistan's National Security Forces 

(ANSF) beyond 2014. BPC encompasses a variety of activities, from security force assistance 

and developing professional, capable, and sustainable foreign security forces, to international 

security assistance with our partners at the State Department, to developing our own U.S. 

capability to collaborate with partners on complex challenges and building mutnally beneficial 

security relationships. By enabling partners to achieve our shared national interests, we 

ultimately create a more cost-effective model for stability that is less reliant on direct U.S. 

military engagement. BPC mitigates the burden on U.S. forces responding to security threats 

outside the United States, serves to build a base of credible and capable partner countries that can 

effectively participate in multinational, coalition-based operations, and sets conditions for future 

cooperation and improved U.S. access. It also makes any necessary U.S. engagements more 

effective as we are able to leverage capable partners' unique local knowledge and understanding. 

Security Force Assistance in particular is often but not always conducted by our special 

operations forces (SOF), whose history and proficiency at working "by, with, and through" 

partner forces makes them our provider of choice for this mission. SOF operate through 

persistent engagement in key countries, which generates operational context. Operational context 

is the thorough understanding and, in fact, expertise that is uniquely gained through multiple 

visits to the same areas. This includes understanding local culture, society, language, economy, 

history and politics. In short, SOF operators have valuable insights on the physical and human 

terrain of their areas, which allow them to be more precise and therefore successful in the 

enabling activities. 

BPC permeates the Department of Defense's activities, and is a critical enabler to every primary 

military mission. Several examples follow below. 

• CounterTerrorism and Irregular Warfare. Tools like the Section 1206 Global Train and 

Equip Program and the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program have been 

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indispensable for maintaining constant pressure on al-Qaida and its affiliates worldwide. 

In order to counter regional and transnational terrorist organizations, we must develop 

and sustain a global network of allies and partners who can work together, communicate 

effectively and share the responsibilities of global leadership. In many cases, partners 

possess cultural and linguistic abilities that afford them better access and effectiveness 

than U.S. forces executing the same mission. Building on decades ofBPC experience, 

our SOF are already at the forefront of this approach. They have played a key role in 

places like the Philippines where their engagement has yielded more capable partner 

forces and significant progress against terrorists. The ongoing relationship between SOF 

and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) strengthened when SOF deployed in 2002 

to act in a non-combat role to advise and assist the AFP in operations against Abu 

Sayyaf, a terrorist group taking advantage of safc havens in the southern Philippines. The 

units first engaged with local residents to learn their basic needs. This allowed US SOF 

to then work with the AFP to address grievances in the community, severing their ties 

with the terrorist groups. As SOF trained and advised the AFP personnel, they helped 

coordinate security efforts and interagency, somctimes international, programs to address 

key issues such as water, medical care, transportation, and education. Their actions speak 

louder than my words in demonstrating the effectiveness of BPC. 

• Counternarcotics. DoD's counternarcotics authorities (i.e. Sections 1004, 1021, 1022, 

1033) allow us to provide support to domestic and foreign law enforcement 

organizations, working with the State Department, as they work to counter the 

destabilizing effect of narcotics trafficking, terrorists, insurgents, and related threat 

financing. The impact of this support is most visible in countries such as Colombia, 

where a sustained, multi-agency BPC effort, together with State Department civilian 

police engagements and USAID development projects, has enhanced Colombia's ability 

to counter narcotics production and other security challenges within its own borders. 

Through this effort, which has drawn on SOF training, Colombia has become an 

important exporter of security, sharing its expertise with others in the region and beyond. 

• Deter and Defeat Aggression. BPC efforts are critical to enhancing the aggregate 

capabilities and capacities of a network of defense partnerships designed to deter 

aggression and, should deterrence fail, operate together with greater effect. Work needs 

to be done to ensure allies and partners are capable of operating in contested 

environments, including in the face of anti-access/area-denial threats. The Department's 

major exercise programs help us prepare for such challenges by promoting greater 

interoperability and allowing us to experiment with combined operating concepts. 

• Provide a Stabilizing Presence. Exercises, deployments for training, and other militaryto-military familiarization activitics deter aggression from destabilizing regional actors 

while promoting interoperability, information sharing, and collaboration on mutual 

security objectives with our partners. We can never be certain where in the world U.S. 

forces may be required to operate, and being able to count on enduring relationships with 

partner nations is at the core of a multinational coalition's strength, helping to secure 

shared access to facilities and territory, information, and diplomatic support. SOF 

continues to effectively do this through a strategy of persistent engagement in key 

countries around the world. Intentionally small in scale, these types of engagements can 

support our partners in building the capacity to counter threats and foster stability. 

3 
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EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY 

• Conduct Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief In regions like the Pacific and 

Caribbean that are prone to hurricanes, tsunami, and other large-scale natural disasters, 

Combatant Commanders conduct a variety of exercises and engagements that help 

Geographic Combatant Commands prepare for providing humanitarian relief in support 

of our civilian partners. This can also include medical, dental, or other civic assistance 

programs whereby U.S. forces have the opportunity to hone their skills while helping 

local populations. As we cultivate new security relationships with uncertain partners, 

Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief training is an important mechanism for 

increased cooperation and relationship building with partner militaries. The Navy's 

Southern Partnership Station (SPS) is a good example of how we use port visits with 

partners around Central & South America and the Caribbean Basin to share best practices 

and improve our collective ability to support humanitarian relief operations in response to 

disasters. 

• Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction. The proliferation of WMD is a global challenge, 

one the U.S. cannot address alone. International partners have resources and 

relationships that can be brought to bear against this problem; building their capacity to 

do so is an integral component of our strategy to counter the spread ofWMD. Efforts 

like the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program and the Proliferation Security 

Initiative (PSI) are prominent examples of DoD's engagement along these lines, and 

many of the Combatant Commands are also active in Countering WMD BPC activities 

within their respective areas of responsibility. 

• Conduct Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations. Though U.S. forces will no longer 

be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations, we have learned hard 

lessons and applied new operational approaches in the counterinsurgency and security 

force assistance arenas. We will seek to codify these lessons learned from Iraq and 

Afghanistan, and emphasize non-military means and military-to-military cooperation to 

address instability and reduce the demand for significant U.S. force commitments to 

stability operations. SOF will be a key enabler here as well. As my own experience in El 

Salvador in the eighties demonstrates, SOF can lead the way to successfully reducing our 

footprint while maintaining stability and protecting US national interests. Through 

programs like the Village Stability Operations to build Afghan Local Police, and training 

and equipping Afghan Special Operations Forces, U.S. SOF efforts are helping to build 

sustainable capacity to facilitate stability in Afghanistan post-20l4. 

Looking aeross regions in the context of these various missions, the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Staff, in coordination with the Military Departments, 

Combatant Commands, and the State Department, strive to carefully prioritize which partners we 

engage with, how often, and to what end. In advancing a common security vision for the future, 

we work closely with our civilian agency colleagues to identify shared priorities. As Secretary 

Panetta reinforced, the Department of State must "have a leading role in crafting and conducting 

U.S. foreign policy, so that we can reaffirm and strengthen our strategic approach to defense 

partnerships." 

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EMERGING SECURITY CHALLENGES 

As we look to the future security environment, we recognize that BPC will need to 

address a broad range of security challenges. In the wake of the Benghazi attack and increasing 

syndication of terrorist threats, we must make capacity building for internal security forces and 

counterterrorism operations a clear priority. We must be able to work with partners in the Persian 

Gulf to strengthen their ability to counter Iran's destabilizing activities, and advance 

collaborative efforts with Israel to deploy systems like Iron Dome, which protects Israeli citizens 

against the threat of rockets. We must invest in new capabilities with allies in Northeast Asia, 

such as missile defense, to counter North Korea. We will also work to strengthen the maritime 

security and humanitarian assistance capabilities of key partners in the Indian Ocean and in 

Southeast Asia. Currently, throughout the year, SOF conducts engagements in more than 100 

countrics worldwide. In close coordination with the State Department and in alignment with our 

broader foreign policy goals, our special operations forces draw from their experiences in places 

like Colombia, Yemen, and East Africa to build the capacity of partner forces through 

training, equipping, advising and assisting, and integrating civil affairs teams, military 

information support teams, and even cultural support teams to ensure effective support 

capabilities. And we will strengthen NATO's capabilities in missile defense, meet our Article 5 

commitments, and ensure that we can conduct expeditionary operations with our European allies. 

And we must ensure that they can assume a greater burden of the responsibility when we do 

engage. 

More broadly, the Secretary made clear in his 29 June speech at the United States 

Institute of Peace that the Department needs to take a strategic approach to security cooperation 

and make sure that we have comprehensive and integrated capabilities in key regions in order to 

confront critical security challenges. Over the past decade, much of the strategic emphasis in 

security cooperation has rightly focused on supporting current operations and helping states deal 

with internal instability. As we draw down from a decade of conflict, we will place additional 

strategic emphasis on preparing our network of allies and partners to confront emerging 

challenges. We will also ensure that our security cooperation tools are calibrated so that the U.S. 

is optimally preparcd to exploit emerging opportunities and counter potential threats- meaning 

lowering the barriers to defense cooperation and being prepared to rapidly take advantage of 

opportunities with like-minded partners. 

The accomplishments of U.S. and Coalition forces in Afghanistan are an important 

exanlplc of the value of building partner capacity, and the NATO Strategic Plan for Afghanistan 

typifies the criticality of international security partnerships. As we approach 2014, we will 

continue to work alongside our coalition partners as we transition full security responsibility to 

the Afghan National Security Forces. We are taking significant steps towards this vision through 

the fielding of Coalition Security Force Assistance Advisor Teams. These teams enable the 

transition oflead security responsibility to the Afghan Government and Security Forces and 

demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the Coalition and Afghanistan as codified at the 

Chicago NATO Summit last spring. As the Strategic Partnership Agreement signed by 

Presidents Obama and Karzai in May reflects, the United States and Afghanistan share "a 

common desire for peace and to strengthen collective efforts to achieve a region that is no longer 

a safe haven for al-Qaida and its affiliates." 

For instance, after a multi-year effort to build the capabilities of specialized Afghan 

countemarcotics units, these units have begun to undertake independent, sustained operations to 

deprive the Taliban of an important source of its revenue. This investment has helped make 

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EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY 

these units among the most capable in Afghanistan and reliable partners for interagency and 

international counterdrug operations. 

Even as we continue the transition process, we have been clear that we have an enduring 

commitment to Afghanistan and our assistance will not cease after 2014. We must be prepared to 

maintain a financial and political investment for years to come or we risk watching our security 

gains in Afghanistan devolve. Regional and transnational threats, like international terrorism and 

drug trafficking, will persist and may expand given changes in the security environment, and we 

will need to maintain a strong partnership with Afghanistan and its neighbors to counter such 

threats. We will not forget what brought us to Afghanistan in the first place and will continue to 

work with our partners to pursue al-Qaida, its affiliates, and other terrorist organizations that 

threaten the United States and its interests, wherever they make safe-haven; from the sands of the 

Maghreb and streets of Mogadishu, to the jungles of Mindanao. 

We expect that combined operations with capable partners will continue to be the most 

effective way to respond to emerging security challenges worldwide. This will require U.S forces 

to exercise and engage regularly with our foreign military counterparts to maintain the high 

levels of proficiency, interoperability, and readiness that we have attained in Afghanistan. In the 

fight against al-Qaida, our success in enabling partners to defend and govern their own countries 

is just as important as the fighting that we do ourselves. In support of this effort, we appreciate 

the committee making Scction 1206 assistance more effective by enabling us to provide smallscale military construction in conjunction with other forms of capacity-building assistance. This 

kind of modification is critical, as we have seen that equipping a partner with boats is not 

sustainable if they don't have a dock on which to land them, or a boathouse in which to store and 

maintain them. 

We are also concerned about drug trafficking and the rise of some transnational 

organized crime (TOC) to the level of a national security threat. While we playa lead role in the 

detection and monitoring of narcotics approaching the United States by air and sea, DoD works 

to support U.S. law enforcement personnel and State Department officers to support counter the 

organizations that traffic illicit drugs and foment instability in various regions around the world. 

As the President's Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime states "TOC presents 

sophisticated and multi-faceted threats that cannot be addressed through law enforcement action 

alone." We have also seen a dramatic rise in the number of terrorist organizations that rely on the 

proceeds from drug trafficking, and this crime-terror nexus represents an especially dangerous 

convergence. As we face increasing budgetary pressures, BPC will remain a central component 

of our efforts in this regard. 

Promoting Shared Responsibility While Addressing Military Needs 

We appreciate the committee's support in working with the Senate last year to pass the 

Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF) legislation. The GSCF is a unique innovation that 

recognizes the shared responsibility between the Departments of State and Defense for 

conducting security sector assistance, and we are excited to be moving forward with several 

initial projects to test out this new business model. During its pilot phase, we intend for GSCF 

projects to address national level priorities shared by the Secretaries of State and Defense. Our 

ability to effectively plan and successfully operate to build partner capacity can be best supported 

by authorities that are not subject to year-to-year variation. In this respect, GSCF's multi-year 

authority is of great benefit in addressing national level priorities and could be similarly 

beneficial for other more targeted capacity-building programs. 

