 Welcome to the U.S. Naval War College, the Navy's home of thought. NWC Talks features our world-class experts examining national security matters. We hope you enjoy the conversation. The National Security Affairs Department challenges College of Naval Command and Staff and Naval Staff College students to examine how combatant commanders use security cooperation to advance and defend U.S. interests and to develop the skills to support theater security cooperation planning. Although some students may have participated in these activities in previous assignments, or in the case of our international colleagues, benefited from either security cooperation or security assistance. Many are unfamiliar with the strategic foundations or how it can be used by theater or security decision makers. This episode aims to address this gap and build upon the basic uses of security cooperation known as its ABCs or access the building relationships and C building capacity. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Ross Coffey, a military professor in the National Security Affairs Department. And this episode will provide my thoughts on how combatant commands can well-use security cooperation. I'll start with a few examples of partner nation success resulting from American security cooperation in the U.S. African Command area of responsibility, examples that I believe are representative of the other combatant commands. A first example are the Senegalese battalions deployed to Mali, where they are regarded to operate consistently at or above the NATO standard. These units typically cite military-to-military exchanges with the U.S. Army, like this one in this 2016 picture as one of the most important contributors to their success. In 2018, and when asked how the contingent gains its effectiveness, it's out of these exchanges at U.S. training centers and American mobile training teams as the reason. In 2020, soldiers assigned to one of our security force assistance brigades identified that and I quote, our entire team was impressed from their knowledge from a partner standpoint and quote, further identifying the Senegalese as a very professional and knowledgeable force that was teaching the advisor team just as much as was provided to them. It's clear that the Senegalese have benefited from American security cooperation. A second example is the Ugandan People's Defense Force. It has been using aviation and ground maneuver capabilities provided by the U.S. government in response to security challenges in East Africa for several years. But in 2019, our Ugandan partners used its Huey helicopters like the one in this picture to rescue an American tourist kidnapped in Queen Elizabeth National Park. A third is the Nigerian Navy's recapture of the merchant vessel Maximus in South Japan waters in 2016. The pirates shown in this picture hijacked the vessel in the Hawaiian waters and planned to sell its diesel fuel on the black market. However, our partners were able to share the vessel's location as it sailed through the waters of six other countries. This begs the question, which was what was the United States' role in the Nigerian Navy's opposed boarding of the merchant vessel Maximus? The answer is that we had played an important and wide-ranging role. Up to that point, we had been assisting African nations improve maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea for the past 10 years. These improvements included capacity building of maritime capabilities, combined maritime law enforcement operations, and joint and combined exercises. At the regional level, a workshop co-sponsored by the US in 2015, the participants in this picture developed what was later adopted as the Hyundai Code of Conduct, as it's commonly known, by the African countries represented on this slide. It was under this framework that our African partners cooperated to track and seize the Maximus. With this understanding of the potential inherent insecurity cooperation, this brings us back to my original question of how combatant commands can effectively and efficiently use the tool. Well, I see three major ways. First, it's important to develop full-spectrum capabilities. To define the term full-spectrum capabilities, this is basically the combination of the elements shown on this diagram, and the layering of DOD's security cooperation authorities is a good place to start. At the base layer, the train and quip authority can be used to provide the weapons systems, supporting systems, and spare parts to the partner. This authority can also support the development of enablers, such as command and control and intelligence. The Mill-to-Mill Engagement Authority can be used to support information exchanges to enhance professional military education systems, recruiting and retention, and deployment management. The resident and non-resident advising authorities can and should be used to support the development of defense strategy, and the doctrine techniques and procedures to employ the capability. The educational authorities that allow for partner participation in programs like the state partnership program, the combating terrorism fellowship program, and the five regional centers for security studies can address elements of institutional support such as policy oversight, inter-agency governance, and public relations. And given legislative interest in assessment, monitoring, and evaluation, or AM&E, the authority for the joint force to train with friendly foreign countries can be used to measure partner capabilities as they approach maturation and determine how effective our efforts are. I'll touch more on this interest, which was codified and entered into public law through the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Major elements of that legislation are pictured here and include, one, the organization of authorities into the components as I just discussed, two, the formal assessment, monitoring, and evaluation in reports made publicly available, three, the requirement that the Secretary of Defense certify that the DOD has undertaken or will undertake an institutional capacity building program, or the requirement to submit a consolidated budget for the department's security cooperation efforts, and five, the necessity to either gain the concurrence of the Secretary of State or formally consult with the Secretary of the State, depending on the type of authority selected. This brings me to my second recommendation. Based on this interest, combat commands must also select feasible and aligned initiatives because it promotes efficient use of limited resources. Looking at feasibility, initiatives should address what you see here. They should ideally start from a measured baseline and changes from this baseline should be observable by the U.S. government. There should be a sustainable system to monitor progress. Activities should be sequenced in a logical way. Initiatives should account for the sustainment of the capability and logistical requirements to employ. Improvements to the supportive partner's organization, administrative oversight, and management competencies should be identified. Combat and commands must also be mindful of three other considerations, which are DOD-wide budgeting, global force management, and strategic lift. You'd be surprised how low