6 
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Over the last 7 years, working closely with the State Department, BPC programs like 

Section 1206 have proven that such efforts large impact and can be operated responsibly in close 

synchronization with our colleagues in the State Department. We firmly believe that State and 

DoD collaboration on Section 1206 proposals makes the overall selection process more rigorous 

and results in better programs. We look forward to continned close work with the State 

Department and other agencies to ensure that DoD's BPC efforts are agile in responding to 

partners' needs and consistent with U.S. foreign policy. 

Enhancing Skill Sets & Improving Internal Processes 

As Secretary Panetta recently made clear "the task of training, advising, and partnering 

with foreign military and security forces has moved from the periphery to become a critical skill 

set across our armed forces." Accordingly, we are working to enhance DoD skills sets, 

capabilities, and tools for encouraging and enabling partnerships, as well as streamlining DoD's 

internal BPC and security force assistance processes. 

In developing innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches to BPC, SOF will 

continue to playa critical role. This will be especially true in physically austere and politically 

sensitive environments. U.S. SOF will also be integral in building a cohesive global network 

with their counterparts in the international special operations community. 

Over the last decade, our general purpose forces (GPF) have developed considerable 

skills in training, advising, and assisting the security forces of friendly foreign countries. 

Historically, SOF have conducted the majority of DoD's activities to train, equip, advise, and 

assist international security forces. However, the large demand for building partner nation 

capability over the past decade coupled with the limited availability of SOF for this mission has 

required the GPF to adapt and develop their skills in conducting an increasingly larger portion of 

security force assistance activities. As this experience will be important to leverage in future 

conflicts and in the avoidance of future conflicts, OSD is in the process of developing the means 

to track individuals with related experience and identifying opportunities for these individuals to 

maintain their skills. 

Similarly, our experience in Afghanistan with the Ministry of Defense Advisors Program 

(MoDA) has demonstrated the positive impact that DoD civilian personnel can have in the field 

by helping to build capable defense institutions and providing professional advice and assistance 

at the ministerialleve!' MoDA and our other defense institution building initiatives like the 

Defense Institution RefornlInitiative (DlRI) are important capacity building tools that will 

sustain other security assistance efforts over time by building the core competencies needed in 

effective and accountable defense ministries. We are grateful for this committee's support in 

expanding MoDA's program authority outside Afghanistan, and are preparing to expand the 

MoDA program globally in the coming months. 

Streamlining Processes to Speed Up and Improve Security Cooperation Programs 

Secretary Panetta has also charged that we streamline the Department's internal processes 

to speed up and improve security cooperation programs - and work with the Department of State 

and Congress to do the same. Making the security cooperation system more responsive will 

enable the U.S. to take advantage of opportunities for cooperation with allies and partners and be 

the security partner of choice globally. Even where authorities exist, the patchwork character 

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and temporary nature of authorities presents management, planning, and sustainment challenges 

that can hinder internal processes no matter how efficient they could become. 

We are working to become more anticipatory and expedient in the delivery of defense 

articles and services. This means better anticipating partners' needs ahead of time, fast-tracking 

priority sales, and incorporating U.S. exportability requirements up front in the development 

process. We are also working to make U.S. government decision-making simpler, faster and 

more predictable for our partners. We have built Expeditionary Requirements Generation Teams 

(ERGTs) that work with combatant command staffs, embassy country teams, and partner nations 

to better define partner military requirements and develop appropriate acquisition or assistance 

programs. ERGTs help partners clearly articulate what capability they want to build and identify 

the equipment, training courses, and other assistance it will take to achieve that desired 

capability, as recently occurred with Armenia's expanded peacekeeping capability. We are also 

preparing to leverage the newly-recapitalized Special Defense Acquisition Fund (SDAF) to 

identify and purchase high-demand items and items with lengthy production lead times with the 

goal of accelerating the delivery to the partner. A recently authorized pilot program, the Special 

Defense Repair Fund, will afford even greater responsiveness by allowing us to repair, overhaul, 

and refurbish in-stock defense articles in anticipation of partner sales and transfers. We are also 

working with the Department of Commerce and others as part of the President's Export Control 

Reform Initiative to update the U.S. Munitions List and streamline the technology security and 

foreign disclosure processes to increase the speed with which we can provide material assistance 

to partners. 

Defense trade is a promising avenue for deepening security cooperation with our most 

capable partner nations. Our ongoing work in reforming our export control system is a critical 

part of fostering that cooperation. Each transaction creates new opportunities for training, for 

exercises, for relationship building. It also supports our industrial base, with roughly one third of 

defense industry output supported by defense exports. This is important for Americanjobs and 

for our ability to invest in new defense capabilities for the future. 

Returns on Investment 

Documenting the impact of BPC activities or showing the "bang for the buck" is more art 

than science and by necessity must involve more qualitative than quantitative results. Traditional 

assessments primarily show success in terms of measurable outputs that indicate whether project 

implementation proceeded as designed, such as number of people trained or quantity of vehicles 

delivered. We continue to work with our partners and independent research, for example there is 

a pending study GAO, to document the impacts of these programs. In addition we would like to 

share several examples that best demonstrate how our BPC investment has benefitted the 

American taxpayer. 

Colombia is a good example of where more than a decade of security force assistance has 

enabled a partner to combat internal destabilizing elements effectively -- in that case, the FARC 

and other designated terrorist organizations. In particular, we have provided support to aviation 

training, intelligence and operational fusion, operational planning, riverine operations, logistics, 

command and control, security, and medical training. Colombia is also a prime example of how 

SOF plays a leading role in BPC. U.S. special operations forces used their core skill set 

building relationships, training and mentoring partner forces - to dramatically improve 

Colombia's capacities to address internal threats. Now, we are encouraged to see that Colombia 

8 
51 

EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY 

is in tum providing justice sector and security force assistance of their own to other U.S. partner 

nations across the Americas and in Africa. 

As cited previously, the fifty flags that wave at the International Security Assistance 

Force (ISAF) Headquarters in Afghanistan symbolize how building the capacity of other nations 

in turns pays dividends for U.S. security interests. A range of forces from EI Salvador to 

Mongolia have made a significant contribution to coalition operations, facilitated largely by 

equipment and training that we have provided. Georgia, which is already the largest per-capita 

ISAF contributor, is a prime example. It has nearly doubled its contribution to ISAF by 

providing two counterinsurgency-trained light infantry battalions without national caveats. 1his 

increase will make Georgia the largest non-NATO ISAF force contributor. These forces occupy 

their own battle spaee and playa key role in the counterinsurgency strategy of clear, hold, and 

build; an important contribution that eases the burden on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. 

It is also worth noting that our security force assistance programs with the Armed Forces 

of the Philippines over the last several years have enabled those forces to conduct effective 

domestic counterterrorism operations and to contribute to regional maritime security. 

Specifically, we have worked toward improving their surveillance, tracking, and interception 

capabilities, and provided tactical equipment that has been used in numerous operations against 

extremist organizations in the southern Philippines. Importantly, the provision of radars has been 

a catalyst for Philippine interest in acquiring secure targeting capabilities and communications 

methods, which will enable information sharing with U.S. Pacific Command on tracking 

activities in the tri-border area of the southern Philippines. The Government of the Philippines 

recognizes the importance of these investments and is now sustaining its newly acquired 

capabilities through national funds/Foreign Military Financing (FMF) Foreign Military Sales 

(FMS) programs. 

Finally, r would like to mention the impact of our assistance to Uganda, Burundi, 

Djibouti, and Kenya in supporting their efforts in the African Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM. 

AMISOM is backed by the U.N. Security Council and the African Union and tasked to reduce 

the threat posed by al-Shabaab and other armcd opposition groups in order to establish 

conditions for effective governance country-wide. The specialized counterterrorism training and 

equipment support provided to AMISOM troop contributors through Sections 1206 and 1207(n) 

is part of a whole-of~government approach to supporting AMISOM, and complements the longstanding State Department train-and-equip efforts for AMISOM, including the work of the 

Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program. The training and 

equipment provided by the U.S. Government has enabled AMISOM, in concert with the security 

forces of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, to reclaim the capital city of Mogadishu 

and a number of towns previously held by the al-Qaida linked terrorist group al-Shabaab. 

AMISOM's success in pushing back al-Shabaab is an important trend. As Director of National 

Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director David Petraeus have testified before 

numerous committees this year, Somalia continues to pose a threat to the United States as a 

training ground and launching pad for individuals seeking to conduct violent attacks against 

innocent people around the world. 

CONCLUSION 

With constrained resources, thoughtful choices will need to be made regarding the location and 

frequency of our BPC activities. DoD's BPC activities do expose us to some risk. We face 

9 
52 

EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY 

risks from the time, money and effort which may not, in the end, yield security returns. We also 

face the risk that the partners we train and equip engage in egregious behavior which violates the 

laws, norms, and human rights of their fellow citizens. Further risks come from the danger in 

upsetting regional balances. It is important that we acknowledge and take seriously these risks in 

assessing if BPC is worth the investment. DoD works actively with our civilian agency 

colleagues to reduce these risks by designing program elements that emphasize the importance of 

respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the need for legitimate civilian 

authority in countries where we conduct BPC activities. Before conducting any training program 

with a foreign security force, we coordinate with the Department of State to ensure that the 

prospective unit that will receive training has not committed a gross violation of human rights. 

We must also recognize, though, that BPC can reduce our risk around the world by strengthening 

collective security, augmenting stability, and, when necessary, enabling military action. Our 

persistent engagement serves a key rolc in helping our foreign partners provide for their own 

security. These relationships can also foster respect for the rule of law, preventing future 

violations of rights and norms. This overall contribution to multilateral security is an investment 

that pays immediate and long-term dividends by reducing the need for costlier U.S. interventions 

in response to turmoil in regions critical to U.S. interests. These activities are a cost-effective 

way to strengthen our national security posture by building lasting relationships and alliances 

with partner nations. The Department's BPC activities are major elements of Geographic 

Combatant Commanders' plans to work with foreign militaries, and will be imperative for DoD 

into the foreseeable future. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the Committee, thank you for 

the opportunity to appear before you and testify on the Department's efforts to build partner 

capacity. This concludes my statement. 

10 
53 

Michael A. Sheehan 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and low-Intensity Conflict 

Michael A. Sheehan was confirmed by the U.s. Senate and 

sworn-in as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special 

Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD SOILIC) in December 

2011. He is the Secretary of Defense's principal civilian advisor 

on programs, policies, and resources for special operations. In 

addition, the office oversees Defense Department policies and 

programs regarding counternarcotics, humanitarian assistance, 

security force aSSistance programs for building partner capacity, 

and stability operations. Mr. Sheehan has over thirty-years in 

public service; much of it involved in counter terrorism, counter 

insurgency, peacekeeping, and law enforcement operations. 

Mr. Sheehan is a 1977 graduate of the United States Military 

Academy at West Point. He served in a variety of infantry and 

special forces aSSignments. In the infantry, he commanded a 

mechanized company in an armored brigade in Korea with 

multiple tours on the Demilitarized Zone (1983-85). As a special 

forces officer, Mr. Sheehan served in a variety of counter 

terrorism and counter insurgency capacities. He commanded an 

Operational Detachment -Alpha in a hostage rescue unit in Panama (Company C, 3rd Battalion, 7th 

Special Forces Group (Airborne)) and partiCipated in numerous training and advisory deployments in 

Latin America including Honduras, the Dominican RepubliC, and Ecuador. In addition, Mr. Sheehan 

graduated from the Colombian Commando course, Lancero. He is Airborne, Ranger, Special Forces, 

Jungle Warfare, and Jumpmaster qualified, and is a recipient of the Combat Infantry Badge. In 1985 

and 1986, Mr. Sheehan was the brigade counter insurgency advisor for the Fourth Brigade in 

Chalatenango, EI Salvador, one of the most combative regions in the country. 

While on active duty, Mr. Sheehan served in the field on peacekeeping missions in Somalia (1993-94) 

and Haiti (1995). In both cases, he was Special Advisor to the head of the United Nations (U.N.) 

mission and engaged in the integration of U.N. military and civilian pOlice programs. Mr. Sheehan 

served on the National Security Council staff for both President George H.W. Bush (1989-92) and 

President William Jefferson Clinton (1995-97). 

After retiring from the Army in 1997, Mr. Sheehan served at the State Department in the Bureau of 

International Organizations. After the bombings of U.s. embassies in East Africa, Mr. Sheehan was 

appointed by President Clinton as Ambassador-at-Large for Counter Terrorism (1998-2000) and was 

confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1999. During his tenure Mr. Sheehan establish bi-Iateral counter 

terrorism working groups with India and Russia (both of which are still operating). From 2001 to 

2003, Sheehan went back to peacekeeping duty as the ASSistant Secretary General of Mission 

Support in the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, where he was responsible for 

supporting 16 missions around the world and over 40,000 military and police peacekeepers. 

From 2003 to 2006, Mr. Sheehan served as the New York Police Department (NYPD) Deputy 

Commissioner for Counter Terrorism. In this position he was instrumental in reshaping the NYPD into 

what is widely regarded as one of the most effective counter terrorism organizations in the world. 

Mr. Sheehan has master degrees from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (1988) 
54 

and the US Army Command and Staff College (1991). In both programs his dissertations concerned 

irregular warfare theory and practice. Mr. Sheehan spoke and lectured on counter terrorism and 

counter-insurgency policy and was a distinguished fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West 

Point and the Center for Law and Security at NYU. In addition, he was the on-air counter terrorism 

analyst for NBC News from 2006-11. 
55 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

STATEMENT BY 

LIEUTENANT GENERAL TERRY WOLFF 

DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC PLANS & POLICY 

J5 JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 

BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FIRST SESSION, 113TH CONGRESS 

ON BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY FOR 21 st CENTURY CHALLENGES 

FEBRUARY 14,2013 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 
56 

INTRODUCTION 

Chairman McKeon, Ranking member Smith, and distinguished members 

of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today and 

talk about the Department of Defense's efforts to build partner capacity to meet 

the security challenges of the 21 st century. 

From our strongest allies to our newest relationships, strengthening 

partner engagement increases stability and security around the world. These 

engagements are each specifically constructed to enable a range of results from 

developing trust and furthering partnerships to strengthening coordination and 

interoperability with mature allies. 

STRATEGIC CONTEXT FOR BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY 

The 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance emphasizes that Building Partner 

Capacity would be used to mitigate risks during personnel drawdowns and 

advance the strategic rebalance toward Asia. Thus, Building Partner Capacity 

is becoming a key component in how the United States will structure and 

employ military resources going forward. We find ourselves at a strategic 

inflection point and the 2012 guidance promotes BPC as integral to a U.S. 

security strategy that enables future savings through burden sharing with our 

partners and allies. 

The Department's strategic guidance recognizes that deepening global 

interdependence calls for continued U.S. engagement and leadership in the 

world, including military power. The unique ability of U.S. military forces to 

project military power abroad has enabled the Department to deter aggression, 

defeat threats, protect the global security environment and provide crisis 

response. It also has made the United States the security partner of choice for 

allies and partners around the world. Looking ahead, the Department will 
57 

remain globally engaged, providing a stabilizing presence through a network of 

alliances, partnerships and cooperative approaches to address common 

security problems. 

The Department undertakes numerous security cooperation activities to 

enable and encourage our foreign partners to work with us to achieve our 

common strategic objectives. These activities are aimed at preventing future 

crises, and should these preventative efforts fail, ensuring the Department and 

its partners are sufficiently trained and equipped to respond as necessary. 

FOCUS AREAS OF OUR EFFORTS 

Building Partner Capacity is not one singular thing. It is a complex, 

interwoven system with multiple lines of effort being undertaken throughout 

the Department and across the Interagency. Our main goal for these efforts is 

to assist our partners to develop effective and legitimate security institutions 

that can provide for their own countries' internal security, contribute to a 

greater regional stability, and participate in multilateral operations. The 

Department's efforts include, and are not limited to: 

Building operational capability, capacity, and performance of our partners 

in their counterterrorism efforts. For example, the Department is engaged 

with Uganda, Burundi and other East African nations to increase their 

capacity to combat threats posed by al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. In Central 

Africa, the Department is working with partners to counter the Lord's 

Resistance Army. The Department's efforts in the last ten years to bolster 

the capacity of security forces in the Philippines have allowed that country 

to significantly reduce the size and freedom of movement of the Abu Sayyaf 

Group, minimizing its capability to conduct terrorist activities. 

Enhancing the professional militaries of our partners. These activities are 
58 

conducted through programs and activities such as the International 

Military Education and Training program, senior leader visits and regional 

centers such as the Marshall Center and the Africa Center for Strategic 

Studies. In Fiscal Year 2012, the International Military Education and 

Training program reached approximately 6000 students from 135 countries. 

The regional centers are key institutions for building relationships and 

forging common understanding. They foster open communications and 

educational opportunities for military and civilian participants alike. 

Sharing intelligence and information. The Department is engaged with our 

partners to develop sharing agreements critical to success in combating 

threats from terrorist organizations as well as transnational organized 

crime. We have robust and mature sharing relationships with our longterm partners in Europe and the Pacific, and are collaborating closely with 

our newest partners, particularly in Africa where our relationships are in 

the nascent stages. 

Increasing interoperability. Sharing common tactics, techniques, and 

procedures as well as equipment and planning processes enable our 

partners to participate in multi-national coalition operations and respond to 

emerging security challenges worldwide. The myriad facets of 

interoperability are routinely exercised with our partners through the 

Joint/Combined Exchange Training activities and the Developing Country 

Combined Exercise Program. 

There is no better example of the importance of interoperable and capable 

partners than the coalition in Afghanistan. Throughout the war, well-trained 

and highly effective partners have been fighting side-by-side with U.S. forces. 

Many of our coalition partners deployed without caveats to some of the most 

dangerous regions in Afghanistan and performed admirably. As U.S. forces 

begin to withdraw in 2014, our reliance on these partners will continue as we 
59 

collectively prepare Afghan forces to provide for their own security. 

REGIONAL IMPACT OF BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY 

As the Department turns the page on a decade of war, the Arab World is 

in a period of turmoil and change, impacting across the region and world with 

an uncertain future. While the wave of unrest has changed the security 

environment, many long-standing U.S. goals in the region endure. 

The task of training, advising, and partnering with foreign military and 

security forces has moved from the periphery to become a critical element of 

our strategy. The successful implementation of this strategy paid dividends in 

Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, among others. In 

Jordan, the evolution of the Jordanian Armed Forces as a regional enabler 

facilitated their ability to host the multi-lateral special operations-focused 

EAGER LION exercise. The Department's partnership with the Lebanese armed 

forces through USCENTCOM's Joint Capabilities Review resulted in an 

increased capacity to secure and defend their borders. Qatar and the United 

Arab Emirates supported regional security by providing support to Operations 

UNIFIED PROTECTOR and ENDURING FREEDOM. 

In the western hemisphere, the Department seeks opportunities to build 

partner capacity, develop security partnerships, and create innovative, low-cost 

and small footprint approaches to achieve hemispheric security objectives. The 

security assistance to Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as 

the deployments of EI Salvadoran military personnel in support of Operation 

IRAQI FREEDOM and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, underscores the 

opportunities for expanding capabilities and capacities to further regional 

stabilization efforts. For example, Colombia has provided security training to 

more than 11,000 police officers in 21 Latin American and African countries, 

as well as Afghanistan, making it a force multiplier for U.S. assistance. The 
60 

Department has tremendous partners in the U.S. Southern Command area of 

responsibility who are dedicated to our shared principles of democracy. 

In Central America, transnational organized crime and drug trafficking 

organizations, gangs, and weak rule of law institutions, including the police 

and armed forces, are threats affecting the entire region. Our Central American 

partners are stepping up to this challenge and are taking tangible steps 

towards addressing the problem. For example, El Salvador is building joint 

civilian law enforcement - military narcotics interdiction teams, Costa Rica 

approved a security tax on business to help pay for increased capability, 

Panama is investing in equipment for security forces and reforming its police, 

and Honduras approved a security tax and is working on procedures to 

facilitate the extradition of traffickers and gang members to the United States. 

The 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance calls for a "re-balance toward the 

Asia-Pacific region." The U.S. rebalance reflects a recognition that the United 

States must substantially increase its political, economic and defense 

investments in the Asia-Pacific given the region's fundamental importance to 

our future prosperity and security. Maintaining peace and security across the 

Asia-Pacific is central to broader U.S. strategic interests, including through 

halting proliferation in North Korea, maintaining freedom of navigation in the 

region's maritime spaces including the South and East China Seas, and 

promoting increased transparency in the region's military activities. As such, 

the Department's partnership efforts in the region are integrated within a 

broader whole-of-government approach. The Department's efforts are aimed at 

refreshing and reinvigorating our military to military relationships with 

established allies as well as other key existing and emerging regional partners 

in order to meet a range of 21 st century challenges. While empowering and 

working with (and within) indigenous multi-national forums such as the 

Association of Southeast Asian Nations, we must continue to demonstrate 

active military leadership and presence in the region to deter potential 
61 

adversaries, reassure our allies and partners in Asia, and reinforce 

international norms-including those that advance freedom of navigation and 

access to the global commons. Global commons are geographical areas that 

are outside the jurisdiction of any nation, and include the oceans outside 

territorial limits and Antarctica. Global commons do not include contiguous 

zones and fisheries zones of foreign nations. 

Free and secure access to the commons is critical to ensure peace and 

prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, particularly in the vital sea 

lanes of communication in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean areas 

of increased maritime congestion and resource contention. Regional 

partnerships with, and between, Southeast Asian countries, closer strategic 

cooperation with our allies, and a more sustained and systematic cooperation 

with emerging powers such as India will enhance regional stability and provide 

better prospects for peaceful, non-coercive resolution of disputes and fair 

access to the commons for all. 

This rebalance to Asia represents a strategic adjustment that 

acknowledges the growing importance of this region with its increasingly 

significant share of the global economy and the emergence of new security 

challenges However, it does not mean a departure from established alliances. 

While the Department will reduce its conventional Army presence in Europe to 

two Brigades, we will continue our partnership with NATO allies through 

participation and training with the NATO Response Force. In this way the 

Department can continue its time-honored relationships and reassure 

steadfast allies, yet with fewer U. S. forces deployed overseas. 

African states and regional organizations are making significant progress 

in developing the ability to address security concerns and sources of instability 

on the continent. This dynamic is reflected in the robust role of the African 

Union Mission in Somalia, in the Africa Union's lead role in facilitating 
62 

negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan, and in the Economic 

Community of West African States' efforts to facilitate a political settlement in 

response to the recent coup in Mali. Nonetheless, the United States' partners 

in Africa still lack important capabilities and the capacity to address all of the 

varying sources of instability across Africa. 

Facing this reality, the Department of Defense, in conjunction with the 

Department of State, continues to assist partners on the African continent with 

building their capacity to respond to security threats, as this effort represents a 

measurable investment with significant return in the future. The Department's 

efforts in this respect take several forms, including security assistance, 

exercises, rotational presence, advisory efforts, and training and equipping, 

and they are tailored to the threats that are present. All of these efforts are 

implemented as low-cost and small-footprint approaches to achieve our 

security objectives in Africa. By assisting capable and willing African partners 

to address threats like the Lord's Resistance Army, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, 

and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, we help them to create the space 

necessary to continue developing, politically and economically, which benefits 

both Africa and the United States. 

CONCLUSION 

As we face the security challenges of the 21 st century, we have many 

allies and partners who share an interest in helping advance a common 

security vision and shouldering the burden of global security. Building capacity 

is the long term solution to reduce our presence in protecting the territory of 

others, while defending our interests in a fiscally-constrained environment. 

Building Partner Capacity must therefore be given greater emphasis and be 

coordinated with other instruments of national power to meet current and 

future U.S. global objectives. 
63 

Whatever forms our Building Partner Capacity efforts may take over 

time, in the end they must be agile and flexible enough to respond to a rapidly 

changing world, be conducted steadily over the long term to instill partner 

confidence in the United States' commitment and reinforce State Department's 

role in leading U.S. foreign policy efforts. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 

committee today and testify on the Department's efforts to build partner 

capacity. I also want to thank this committee for your continued support of our 

men and women in uniform. 
64 

Lieutenant General Terry Wolff 

Director, Strategic Plans & Policy, J5 

Lieutenant General Terry Wolff was 

commissioned a second lieutenant from the 

United States Military Academy in 

1979. Lieutenant Wolff attended Ranger School 

and the Armor Officer Basic Course. His initial 

tour was spent at Fort Hood serving in the 1 st 

Squadron, 9th Cavalry as a Platoon Leader and 

Troop Executive Officer, then as the 1 st Cavalry 

Division Assistant Secretary of the General Staff. 

In 1983, following the Armor Officer Advance 

Course, Captain Wolff spent three years with the 

1 st Squadron, 1 st Cavalry, 1 st Armored Division 

in Germany, serving as the S3 Air and the C 

Troop Commander. 

Upon returning from Europe in 1986, Captain 

Wolff spent three years at Armor Branch as an 

Assignment Officer. In 1991, following two years 

at Fort Leavenworth, Major Wolff returned to 

Germany as the 3rd Infantry Division G3 Plans 

Officer. In 1992, he moved to Vilseck, serving as 

the battalion S3 of 1 st Battalion, 37th Armor and 

the brigade S3 of 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry 

Division. In the summer of 1995, Lieutenant 

Colonel Wolff moved to Fort Carson, Colorado, 

becoming the Deputy Regimental Commander of .""· ...... "".,.c .•.• c"',,.'--'''·'''m 

the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. From June 1996 to June 1998, he commanded the Regiment's 

Third Squadron. 