execution of program dollars is, sometimes less than 50% at times during my previous assignment. It is challenging to align partner availability with that of DOD force providers and implementing partners, and with equipment production, transportation, and delivery timelines. This shows some of the challenges and implementation at levels below the combatant command and speaks to the importance of selecting feasible initiatives from the start. Recognizing the current national defense strategy that post-states the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, feasible initiatives should also be aligned to the NDS. This means initiatives should advance NDS implementation either through interoperability or support to contingency plans, or they should promote burden sharing and further the development of alliances and partnerships. Beyond the NDS, a second dimension of alignment involves our department of state colleagues. There are potentially two competing key points on DOD's security cooperation, the first of which is held by this combatant command and its theater strategy, and the second of which is held by the State Department's regional bureau's uncontrollable missions and their views on broader foreign policy objectives. The State Department also leads U.S. government efforts associated with human rights background checks commonly known as lehi vetting. Sometimes there are differences of opinion that result from these background checks as the global preservation of human rights may compete for immediacy and importance. The authorities in funding for security assistance programs like foreign military sales, international military education and training, and the peace community accounts are respectively granted to and managed by the Department of State, but the Department of Defense largely provides it with many forces and capabilities. These are about a few examples of possibly different perspectives held by U.S. government stakeholders. This second dimension of alignment brings us to my third and final recommendation, which is to submit efforts and initiatives within larger foreign policy goals. This is important to ensure these efforts contribute to either the advancement or defense of U.S. interests. Looking back at AM&E, the results of this created cooperation are challenging to quantify. At the level of qualification, if the world or parts of the world are becoming more unstable, or global competitors are gaining more influence, how could you possibly consider previous or current initiatives to be successful? Or what expectation should there be that future ones will also be successful? To answer these questions, a look back at the legislation concerning the State Department is important. As you recall, I mentioned the act required the Secretary of Defense to gain the concurrence of or consult with the Secretary of State. This concurrence is a good thing because I'd argue initiatives that account for security cooperation's ABCs, or access, building relationships, and building capacity, better meet foreign policy objectives and therefore add value beyond that of the DOD if we'd only pursued one aspect of ABCs. To point to a few examples, while it was posted in AFRICOM, first, the development of the Djiboutian Rapport and Invention Battalion, as shown in this picture, is viewed as a critical element of the country team's strategy and its foreign policy goal to strengthen security in the region. It also supports U.S. mission objectives to operate with maximum freedom in the region and to improve Djiboutian ability to respond to threats. Second, our support to the Kenyan Ranging Regiment dating back several years is supporting foreign policy objectives to enhance U.S. citizens' security and well-being and enhance Kenya's leading role in the region. A third example is the development of the Tunisian Armed Forces. This development is a centerpiece of the country team's strategy and development's range from large training and equip programs that provide air reconnaissance platforms and sophisticated border surveillance systems to Tunisian training at the Jordan Radius Training Center, as shown in this picture. The country team's first foreign policy goal is to establish Tunisia as a regional stabilizer and looking at the objective level, U.S. foreign policy values Tunisian participation in NATO missions. This points to how security cooperation can be used for geopolitical influence in North Africa and the Southern Mediterranean Sea. I'll finish by stating that not only do the examples in Djibouti, Kenya and Tunisia make good sense from a military and foreign policy perspective, they also reflect the legislative mandate stressing the importance of DOD and DOS concurrence. The same can be said for our partnerships in other geographic areas of responsibility. Considering Nigeria in the examples I discussed at the beginning, there's sometimes differences in perspectives between how the United States is a partner, you, a difference I'll illustrate for a recent State Department security assistance effort. Nigeria was for years seeking a light attack aviation capability in support of its counter-Boko Haram operations in its Northeast. Due to human rights concerns, however, members of the Senate Foreign License Committee effectively held up a foreign military sale of A-29 Super De Cano light attack aircraft in Nigeria like the one shown in this picture. Senators Corey Booker and Rand Paul stated in 2017, and I quote, we are concerned that the decision to proceed with the sale will empower the government to backtrack even further on its commitments to human rights, accountability and upholding international humanitarian law. End quote. After engagement with the partner and engagements with the committee and its professional staff members, it was concluded that expanding our military cooperation was important for our anti-corruption efforts within the Nigerian government and the sale moved forward. Throughout this process, I'd also add that the Department of Defense recognized a gap that could be made worse through single-domain improvements of the Nigerian Air Force, and we have since increased our efforts to build its air-ground integration capacity. These efforts are designed to reduce and ideally negate the possibility of civilian casualties and address the legislator's concerns. Looking back at this example, these differences in perspective represent the scope of national and international stakeholder interests, and those who will work for theater security decision makers at some point in the future should therefore account for these when using security cooperation. To wrap this up, Naval War Calls materials identify that security cooperation gives commands the ability to invigorate and expand regional networks of allies and partners, to effectively and efficiently use security cooperation. You should, one, build full-spectrum capability as provided in this graphic. Two, select feasible and aligned initiatives, as shown here, and three, cement security cooperation within larger foreign policy goals, like the examples provided for Djibouti, Kenya, and Tunisia. Thanks for your time listening to this recording, and as you consider security cooperation's ABCs, be confident that's advancing and defending our U.S. national interests.