The summer of 1999 saw Lieutenant Colonel Wolff graduating from the Naval War College and 

returning to Germany where he served as the G3 of the 1 st Armored Division. 

Colonel Wolff commanded the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment for three years, taking them to Iraq in 

March 2003. This assignment was followed by two years on the Joint Staff, first as the Eastern Europe 

and Eurasia Division Chief and later as a Special Assistant to the Assistant to the Chairman. 

In 2005, Colonel Wolff became the Deputy Commanding General of the 7th Infantry Division and Fort 

Carson. Brigadier General Wolff deployed to Iraq in 2006, serving as the Commanding General of the 

Coalition Military Assistance Training Team. 

After nearly two years on the National Security Council as a Special Assistant to the President and 

Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan, Major General Wolff returned to Germany and the First 

Armored Division. He commanded lAD from May 2009 to May 2011, a period which including a 

deployment to Iraq and the command of the United States Division Center. Following the division's 

redeployment, Major General Wolff also served as the Deputy Commanding General af United States 

Army Europe for five months, departing Europe in July. Lieutenant General Wolff is currently serving 

as the Director, Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Staff, J5 at the Pentagon. 

(Current as of January 2012) 
65 

GAO 

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT 

Thursday, FebrualY 14, 2013 

GAO-13-335T 

United States Government Accouutability Office 

Testimony 

Before the Committee on Armed Services, 

House of Representatives 

BUILDING PARTNER 

CAPACITY 

Key Practices to Effectively 

Manage Department of 

Defense Efforts to Promote 

Security Cooperation 

Statement of Janet A. St. Laurent, Managing Director 

Defense Capabilities and Management 

GAO 

Accountability * Integrity * Reliability 
66 

• GAO .6-Accountabillty; Integrity· Reliability 

Highlights 

Highlights of GAO-13-335T, a testimony 

before the Committee on Armed Services, 

House of Representatives 

Why GAO Did This Study 

DOD has increasingly focused on 

security cooperation activities designed 

to build the defense capacity of foreign 

partners and allies, furthering the U.S. 

objective of securing international 

peace and cooperation. Both the 2011 

National Military Strategy of the United 

States of America and the 2011 

National Strategy for Counterterrorism 

identify building partner capacity as a 

worldwide priOrity. As DOD continues 

to emphasize building partner capacity, 

the need for efficient and effective 

coordination with foreign partners and 

within the U.S. govemment has 

become more important, in part due to 

fiscal challenges, which can be 

exacerbated by overlapping or 

ineffective efforts. 

This testimony highlights opportunities 

to strengthen DOD's management of 

its building partner capacity efforts by 

focusing on three key practices: 

(1) setting clear goals and defining 

terminology, (2) coordinating activities 

and sharing information, and 

(3) sustaining efforts and evaluating 

progress. It is based on GAO's body of 

work on building partner capacity from 

April 2010 through November 2012. 

What GAO Recommends 

GAO has made numerous 

recommendations to align goals with 

broader strategies and to clarify 

terminology; develop mechanisms to 

better coordinate activities and share 

information; and develop and 

implement plans and metrlcs to sustain 

and evaluate progress. DOD has 

generally concurred with GAO's 

recommendations and has taken some 

actions, but work remains to fully 

implement GAO's recommendations. 

View GAO~13-335T. For more information, 

contact Janet A St Laurent at (202) 5124300 

or st!aurentJ@gao.gov. 

BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY 

Key Practices to Effectively Manage Department of 

Defense Efforts to Promote Security Cooperation 

What GAO Found 

GAO's recent work has identified key practices that would enhance the 

Department of Defense's (DOD) management of building partner capacity efforts. 

Such efforts include a range of security cooperation activities such as military 

exercises with partner nations and counternarcotics activities. In GAO's reviews 

of these activities, GAO found that DOD has demonstrated some of these key 

practices, but opportunities for improvement remain. 

Setting clear goals and defining terminology. Setting clear goals and defining 

terminology can help stakeholders understand what partnership capacity 

programs seek to accomplish and how they fit in with broad national security 

interests. GAO has reported that DOD activities to build the capacity of 

foreign military forces though the Global Train and Equip program have 

generally been in alignment with U.S. counterterrorism priorities while also 

addressing partner countries' security interests. However, in a 2012 review of 

security force assistance, GAO found that the lack of a common 

understanding of this term within DOD resulted in different interpretations of 

what types of activities are included and presented challenges in planning 

activities and forecasting needs for force capabilities. GAO recommended 

DOD take steps to clarify its intent and then determine what additional 

actions are required to plan for and conduct security force assistance. 

Coordinat;ng activities and sharing information. Coordination mechanisms 

that facilitate communication within DOD and across agencies are needed to 

achieve integrated approaches to building partner capacity efforts. In 2012, 

GAO found that stakeholders had difficulties in obtaining status information 

on security assistance acquisitions and deliveries because information 

systems are difficult to access and contain limited information. The 

department is developing a new information system to address this gap but it 

will not be fully implemented until 2020. Further, GAO's review of the 

National Guard State Partnership Program in 2012 found that data systems 

used by the combatant commands and the National Guard Bureau were not 

Interoperable and users applied varying methods and definitions to track the 

program's activities and funding. As a result, the data on types and frequency 

of activities were incomplete and inconsistent. GAO recommended that DOD 

develop guidance including agreed-upon definitions for data fields. 

Sustaining efforts and evaluating progress. Developing plans to sustain 

projects and establishing mechanisms to evaluate them can help ensure that 

programs have long-term impact. In 2010, GAO reported that the long-term 

impact of some projects to train and equip foreign militaries could be limited 

because U.S. agencies have not fully addressed their sustainment. 

Specifically, only 26 percent of the 135 proposals for fiscal years 2007-2009 

projects explicitly addressed the recipient country's ability or willingness to 

bear sustainment costs. In a review on counternarcotics efforts in 2012, GAO 

found that DOD is working to improve its counternarcotics performance 

measurement system, but the department has been unable to attest to the 

reliability of the performance data for several countries from 2007 through 

2011. GAO recommended that DOD submit its performance summary report 

with the reliability altestation to the National Drug Control Policy office. 

_____________ United States Government Accountability Office 
67 

Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith, and Members of the 

Committee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department of Defense's 

(DOD) efforts at building partner capacity and share with you a few key 

practices that can lead to effective management of these efforts. DOD 

has become increasingly focused on a broad range of security 

cooperation activities designed to build the defense capacity of foreign 

partners and allies and further the U.S. objective of securing international 

peace and cooperation. These activities include training, equipping, 

advising, and assisting host countries' security forces in becoming more 

proficient at providing security to their populations and protecting their 

resources and territories. The 2011 National Military Strategy of the 

United States of America 1 and the 2011 National Strategy for 

Counterterrorism' identify building partner capacity as a worldwide 

priority. These documents stress that the global security environment 

presents an increasingly complex set of challenges and opportunities to 

which all elements of the United States' national power must be applied. 

They also emphasize the need to strengthen and expand the United 

States' network of international partnerships to enhance security and, 

according to the National Military Strategy, the joint force, combatant 

commands, and service chiefs shall partner with other U.S. government 

agencies to pursue theater security cooperation. Further, the 2010 

Quadrennial Defense Review report cites building the security capacity of 

partner nations as a key mission area and emphasizes security force 

assistance as an increasingly critical element of this mission. It also 

identifies several initiatives to enhance its ability to build partner nation 

security capacity, such as strengthening and institutionalizing the 

capabilities of general purpose forces to conduct security force 

assistance, enhancing linguistic, regional and cultural abilities, and 

strengthening the department's capacities for ministerial-level training. 

As DOD continues to emphasize building partner capacity, the need for 

efficient and effective coordination with foreign partners and within the U.S. 

government has become more important, in part due to fiscal challenges, 

which can be exacerbated by overlapping or ineffective efforts. Strategic 

1 Department of Defense, The National Military Strategy of the United States of America: 

Redefining America's Military Leadership, Feb. 8, 2011. 

2The VVhlte House, National Strategy for Counterterrorism, June 28, 2011. 

Page 1 GAO·13·335T 
68 

Background 

guidance issued by the Secretary of Defense in January 2012 emphasized 

that building partner capacity elsewhere in the world is important for 

sharing the costs and the responsibilities of global leadership and that the 

department would develop innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint 

approaches to achieving the United States' security objectives. 3 

Since 2010, we have issued numerous reports and testimonies and made 

recommendations to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of DOD's 

management of its building partner capacity efforts. My testimony today is 

based on our prior work and will discuss three key practices that we 

believe could provide opportunities for DOD to more effectively manage 

its building partner capacity efforts. The key practices are: (1) setting 

clear goals and defining terminology, (2) coordinating activities and 

sharing information, and (3) sustaining efforts and evaluating progress. 

The examples I will draw on today are based on our past work and 

include partner capacity building efforts that are primarily funded by DOD. 

Detailed information on our scope and methodology can be found in the 

reports and testimonies we cite throughout this statement. For the 

purposes of this testimony, we also updated information on the status of 

our recommendations. We conducted the work supporting our prior 

reports, which were issued from April 2010 through November 2012, in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

DOD's efforts to build partner capacity include a broad range of security 

cooperation activities designed to build the defense capacity of foreign 

partners and allies. These security cooperation activities include militaryto-military training, military exercises in cooperation with partner nations, 

knowledge sharing from subject matter experts, visits between senior 

military leaders, providing military equipment and supplies, and 

counternarcotics activities. Table 1 below describes selected partner 

capacity activities that DOD implements. The table illustrates the broad 

30epartment of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century 

Defense, Jan. 5, 2012. 

Page 2 GAO·13·335T 
69 

range of activities DOD engages in to build partner capacity and is not a 

comprehensive list. 

Table 1: Descriptions of Select DOD Activities that May Be Used to Build Partner Capacity 

Program 

Counterdrug 

Programs 

National Guard 

State Partnership 

Program 

Peacetime 

Humanitarian 

Assistance 

Programs 

Global Train and 

Equip Program 

(also known as 

Section 1206 

Program) 

Global Secunty 

Contingency Fund 

Description 

DOD counterdrug programs may provide support to foreign security forces to stop the flow of Hlega! drugs. It 

provides support for counterdrug activities of federal, state, local, and foreign government law enforcement 

agencies. DOD requested approximately $1 billion for its counterdrug programs in its fiscal year 2013 budget 

request. 

A DOD security cooperation program that pairs state National Guards with foreign countries to promote national 

objectives, stability, partner capacity, and a better understanding and trust between the United States and foreign 

countries. As of May 2012, there were 63 active partnerships, This program began in 1993. For fiscal year 2013, 

the department requested $10 million for the program. a 

DOD's two key programs are the OVerseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid~funded humanitarian assistance 

program and the HUmanitarian and Civic Assistance program. Activities, which are typically performed outside of 

war or disaster environments, include renovating schools and hospitals, drilling wells, providing basic health care, 

and providing training to prepare for natural disasters. DOD requested approximately $109 million for the Overseas 

Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid program in its fisca! year 2013 budget request. 

Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 created this program, which is used 

to build the capacity of foreign military forces through provision of training, equipment, and small~scale military 

construction activities. It is to be used to build foreign military capacity to conduct counterterrorist operations or 

participate in, or support, military and stabilization operations in which U.S. forces are participating. Section 

1206, as amended, authorizes the Secretary of Defense to use up to $350 mimon each year, with the 

concurrence of the Secretary of State, through fiscal year 2014. DOD requested $365 million for the Section 

1206 program in its fiscal year 2013 budget request. 

Section 1207 of the Nationa! Defense Authonzation Act for Fiscal Year 2012, enacted in December 2011, 

established the Global Security Contingency Fund. This fund provides resources for emergent challenges such 

as training and other support to enhance the capabilities of foreign military and security forces to conduct 

security and counterterrorism operations and participate in or support military, stability, or peace support 

operations consistent with United States foreign policy and nationa! security interests. It also provides resources 

to assist with rule of law programs and stabilization efforts in certain cases. The fund is jointly administered and 

funded by the State Department and DOD, with the State Department in the lead. The legislation also included 

transitional authorities for DOD-led assistance to Africa and Yemen. The fiscal year 2012 consolidated 

appropriations act does not appropriate new monies to the fund, but permits DOD and the State Department to 

transfer up to $250 million to the fund from other accounts. 

Source GAO analysIS of pr,or GAO reports, the Natlonai Defense Author,ziltIOn Acl for F,scai Year 2006 and the Nat'onal Defense 

Autho"lahorl Act$ ior Foscai Years2012 and2013 

Note: There are several other authorities that have to do with Iraq. Afghanistan. and Pakistan that are 

not included in the table 

aSection 1204 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fisca! Year 2013, Pub. L. No. 112~239 

(Jan. 2, 2013), states that no activities under the State Partnership Program may be carried out after 

February 28, 2013, until (1) the Secretary of Defense submits to the appropriate congressional 

committees the final regulations required by subsection (a) of section 1210 of the Nationa! Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Pub. L. No. 111·84) regarding the use of DOD funds to pay 

costs incurred by the National Guard in conducting activities under the State Partnership Program 

and (2) the Secretary of Defense certifies to the appropnate congressional committees that 

appropriate modificatIons have been made, and appropriate controls have been instituted, to ensure 

the compliance of the program with the Ant!deficiency Act in the future As of February 5, 2013, the 

Secretary had not submitted such regulations or made such certification. However, a DOD official told 

us that the department's response to Section 1204 is under review, and the department expects to 

meet the deadline 

Page 3 GAO·13·335T 
70 

To perform its military missions around the world, DOD operates six 

unified military geographic combatant commands, which are responsible 

for a variety of functions including planning for and conducting missions 

that range from humanitarian assistance to combat operations. 4 As part of 

their planning responsibilities, geographic combatant commands develop 

theater campaign plans, which are multiyear plans that reflect the 

command's strategy to achieve certain end states within their areas of 

responsibility. These plans are the primary vehicle for designing, 

organizing, integrating, and executing security cooperation activities. A 

hierarchy of national and strategic guidance-including the National 

Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, the National Military 

Strategy, and the Guidance for Employment of the Force-informs the 

development of the combatant commands' theater campaign plans. 

In addition to theater campaign planning, DOD uses different 

implementation processes to formulate and decide whether to approve 

specific building partner capacity activities and projects. For example, for 

Section 1206 program projects, each geographic combatant command 

reviews proposals from the U.S. embassy in its area of responsibility and 

endorses for final submission those proposed projects that address its 

highest priorities. The U.S. Special Operations Command also reviews all 

Section 1206 project proposals to ensure that each aligns with U.S. 

military strategy and ranks each proposal across the geographic 

combatant commands in accordance with counterterrorism priorities. 5 As 

a different example, for the National Guard State Partnership Program, 

any nation requesting a state partnership sends its official request to its 

respective U.S. ambassador. Once the partnership is endorsed, the 

request is forwarded to the appropriate combatant command. If the 

command finds that the partnership meets strategic objectives and 

priorities, the command sends the request to the National Guard Bureau. 

If the Chief of the National Guard Bureau accepts the request, he or she 

4The six geographic combatant commands are: U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa 

Command, U.S. Pacific Command, U,S. Northern Command, U.S, Southern Command, 

and U.S. Central Command. 

5The U.S. Spedal Operations Command is responsible for preparing special operations 

forces to carry out assigned missions and to plan and conduct special operations. Its 

mission is (1) to provide fully capable special operations forces to defend the United 

States and its interests and (2) to synchronize global operations against terrorist networks, 

inctuding receiving, reviewing, coordinating, and prioritizing all DOD plans that support the 

global campaign against terror. 

Page 4 GAO·13·335T 
71 

Setting Clear Goals 

and Defining 

Terminology 

notifies the combatant command and solicits proposals from the adjutants 

general of the state Guards. These proposals go through three levels of 

review within DOD, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau forwards 

a recommended nominee to the combatant command and the partner 

country's U.S. embassy for final approval. 

I would like to now discuss the key practices we have identified that can 

aid DOD in more effectively managing its building partner capacity 

activities. 

Setting clear goals and defining terminology can help stakeholders 

understand what partnership capacity programs seek to accomplish and 

how they fit in with broad national security interests. In our reviews, we 

found that DOD's efforts to align goals with broader strategies and clarify 

terminology have varied. More specifically, in some reviews, we found 

that programs have aligned with broader strategies but DOD officials 

have experienced challenges in agreeing upon key terms. 

A positive example of strategic alignment involves our work on the 

Section 1206 program6 1n 2010, we reported that the Section 1206 

activities have generally been in alignment with U.S. counterterrorism 

priorities while also addressing the partner countries' security interests. 7 

For example, in 2010, we found that DOD and the State Department 

(State) have used Section 1206 funds in Kazakhstan to address its 

priority of enhancing the country's counterterrorism capacity in the 

Caspian Sea, according to a U.S. embassy official. Additionally, in 

Pakistan, U.S. officials used Section 1206 funds to increase special 

operations capacity to support counterterrorism operations on its western 

border. Overall, from fiscal year 2006 to 2009, DOD and State allotted 

$932 million, or 95 percent, of all Section 1206 funding for 

counterterrorism-related equipment and training for partner countries and 

6The Section 1206 program authorizes DOD to build the capacity of a foreign country's 

military forces in order for that country to conduct counterterrorism operations or to 

support or participate in military and stablilty operations in which the United States Armed 

Forces are participating. The section also authorizes DOD to build the capacity of a 

foreign country's maritime security forces to conduct counterterrorism operations. 

7GAO, International Security: DOD and State Need to Improve Sustainment Pfanning and 

Monitoring and Evaluation for Section 1206 and 1207 Assistance Programs, GAO~10-431 

(Washington, D.C .. Apr. 15,2010). 

PageS GAO-13-33ST 
72 

the remaining $47 million, or 5 percent, to build the capacity of five 

partner nations to participate in stability operations with the United States, 

such as providing spare parts for a country's ground vehicles. We also 

found that most Section 1206 counterterrorism resources had been 

directed to countries that the U.S. intelligence community has identified 

as priority countries for the counterterrorism effort. 8 

In another case we found that DOD is taking steps to address challenges 

faced by department officials in identifying and defining partner country 

assistance requirements. In a November 2012 report on the Defense 

Security Cooperation Agency's oversight of security cooperation and 

assistance programs, we found that since 2009, DOD has initiated 

reforms to improve the process of developing assistance requests that 

are intended to reduce implementation delays and improve the 

effectiveness of assistance to partner countries. 9 First, DOD developed 

new training courses and provided in-country advisors to help country 

officials identify short- and long-term requirements and strategies to meet 

those requirements. Second, DOD is reforming its own processes for 

defining requirements to improve long-term effectiveness of security 

cooperation programs and provide short-term solutions for meeting 

requirements using assistance requests, Third, DOD created a strategic 

planning support group to assist combatant commands with early 

identification and resolution of issues related to capability requirements 

and certain types of assistance requests. Fourth, the Defense Security 

Cooperation Agency established expeditionary teams whose purpose is 

to help the combatant commands, partner countries, and security 

cooperation officers identify and refine a partner country's requirements. 

In contrast, we recommended in 2010 that DOD re-evaluate the 

Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa located in Djibouti to ensure it 

is appropriately aligned to support U.S. Africa Command's mission of 

sustained security engagement. 10 While U.S. Africa Command stated that 

aThe list of priority countries is classified, which limits the precision of the analytical 

information we can report. 

9GAO, Security Assistance: DO~'s Ongoing Reforms Address Some Challenges, but 

Additionallnfonnation Is Needed to Further Enhance Program Management, GAO-13~84 

(Washington, D.C.: November 16, 2012). 

tOGAO, Defense Management: DOD Needs to Determine the Future of Its Hom of Africa 

Task Force, GAO-10-504 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 15,2010). 

PageS GAO-13-335T 
73 

the Task Force's original mission of countering violent extremism and its 

location at Camp Lemonnier remain important, particularly given terrorist 

threats in the region, we found some activities that may not be aligned 

with the command's mission, For example, at a training exercise for 

incoming Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa officials, discussion 

was raised concerning Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa's 

discovery of a dilapidated school in Kenya with a placard stating "donated 

by Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa"; current staff had been 

unaware of the school's existence, While the activity may have promoted 

temporary benefits for the partiCipants at the time it was built, its 

dilapidated state could have potentially promoted unfavorable views of 

the U,S, military within the partner nation and heightened concerns about 

how such activities fit into a framework of sustained security engagement 

In another example, other embassy officials stated that the experiences of 

African navy and coast guard participants of Task Force maritime training 

sessions were dampened because participants had anticipated a 

permanent training program; instead, they received sporadic and shortterm training, which may not promote U,S, Africa Command's mission of 

sustained or long-term security engagement As a result, we 

recommended that U,S, Africa Command complete its evaluation of 

Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa to determine whether the Task 

Force should be retained, and if so, whether changes are needed to its 

mission, structure, and resources to best support the command's mission, 

In a 2012 follow up on our recommendation, U,S, Africa Command stated 

that it had issued a plan to alter the Task Force's mission in accordance 

with the command's assessment of the current security environment 

However, DOD has not identified how the Task Force is changing its 

structure and resources to support the new mission. 

Another review in 2012 found that DOD's lack of clarity surrounding the 

term "security force assistance" has created challenges for the combatant 

commands and military services in their efforts to plan for security force 

assistance as a distinct activity and enhance force capabilities,11 DOD 

intends to focus more on security force assistance activities and has 

directed the combatant commands to incorporate them into their long 

range plans and forecast requirements, In its instruction, DOD defined 

security force assistance as "DOD activities that contribute to unified 

11GAO, Security Force Assistance: Additional Actions Needed to Guide Geographic 

Combatant Command and Service Efforts, GAO~12·556 (Washington, D,C.: 

May 10, 2012), 

Page 7 GAO·13~335T 
74 

action by the U.S. government to support the development of the capacity 

and capability of foreign security forces and their supporting 

institutions."" Seeking to clarify this definition, DOD has further stated 

that security force assistance encompasses all DOD activities conducted 

under various programs to "organize, train, equip, rebuild/build and advise 

foreign security forces and their supporting institutions from the tactical to 

ministeriallevels."13 Notwithstanding DOD's efforts to clarify its 

terminology, we found that the commands continue to lack a common 

understanding of the term and therefore some were unclear as to what 

additional actions were needed to meet DOD's intent. Officials we 

interviewed generally viewed security force assistance as a 

recharacterization of some of their existing security cooperation activities 

but had different interpretations of what types of activities should be 

considered as security force assistance. For example, within one 

command, officials considered nearly every activity with partner nations to 

be security force assistance. Another command considered only 

individual efforts to train partner nations as security force assistance and 

excluded other activities. Also, some command officials were not clear as 

to the intent of DOD's increased focus on security force assistance and 

whether any related adjustments should be made in their plans and scope 

or level of activities. As a result, they do not currently distinguish security 

force assistance from other security cooperation activities in their plans. 

The services are taking steps and investing resources to organize and 

train general purpose forces capable of conducting security force 

assistance based on current requirements. Without greater clarity in 

regard to future needs, the services are uncertain whether their current 

efforts are sufficient or whether additional capabilities will be required. 

Therefore, we recommended that DOD take steps to clarify its intent, 

including the level of effort that combatant commands should devote to 

security force assistance, and what additional actions are required by the 

commands to plan for and conduct security force assistance beyond their 

existing security cooperation efforts. These steps would also help inform 

the services' efforts to ensure that the capabilities that they are 

developing and thus the resources that they are investing are appropriate 

and adequate to meet future requirements. DOD generally agreed with 

our recommendations. 

12Department of Defense Instruction 5000.68, Security Force Assistance (Oct. 27, 2010). 

130epartment of Defense, Security Force Assistance Lexicon Framework (Nov. 1, 2011). 

Page 8 GAO-13-335T 
75 

Coordinating 

Activities and Sharing 

Information 

In another instance, we found that DOD, State, and the U.S. Agency for 

International Development used different terminology to describe similar 

efforts during our review of DOD's humanitarian assistance efforts.'4 For 

example, according to DOD officials, DOD uses the term "humanitarian 

assistance" to describe its strategically planned assistance. In contrast, 

the U.S. Agency for International Development and State refer to 

immediate, life-saving relief as "humanitarian assistance" but other 

capacity-building efforts as "development assistance." DOD officials 

explained that the terminology they use is derived from their legislative 

authority to perform humanitarian assistance, and DOD and U.S. Agency 

for International Development officials said that DOD uses "humanitarian 

assistance" rather than "development assistance" to ensure that the 

department is not perceived as performing development efforts that are 

outside of its legislatively-prescribed areas of responsibility. Further, DOD 

officials who are engaged in implementing some of DOD's humanitarian 

assistance efforts told us that differences in terminology can create 

challenges among agencies in understanding the scope and nature of 

each others' efforts. State officials said that differing terminology creates 

challenges to setting goals or objectives when planning with other 

agencies. As a result, we recommended and they agreed that DOD, 

State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development collaborate to 

develop guidance that provides a common understanding of the 

terminology used for their humanitarian and development assistance 

efforts. In a 2013 follow-up on our recommendation, DOD officials stated 

that they have continued to regularly engage officials at State and the 

U.S. Agency for International Development through working groups and 

briefings to minimize confusion over terminology, but did not identify any 

actions taken to develop guidance on the differences in the agencies' 

terminology. 

National strategies have emphasized the importance of building partner 

capacity using an interagency and whole of government approach, but 

mechanisms for coordinating activities and sharing information within 

DOD and across agencies have not been consistently implemented. Our 

work shows that DOD has taken steps to work with other agencies on 

activities, such as embedding representatives from their agencies at its 

14GAO, Humanitarian and Development Assistance: Project Evaluations and Better 

Information Sharing Needed to Manage the Military's Efforts, GAO~12~359 (Washington, 

D.C.: Feb. 8. 2012). 

Page 9 GAO·13·335T 
76 

combatant commands, but challenges remain. Agencies have different 

organizational structures, planning processes, and funding sources to 

plan for and conduct their building partner capacity efforts, which can 

hinder interagency collaboration. Given these organizational differences, 

coordination mechanisms that can facilitate interagency collaboration are 

needed to achieve integrated approaches to building partner capacity 

efforts. 

Our work has found that DOD has led or participated in coordinating 

activities and taken steps to share and integrate information for building 

partner capacity activities through some of the programs at its geographic 

combatant commands. For instance, U.S. Southern Command is a 

geographic combatant command that operates in the Americas and the 

Caribbean, areas primarily affected by challenges such as corruption, 

crime, transnational terrorism, natural disasters, and poverty that impact 

the security and stability of the region. In recent years, in an effort to 

better support security and stability in the region, U.S. Southern 

Command has sought to become a more interagency-oriented command, 

recognizing that many of the challenges it faces cross role and mission 

lines of various U.S. government agencies. In 2010, our review of U.S. 

Southern Command found that the command coordinated with 

interagency partners to develop mutually reinforcing strategies, including 

its 2009 Theater Campaign Plan and its 2020 Command Strategy. 15 U.S. 

Southern Command coordinated the development of its 2009 Theater 

Campaign Plan, which lays out the command's theater priorities and 

guides its resource allocations, with over 10 U.S. government 

departments, agencies, and offices. In addition, for U.S. Southern 

Command's 2020 Command Strategy, which was in development in 

2010, the command conducted a 3-day conference to gather perspectives 

from interagency partners on the command's assessment of challenges in 

the region and the command's strategic objectives. 

However, challenges with coordinating and information sharing with other 

agencies remain. In 2012, we reported that DOD, State, and the U.S. 

Agency for International Development recognize the need to improve 

information sharing for humanitarian assistance efforts and they have 

15GAO, Defense Management: u.s, Southern Command Demonstrates Interagency 

Collaboration, but Its Haiti Disaster Response Revealed Chaffenges Conducting a Large 

Military Operation, GAO·10·801 (Washington, D.C.: July 28,2010). 

Page 10 
77 

begun to take steps to address the challenge. 16 DOD's humanitarian 

assistance efforts include constructing schools, digging water wells, 

preparing communities for natural disasters, and helping local populations 

obtain medical care. Despite DOD's various collaborative efforts, 

challenges remain, particularly in project coordination and data 

management for information sharing. For example, officials said that the 

frequent rotation of personnel can lead to continuity challenges. Many 

officials also stated that coordination tends to be personality driven; when 

staff is replaced, relationships have to be rebuilt and progress can be lost. 

Further, while officials from DOD, State, and the U.S. Agency for 

International Development said that interagency personnel at the 

commands have helped improve coordination with DOD, the roles of 

these personnel may be limited. Some State and U.S. Agency for 

International Development officials explained that the role of their 

advisors assigned to DOD's combatant commands is limited. Specifically, 

they are able to report on what is happening in their respective areas of 

responsibility but cannot make decisions or speak on behalf of their home 

agencies. Moreover, DOD, State, and U.S. Agency for International 

Development do not have full visibility over each others' assistance 

efforts, which could result in a fragmented approach to U.S. assistance. 

There are several initiatives under way to improve information sharing; 

however, no framework, such as a common database, currently exists for 

the agencies to readily access information on each others' efforts. 

Therefore, we recommended that the State Department, U.S. Agency for 

International Development, and DOD develop a framework for sharing 

information to be used by all agencies in their assistance efforts, and 

indicated that this framework could involve selecting an existing initiative, 

such as the Foreign Assistance Dashboard. They agreed with our 

recommendation, and in 2012 DOD officials stated they submitted foreign 

assistance data on their peacetime humanitarian assistance programs 

and 12 other security programs to State for inclusion into the Foreign 

Assistance Dashboard. Further, State officials said they expect to have 

DOD's foreign assistance data available on the Dashboard by the end of 

fiscal year 2013. 

We have found that when agencies share information, managing and 

integrating information from multiple sources present challenges 

regarding data comparability. For instance, we found that the multiple 

"GAO-12-359. 

Page 11 GAO·13~335T 
78 

data systems used to track National Guard State Partnership Program 

activities and funding are not interoperable and users apply varying 

methods and definitions to guide data inputs. 17 In 2012, we reported that 

we could not provide complete information on the types and frequency of 

State Partnership Program activities because activity data are incomplete 

as well as inconsistent. According to National Guard Bureau officials, 

DOD's Guidance for Employment of the Force mandates that all security 

cooperation activities be tracked, including State Partnership Program 

activities, in management information system databases. 18 However, the 

National Guard Bureau and the combatant commands maintain separate 

databases for tracking events and each entity independently tracks its 

activities in databases that are not interoperable. Further, the terminology 

used to identify activity types varied both across the combatant 

commands and between the combatant commands and the National 

Guard Bureau. As a result, we found it difficult to identify whether the data 

in different databases were describing the same activity or two separate 

activities. Therefore, we recommended and the department agreed that 

DOD, in coordination with the National Guard Bureau, the combatant 

commands, and the embassy country teams, develop guidance for all 

stakeholders that includes agreed-upon definitions for data fields and 

rules for maintaining data until the program's global data system is fully 

implemented. In December 2012, DOD issued an instruction requiring 

combatant commanders to submit annual records of State Partnership 

Program activities and defining specific data that must be included in 

these reports. While this instruction does not directly identify data field 

definitions, it could provide a basis for improving the department's efforts 

to track State Partnership Program activities and funding. 

l1GAO, State Partnership Program: Improved Oversight, Guidance, and Training Needed 

for National Guard's Efforts with Foreign Pariners, GAO-12-S48 (Washington, D,C.: May 

15,2012). 

tBAs stated in the note to Table 1, Section 1204 of the NatiOnal Defense Authorization Act 

for Fiscal Year 2013 established certain requirements for DOD regarding the State 

Partnership Program, including the submission of regulations to Congress. As of February 

5,2013, the department had not met these requirements, However, a DOD official told us 

the department expected to meet them by the statutory deadline of February 28, 2013. On 

December 14, 2012, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy issued Department of 

Defense Instruction 5111.20, which stated that it, among other things, provides 

instructions for the use of funds appropriated to DOD to pay the costs of authorized State 

Partnership Program activities conducted in accordance with section 1210 of Public Law 

111-84. 

Page 12 GAO-13-33ST 
79 

In 2012, we found that DOD efforts to provide timely security assistance 

were affected by communication and coordination issues within DOD that 

in some cases delayed assistance and increased costS.'9 DOD's Security 

Cooperation Organizations in foreign countries reported persistent 

difficulties obtaining information from the Defense Security Cooperation 

Agency and the implementing agencies of the military departments-the 

Army, Navy, and Air Force-on the status of security assistance 

equipment acquisitions and deliveries because information systems are 

difficult for them to access and contain limited information. DOD's existing 

delivery tracking system provides only limited data on the status of 

equipment deliveries because partner country agents and DOD agencies 

are not entering the needed data into the system. Without advance notice 

of deliveries, Security Cooperation Organization staff have been unable to 

ensure that addresses were correct and that partner countries were ready 

to receive and process deliveries, resulting in delays or increased costs. 

For example, security cooperation officers we met with reported instances 

where: 

equipment was held by the partner country's customs agency 

because the delivery lacked proper documentation or proper address 

labels, and additional customs fees were incurred while the security 

cooperation officers found the missing information; 

shipments were warehoused in a customs office for 2 years because 

they had no addresses or were improperly addressed; 

the Security Cooperation Organization discovered equipment at ports 

and airports that had arrived without advance notice. 

To improve the ability of combatant commands and Security Cooperation 

Organization officials to obtain information on the acquisition and delivery 

status of assistance agreements, we recommended that DOD establish 

procedures to help ensure that DOD agencies populate security 

assistance information systems with complete data. In response, the 

Defense Security Cooperation Agency stated that it would work with the 

military departments to ensure that information systems are populated 

with acquisition and delivery status data. The Defense Security 

Cooperation Agency is also developing a new electronic system, the 

Security Cooperation Enterprise Solution, to improve visibility and 

aggregate data from the separate computer management systems used 

19GAO-13-84. 

Page 13 GAO·13·335T 
80 

Sustaining Efforts and 

Evaluating Progress 

by DOD's implementing agencies, but it is not expected to be fully 

implemented until 2020, 

Developing plans to sustain DOD's building partner capacity activities and 

establishing mechanisms to monitor programs and evaluate results can 

help ensure that these programs have long-term impact Our work has 

shown that some building partner capacity activities may not endure 

because planning for sustainment has been a systemic challenge, In a 

2009 memo to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 

the Secretary of Defense stated that sustaining the results of capacitybuilding has proven difficult because the lack of multi-year planning and 

funding authorities at the outset of security assistance efforts makes it 

difficult for the U,S, government and its partners to build or maintain 

effective collaborative relationships,20 Further, our work has also shown 

that DOD had not consistently defined performance measures, and 

reporting on progress and effectiveness of some building partner capacity 

activities has been limited to anecdotal information, 

One example of sustainment planning challenges came from our review 

of the Section 1206 program, In 2010, we reported that the long-term 

impact of some Section 1206 projects could be limited because U,S, 

agencies have not fully addressed how to sustain these projectS,21 For 

example, we found that most participating countries have relatively low 

incomes and may be unwilling or unable to provide the necessary 

resources to sustain projects, According to project proposal instructions 

applicable at the time of our report, proposals must explain how projects 

will be sustained in future years. However, we found that only 26 percent 

of the 135 proposals we reviewed for fiscal years 2007-2009 projects 

explicitly addressed the recipient country's ability or willingness to bear 

sustainment costs, Moreover, only 1 of the 15 Security Assistance 

Officers we interviewed indicated that he believed his partner nation had 

the ability to sustain its Section 1206 projects independently, For 

example, the Security Assistance Officer in Mali noted that sustainment of 

the Section 1206 project to train and equip that country's light infantry 

units would be problematic if the country had to find its own funding, Our 

20Secretary of Defense Memorandum, DOD Review of Building the Security Capacity of 

Partner Nations (June 18, 2009), 

"GAO-10-431, 

Page 14 GAO-13-335T 
81 

2010 report also showed that DOD and State had conducted little 

monitoring and evaluation of the Section 1206 security assistance 

program. Specifically, DOD and State's reporting has generally consisted 

of anecdotal information and DOD officials told us that they had not 

consistently monitored these security assistance projects. Our review of 

149 approved proposals for Section 1206 projects for fiscal years 2006 

through 2009 showed that only 32 percent (48 proposals) defined 

measures of effectiveness or anticipated outcomes. In addition, only 25 

percent (34) of 135 approved fiscal year 2007 through 2009 proposals we 

reviewed documented an intention to monitor results. We recommended 

that DOD and State develop and implement specific plans to monitor, 

evaluate, and report routinely on the results of such monitoring and 

evaluation for Section 1206 projects. DOD agreed with our 

recommendation and, in response, completed its first systematic 

assessments of Section 1206 projects implemented in 5 countries in 

2012.22 As part of that effort, DOD also created the Section 1206 

Assessment Handbook to be used for the future, annual assessment 

efforts. Officials we spoke to stated that these pilot assessments validated 

the assessment methodology, which will be used to evaluate all future 

potential recipients' capabilities prior to receipt of Section 1206 

equipment, as well as to conduct evaluations of selected Section 1206 

efforts following the implementation. 

In a separate review of U.S. Africa Command in 2010, we found that it is 

unclear whether all of the activities that U.S. Africa Command inherited or 

is planning fully align with its mission of sustained security engagement in 

Africa because the command was generally not measuring the long-term 

effects of its activities. 23 For example, U.S. Africa Command officials we 

met with while observing a command activity in Uganda told us that the 

command planned to produce an "after action" report after the activity, but 

they acknowledged that U.S. Africa Command needs to develop a 

method to perform longer-term assessments of activities. Command 

officials also stated they did not know whether projects such as 

reconstructing a school would have a sustainable effect on the community 

and State officials added that the command's efforts to support U.S. 

22000 considers information about the results of the assessments to be sensitive. 

23GAO, Defense Management: Improved Planning, Training, and Interagency 

Collaboration Could Strengthen DOD's Efforts in Africa, GAO-10-794 (Washington, D.C.: 

July 28, 2010). 

Page 15 GAO-13-335T 
82 

embassies by augmenting or broadening existing public-diplomacy efforts 

were not being assessed. While long-term evaluation can be difficult to 

achieve, particularly the ability to link an action to a desired effect, we 

noted it nonetheless remains important for the command to have some 

performance measures. Therefore, we recommended that U.S. Africa 

Command conduct long-term assessments of the full range of its activities 

to determine whether the activities are having their intended effects and 

supporting the Command's mission. In a 2012 follow up to our 

recommendation, the command stated that it has conducted nationwide 

polling and stakeholder interviews across several African countries to 

develop a baseline against which progress can be measured. For 

example, the command asked how participants viewed their nation's 

military and how they felt toward international cooperation in military 

training and peacekeeping in Africa. However, U.S. Africa Command still 

needs to take steps to develop metrics and indicators in order to conduct 

more thorough assessments. Until the long-term assessments of its 

activities are completed, U.S. Africa Command may have difficulty making 

successful future planning decisions and allocating resources to 

maximize its effect in Africa. 

More recently, in 2012, we found that because the National Guard's State 

Partnership Program did not have agreed-upon goals or metrics, it could 

not assess progress. 24 National Guard Bureau officials acknowledged that 

once they update program goals and objectives, they will need to develop 

metrics to measure results of the program. The officials are working with 

experts from other organizations and have begun to develop metrics for 

the program. However, they indicated that due to the relationship-building 

nature of the program, it is difficult to establish appropriate metrics that 

capture the effects of the program. We recommended that the department 

complete and implement the program's comprehensive oversight 

framework by using the goals, objectives, and metrics currently being 

developed. In the December 2012 DOD instruction, the department 

directed the alignment of State Partnership Program activities with 

combatant commanders' theater security cooperation program objectives, 

as well as with the objectives of the U.S. embassies and national security 

objectives of the partner nations. This is a positive step; however, goals, 

objectives, or metrics specific to the State Partnership Program still need 

to be completed. Such goals, objectives, and metrics would form the 

?4GAO-12-548. 

Page 16 GAO·13·335T 
83 

foundation for a comprehensive oversight framework and, until they are 

put into place, DOD cannot fully assess whether the program is an 

effective and efficient use of resources. 

In addition, our work on counternarcotics efforts has found challenges 

with the reliability of performance data. For example, our 2012 review of 

the Andean countries" found that although DOD is working to improve its 

counternarcotics performance measurement system, the department's 

Inspector General has been unable to attest to the reliability of the 

performance data from 2007 through 2011, as required by the Office of 

National Drug Control Policy.26 We previously reported that DOD had 

established performance measures for its counternarcotics activities, 

such as percentage of tasked counternarcotics missions flown, the 

number of partner nation law enforcement agencies engaged, and the 

number of military working dog teams trained. 27 However, during our 

2012 review, we found that the DOD Inspector General cited a number of 

reasons for not attesting to the reliability of DOD's performance data. One 

example was that DOD's 2008 performance report did not include 4 

consecutive years of data required for tracking improvements. Lacking 

these attestations from DOD, the Office of National Drug Control Policy 

has minimal assurance of the reliability of DOD's reporting on its 

estimated $956 million in counternarcotics assistance for those years. 

Without reliable information, the Office of National Drug Control Policy 

may be limited in its ability to carry out its responsibility for coordinating 

and overseeing implementation of the policies, goals, objectives, and 

priorities established by the national drug control program and to report to 

Congress on counternarcotics assistance provided by agencies under its 

purview. As a result, we recommended that the department submit its 

performance summary report along with the Inspector General's 

attestations of the reliability of the information reported to the National 

25The Andean region consists of five countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and 

Venezuela. 

2SGAO, Countemarcatics Assistance: U.S. Agencies Have Allotted BJ1lions in Andean 

Countries, but DOD Should Improve Its Reporting of Results, GAO-12-824 (Washington, 

D.C.: July 10, 2012). See also Office of National Drug Control Policy Circular, Drug 

Control Accounting (May 1, 2007) for data reliability requirements 

27GAO, Drug Control: DOD Needs to Improve Its Performance Measurement System to 

Better Manage and Oversee Its Countemarcotics Activities, GAO-10-835 (Washington, 

D.C.: July 21, 2010). 

Page 17 GAO·13·335T 
84 

Drug Control Policy office. DOD agreed with our recommendation but did 

not detail how it would address this recommendation. 

In conclusion, DOD's building partner capacity efforts encompass a broad 

range of security cooperation activities that focus on emphasizing existing 

alliances and expanding cooperation with emerging partners to ensure 

collective capability and capacity for securing common interests, as well 

as sharing the costs and responsibilities of global leadership.28 Given the 

recent emphasis on these efforts, it is vital to manage them effectively 

and efficiently. By setting clear goals and defining terminology, 

coordinating activities and sharing information, and sustaining efforts and 

evaluating progress, DOD can avoid confusion about the activities and 

help to assess their long-term impact. Effective management of current 

and future building partner capacity efforts will help DOD steward its 

resources to achieve its strategic priorities and provide Congress with the 

information it needs as it evaluates current programs and considers future 

funding levels. Moreover, effective management of these efforts will likely 

better position the U.S. government to respond to changing conditions 

and future uncertainties around the world. 

Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith, this concludes my prepared 

remarks. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have. 

For future information regarding this statement, please contact Janet A. 

St. Laurent at (202) 512-4300 or at stlaurentj@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs can be found on 

the last page of this statement. Key contributors to this statement are 

listed in appendix II. 

28 Sustaining U. S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, 

Page 18 GAO-13-33ST 
85 

Appendix I: Related GAO Products 

Security Assistance: DOD's Ongoing Reforms Address Some 

Challenges, but Additional Information Is Needed to Further Enhance 

Program Management. GAO-13-84. Washington, D.C.: 

November 16, 2012. 

Counternarcotics Assistance: U. S. Agencies Have Allotted Billions in 

Andean Countries, but DOD Should Improve Its Reporting of Results. 

GAO-12-S24. Washington, D.C.: July 10, 2012. 

State Partnership Program: Improved Oversight, Guidance, and Training 

Needed for National Guard's Efforts with Foreign Partners. GAO-12-548. 

Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2012. 

Security Force Assistance: Additional Actions Needed to Guide 

Geographic Combatant Command and Service Efforts. GAO-12-556. 

Washington, D.C.: May 10, 2012. 

Humanitarian and Development Assistance: Project Evaluations and 

Better Information Sharing Needed to Manage the Military's Efforts. 

GAO-12-359. Washington, D.C.: February 8, 2012. 

Defense Management: U.S. Southern Command Demonstrates 

Interagency Collaboration, but Its Haiti Disaster Response Revealed 

Challenges Conducting a Large Military Operation. GAO-10-S01. 

Washington, D.C.: July 28,2010. 

Defense Management: Improved Planning, Training, and Interagency 

Collaboration Could Strengthen DOD's Efforts in Africa. GAO-10-794. 

Washington, D.C.: July 28, 2010. 

Drug Control: DOD Needs to Improve Its Performance Measurement 

System to Better Manage and Oversee Its Counternarcotics Activities. 

GAO-10-835. Washington, D.C.: July 21,2010. 

Defense Management: DOD Needs to Determine the Future of Its Horn of 

Africa Task Force. GAO-10-504. Washington, D.C.: April 15, 2010. 

International Security: DOD and State Need to Improve Sustainment 

Planning and Monitoring and Evaluation for Section 1206 and 1207 

Assistance Programs. GAO-1 0-431. Washington, D.C.: April 15, 2010. 

Interagency Collaboration: Key Issues for Congressional Oversight of 

National Security Strategies, Organizations, Workforce, and Information 

Sharing. GAO-09-904SP. Washington, D.C.: September 25,2009. 

Page 19 GAO-13·33ST 
86 

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(351800) 

Janet A. SI. Laurent, (202) 512-4300 or stlaurentj@gao.gov. 

In addition to the contact name above, Charles Michael Johnson Jr., 

Director; John Pendleton, Director; Sharon Pickup, Director; Marie Mak, 

Assistant Director; James Michels, Assistant Director; Jennifer Andreone, 

Kathryn Bolduc, Katherine Forsyth, Simon Hirschfeld, Meghan Perez, 

Erika Prochaska, Steven Putansu, Jodie Sandel, Michael Simon, John 

Van Schaik, Erik Wilkins-McKee, and Nicole Willems made key 

contributions to this testimony. 
87 

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89 

Janet St. Laurent 

Managing Director, 

Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S. GAO 

Ms. Janet SI. Laurent is Managing Director of the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Defense 

Capabilities and Management team. Her primary responsibilities are to manage and testify on GAO's work 

related to defense issues including force structure, readiness, logistics, infrastructure, base closures, 

defense budgets, emerging threats, business transformation and military and civilian human capital issues. 

She has also led numerous reviews and testified on DOD's support to ongoing operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. In addition, she co-led GAO's first congreSSionally-mandated annual report on opportunities 

to reduce potential duplication in government programs, save tax dollars, and enhance revenue which was 

issued in March 2011. As co-leader of this effort, she provided testimony on cost-savings opportunities to 

the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in September 2010 and has partiCipated in 

numerous conferences and radio and television events. 

From 2003-2006, Ms SI. Laurent served as Director for Force Structure and Defense Planning in GAO's 

Defense Capabilities and Management team. Her principal duties included leading GAO's work on force 

structure, defense planning, strategic forces, and military transformation issues. Prior to August 2002, she 

served as an Assistant Director in the Defense Capabilities and Management team for 10 years. Ms. SI. 

Laurent joined GAO's Boston Regional Office in 1978 and also served in GAO's offices in New York City 

and Frankfurt, Germany where she conducted numerous evaluations of foreign aid, defense, energy and 

social programs. 

Ms. St. Laurent received a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College 

in 1999. She also holds a Master of Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship 

and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of 

Massachusetts. In 2001, she completed an executive leadership program at Harvard University. Ms St 

Laurent has received numerous GAO awards throughout her career and was a 2011 Samuel J Heyman 

Service to America award finalist. 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

FEBRUARY 14, 2013 

(93) 

1This figure reflects the amount notified to Congress for Section 1206 programs, not actual 

expenditures. In the course of executing the program, eight (8) FY2012 Section 1206 programs 

notified early in FY2012 resulted in savings. Savings from these programs were used to fund 

programs notified in the latter half of FY2012. 2The FY2012 Section 1206 appropriation was also used to fund the Transitional Authorities 

programs under Section 1207(n) for Yemen and East Africa, and the CLRA program for Uganda. 

DOD requested a reprogramming action to backfill the FY2012 Section 1206 appropriation to 

fund additional proposals submitted by the GCCs in FY2012; however, the request was not approved. 3The FY2012 Section 1206 appropriation was also used to fund the Transitional Authorities 

programs under Section 1207(n) for Yemen and East Africa, and the CLRA program for Uganda. 

DOD requested a reprogramming action to backfill the FY2012 Section 1206 appropriation to 

fund additional proposals submitted by the GCCs in FY2012; however, the request was not approved. 4The FY2012 Section 1206 appropriation was also used to fund the Transitional Authorities 

programs under Section 1207(n) for Yemen and East Africa, and the CLRA program for Uganda. 

DOD requested a reprogramming action to backfill the FY2012 Section 1206 appropriation to 

fund additional proposals submitted by the GCCs in FY2012; however, the request was not approved. 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO 

Secretary SHEEHAN. As required by section 1204 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (Public Law 112–239), the Department of Defense 

will provide on February 26, 2013, a copy of Department of Defense Instruction 

5111.20, ‘‘State Partnership Program,’’ dated December 14, 2012, the regulations required by subsection (a) of section 1210 of the National Defense Authorization Act 

for Fiscal Year 2010 (Public Law 111–84). 

Appropriate modifications have been made, and appropriate controls have been 

issued, to ensure the compliance of the State Partnership Program with section 

1341 of title 31, United States Code (commonly referred to as the ‘‘Anti-Deficiency 

Act’’). [See page 26.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LARSEN 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Total Fiscal Year 2012 BPC authority expenditures included: 

Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program ($32.77M); Defense Institution Reform 

Initiative ($12.8M); Global Train & Equip Program (including Section 1206 

($218.6M), 1 Section 1207(n) Yemen ($75M), 2 Section 1207(n) East Africa ($41.2M), 3

and Counter-Lord’s Resistance Army (CLRA) 1206 ($22.5M) 4); Humanitarian & 

Civic Assistance ($10.2M); International Counter-drug Program ($691.1M); Ministry 

of Defense Advisors Program ($11.5M); and Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster & 

Civic Aid ($117.4M). [See page 29.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Secretary SHEEHAN. The Department acknowledges shortfalls highlighted in the 

GAO report and the need for updated program goals, objectives, and oversight. As 

a result of the GAO report and concerns expressed by Congress, the Department 

published Department of Defense Instruction 5111.20, ‘‘State Partnership Program.’’ 

We believe this Instruction provides appropriate modifications to the program and 

that appropriate controls have been implemented to address those concerns. 

The Department sees the National Guard State Partnership Program (SPP) as a 

valuable tool in its security cooperation toolkit. Now with the new instruction in 

place, the Department is evaluating proposed legislation regarding the SPP. [See 

page 20.] 
94 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. ENYART 

Secretary SHEEHAN. On December 14, 2012, the Department of Defense issued 

Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 5111.20, ‘‘State Partnership Program,’’ 

in part to address the requirement in subsection 1210(a) of the National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Public Law 111–84), that the Secretary of 

Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall prescribe regulations regarding the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Defense to pay the costs 

incurred by the National Guard in conducting activities under the State Partnership 

Program. I will provide a copy of the DODI to Congress on February 26, 2013. [See 

page 31.] 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 14, 2013 

(97) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MCKEON 

Mr. MCKEON. Section 1206 was originally intended as a temporary authority. Almost 7 years later, the authority continues with no foreseeable end. Does the Department view 1206 as a permanent authority or as a temporary authority? Is the 

Department examining how 1206 activities could be incorporated into or executed 

under the GSCF? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. We view Section 1206 as a critical element of the DOD ‘‘tool 

kit’’ for responding to near-term and emerging counterterrorism and stability operations requirements identified by Geographic Combatant Commanders. The Global 

Security Contingency Fund (GSCF) authority is a 3-year pilot program with a 

broader scope, and we are in the early stages of assessing its effectiveness. Thus 

far, the multiple GSCF congressional notification and prior approval reprogramming 

requirements have proven inherently challenging, and it remains unknown the extent to which GSCF—as a shared authority with the Department of State—will address future DOD priorities that lack sufficient support within the Department of 

State. We will work closely with Congress and our State Department colleagues to 

improve the GSCF process throughout the pilot program. At the same time, we will 

continue to rely on the Section 1206 authority to increase capacity of partner nations to counter terrorist threats in North Africa, regional threats from Al Qaeda, 

and other emerging counterterrorism challenges. 

Mr. MCKEON. To what degree, and in what ways, are the current authorities governing U.S. counterterrorism assistance in sub-Saharan Africa sufficient to enable 

a strategic, effective, and transparent response that is appropriately scaled to the 

threat? What are the key challenges in providing counterterrorism capacity-building 

assistance to African partners? What changes to the relevant legislative authorities 

would you recommend, if any, to address these challenges? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. Existing authorities, such as Section 1206, allow the U.S. 

Government to provide certain counterterrorism (CT) capabilities to our foreign 

partners, which enables U.S. Africa Command to work effectively toward our Nation’s strategic goals in the region. The key challenge we have in developing CT capacity with African partners is in maintaining persistent, long-term engagement 

with them that endures political turmoil in the region. As we have experienced with 

certain West African partners over the past five years, all U.S. security assistance 

is normally suspended during internal political crisis. Section 1206 is a year-to-year, 

project-by-project authority; its effectiveness is particularly affected by such discontinuity. Legislation that allows greater flexibility to sustain critical partner relationships in these scenarios would expand policy options for long-term capacity 

building in fragile states, and improve our ability to counter transnational terrorist 

groups seeking to expand their safe havens. 

Mr. MCKEON. To what extent are host country officials involved in developing and 

evaluating the various BPC programs? For each BPC authority, could you please tell 

us at what point host nation officials are asked to participate and which officials 

do participate? What types of feedback do host nation officials provide, and how is 

it used to evaluate and develop lessons learned for BCP programs? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. We recognize that partner government buy-in is a critical 

component of developing and evaluating our Building Partner Capacity (BPC) programs. Host-nation engagement is among the first phases in security sector assistance planning, ensuring that DOD has adequately assessed partner capacity and capability and political will. We seek to ensure that the United States and the partner 

share common expectations for the use, sustainment, and evaluation of U.S. assistance. For each program, planning includes robust country team review, supported 

by senior defense official or security cooperation officer engagement with host nation 

officials. These engagements provide critical insights into the potential challenges 

a partner’s security forces may encounter toward integrating new capabilities into 

existing infrastructure and applying capabilities in ways that complement U.S. 

goals and objectives. Indeed, country team discussions with the host nation during 

the planning phase often identify potential shortfalls in host-nation absorptive capacity or gaps within defense institutions (e.g., resource management or human cap-
98 

ital management), which, when addressed, can ensure a better return on U.S. investments. 

Mr. MCKEON. To what extent, if at all, does DOD conduct follow-up monitoring 

to ensure that partner military assets provided under BPC authorities, both equipment and trained units, are being used in support of the U.S. national security objectives for which they were provided? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. As an example, and in part as the result of a 2010 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on Section 1206 that identified a need to 

perform assessments, we began a two-phase process in late 2010 to assess Section 

1206 programs. In the first phase, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) (SO/ 

LIC) commissioned RAND Corporation to survey the Section 1206 stakeholder community and identify possible sources of assessment data. In the second phase, OSD 

SO/LIC commissioned SAIC to develop an assessment framework for Section 1206 

programs and to conduct assessments in five countries. A joint U.S. GovernmentSAIC team conducted assessments in the Philippines, Georgia, Djibouti, Tunisia, 

and Poland last year. SAIC submitted the assessment framework report, individual 

country reports, implementation guidance, and an assessment handbook to OSD 

Policy. We shared these reports as well as an overview of the assessment framework 

and results with House and Senate staff in February 2013. 

DOD’s counternarcotics program measures partner nation progress towards desired Building Partner Capacity (BPC) end-states through frameworks that rely on 

explicit, objective, and observable demonstration of partners’ capabilities. These 

frameworks are documented in our standard operating procedures and are intrinsically linked to national strategic goals and DOD counternarcotics and global threats 

strategy. Performance data are collected annually or more frequently as required by 

the specific BPC initiative and operating environment. 

I would also note that the Department sought to establish a Security Cooperation 

Assessments Office. We recognize the importance of effective assessment, monitoring, and evaluation of our BPC programs. Thus, we were disappointed that this 

Committee acceded to the Senate Arms Services Committee requirement communicated in the 2012 Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2012 to not fund the 

Security Cooperation Assessments Office that would have been located within OSD 

SO/LIC. 

Mr. MCKEON. Recognizing that the BPC authorities were initially designed to respond to emerging threats, the list of BPC recipient countries has been fairly consistent from year to year, given ongoing terrorist threats in certain regions. What 

is the cost-benefit to being able to identify and budget BPC support for specific cases 

prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, and if so, would it be possible for DOD to 

submit proposed country- or region-specific programs in its annual budget requests, 

similar to the State Department’s annual foreign operations requests? 

Secretary SHEEHAN. DOD recognizes the utility of prior planning, and we try to 

apply this principle to our Building Partner Capacity (BPC) programs, as appropriate. As I mentioned in my Statement for the Record, through the work of Expeditionary Requirements Generation Teams, Geographic Combatant Commands, and 

country teams, we are working to become more anticipatory of partner requirements. However, prior planning is useful only to an extent, particularly when faced 

with certain complex threats. Agile BPC authorities help us realize U.S. defense objectives by being more responsive to cooperation opportunities with like-minded 

partners. For example, the Section 1206 authority provides DOD unique and critical 

flexibility to address emergent threats, allowing us to change course rapidly to tackle unforeseen security threats. When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up 

a plane on Christmas Day 2009, DOD was working on a Section 1206 program of 

assistance focused on other terrorist threats. We were able to shift priorities quickly 

and the next Section 1206 tranche of programs notified to Congress focused on 

Yemen and the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Maintaining flexibility to respond to urgent threats is key to successful execution of the 

Section 1206 program. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BARBER 

Mr. BARBER. Ms. St. Laurent, in May 2010, the President released an updated 

version of his National Security Strategy. The President’s strategy noted that American shoulders cannot continue to bear the burden of the challenges of the new century alone. Instead, we must increase our reliance on allies and partners to respond 

to global threats. To do so, requires that our allies possess the capability to respond 

to and counter these global threats. Building capacity with our allies and partners 

not only reduces the burden on our military but augments our foreign relations. 
99 

1GAO, Humanitarian and Development Assistance: Project Evaluations and Better Information Sharing Needed to Manage the Military’s Efforts, GAO–12–359 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 8, 

2012). 2GAO, International Security: DOD and State Need to Improve Sustainment Planning and 

Monitoring and Evaluation for Section 1206 and 1207 Assistance Programs, GAO–10–431 

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 15, 2010). 

While the State Department has led for the Nation in matters of foreign affairs, 

the Department of Defense has provided a substantial contribution to this effort. 

For instance, the Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Fighter Wing trains 25 of our 

allies on various aircraft. Through this mission, they build relationships and understanding with our allies, service member to service member. As we continue to build 

partner capacity and rely more heavily on partners and allies, the U.S. military by 

default plays a larger role in our Nation’s foreign relations. More to the point, the 

U.S. military has the ability to foster positive international relations separate from 

the Department of State. However, the Department of Defense relies on legislative 

authorities granted by this body to build partnership capacity. 

Ms. St. Laurent, what authorities need to be amended or granted to allow the Department of Defense to better facilitate foreign relations? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. The Department of Defense (DOD) conducts its efforts to build 

the capacity of foreign partner nations under a variety of authorities, and GAO’s 

prior work has found that additional congressional guidance for some programs 

could be provided to help clarify the scope of programs and DOD’s roles and responsibilities in performing partner capacity building activities. For example, GAO’s 

2012 report 1 on DOD’s humanitarian assistance efforts found that the legislation 

guiding DOD’s humanitarian assistance efforts does not provide detailed guidance 

on the Department’s role in performing these activities. Our report suggested that 

given the fiscally constrained environment and potential overlap in the types of 

peacetime, humanitarian, and development assistance activities being performed by 

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

DOD and other agencies involved in assistance efforts could benefit from additional 

direction from Congress. Specifically, our report recommended that Congress consider amending the legislation that supports the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, 

and Civic Aid (OHDACA) program to more specifically define DOD’s role in humanitarian assistance, taking into account the roles and similar types of efforts performed by the civilian agencies. In another example, our 2010 report 2 on DOD and 

the Department of State’s Section 1206 security assistance program—used to build 

the capacity of foreign military forces in order to conduct counterterrorism operations or support U.S. operations—found that there were uncertainties regarding 

what funds could be used to support sustainment of projects, which can affect the 

long-term impact and effectiveness of projects. We therefore recommended that 

DOD, in consultation with Department of State, seek additional guidance from Congress on what funding authorities could be used to sustain Section 1206 projects 

that DOD determines are effective at addressing specific terrorist or stabilization 

threats in high priority countries when partner nation funds are unavailable. As of 

December 2012, DOD had not obtained such guidance from Congress, according to 

officials from the Section 1206 program office. 

Mr. BARBER. Ms. St. Laurent, in your testimony you cited the need in building 

partner capacity to equip, advise, and assist host countries’ security forces in becoming more proficient at providing security to their populations and protecting their 

resources and territories. You also state that building the security capacity of partner nations is a key mission area for the Defense Department and a worldwide priority for the United States. 

A great example of this is the success of the Iron Dome missile program in Israel. 

Developed with the Israelis and funded by the United States, just a few months ago 

in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, this system showed its great 

promise and performed superbly. I believe it is a critical investment that needs to 

be fully funded and opportunities for co-production explored, so that we may continue our commitment and deliver a weapon system that will ensure the security, 

safety, and prosperity of Israel. As the Defense Department continues to emphasize 

building partner capacity, do you agree that the need for efficient and effective coordination with foreign partners, such as has been achieved thus far with Iron 

Dome, has become increasingly important to our defense strategy? And do you believe that the United States should continue investing in mutually beneficial relationships with our allies even in the face of our country’s fiscal challenges because 

of the long-term benefit to our global security? 

Ms. ST. LAURENT. GAO has often reported on the importance of efficient and effective coordination among U.S. entities and foreign partners. For example, in Novem-
100 

3GAO, Security Assistance: DOD’s Ongoing Reforms Address Some Challenges, but Additional 

Information Is Needed to Further Enhance Program Management, GAO–13–84 (Washington, 

D.C.: November 16, 2012). 4GAO, Iraq and Afghanistan: Security, Economic, and Governance Challenges to Rebuilding 

Efforts Should be Addressed in U.S. Strategies, GAO–09–476T (Washington, D.C.: March 25, 

2009). See also, GAO, Afghanistan Development: U.S. Efforts to Support Afghan Water Sector 

Increasing, but Improvements Needed in Planning and Coordination, GAO–11–138 (Washington, 

D.C.: November 15, 2010). 5GAO–09–476T. 

ber 2012, we reported that DOD efforts to provide timely security assistance to foreign partners were affected by communication and coordination issues. 3 Specifically, 

DOD security cooperation officials we interviewed reported that a lack of information on security assistance shipment tracking resulted in problems such as delayed 

assistance, increased costs, or negative effects on their ability to keep partner countries informed about the progress of the assistance agreements. We concluded that 

this lack of timely and accurate information on security assistance agreement and 

delivery status could delay assistance, impact the costs of fielding equipment and 

training, and may adversely affect U.S. relationships with partner countries. Over 

the last several years, we have also reported on the importance of aligning U.S. development objectives with U.S. national security goals and foreign partner objectives 

in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. 4 For example, we noted that the roles, responsibilities, commitments, and activities of all the organizations involved in these 

countries, including the host governments, should be clearly defined and coordinated 

to prioritize the spending of limited resources and avoid unnecessary duplication. 5

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