Small footprint, small payoff: The military effectiveness of security force assistance

ABSTRACT

After 15 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many now see ‘small-footprint’ security force assistance (SFA) – training, advising and equipping allied militaries – as an alternative to large US ground-force commitments. Yet, its actual military efficacy has been little studied. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We find important limitations on SFA’s military utility, stemming from agency problems arising from systematic interest misalignment between the US and its typical partners. SFA’s achievable upper bound is modest and attainable only if US policy is intrusive and conditional, which it rarely is. For SFA, small footprints will usually mean small payoffs.

KEYWORDS:

• Military effectiveness
• strategy
• defense policy
• military assistance
• training
• advising
• allies

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Alexei Abrahams, Mark Bell, Eli Berman, Daniel Byman, James Dobbins, Jeffrey Friedman, Esteban Klor, David Laitin, Michael McNerney, Gerard Padró i Miquel, Angela O’Mahony, Stacie Pettyjohn, Jacob Shapiro, Oliver Vanden Eynde, the members of the GW Institute for Security and Conflict Studies Research-in-Progress seminar series, the University of Michigan Ford Security Seminar, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Civil Wars and International Order Project for helpful comments on earlier versions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ We thus define SFA more broadly than does the US Government, which distinguishes between what it calls SFA and similar activities such as security cooperation, security assistance, security sector assistance, foreign internal defense (FID) and building partner capacity: Taylor P. White, ‘Security Cooperation: How It All Fits Together’ Joint Forces Quarterly, 72/1 (2014), 106–8. In particular, our definition includes, but is not limited to, the mission of training indigenous government forces in the context of foreign internal defense – as we emphasize below, SFA in our definition can occur in a wide variety of settings including, but not limited to, FID. (FID is related to, but not identical to, SFA and will normally include SFA in addition to other activities such as interagency economic development aid or rule-of-law assistance not received by the host nation armed forces, inter alia). In principle, either SFA or FID can be conducted by either conventional or special operations forces, though SFA is sometimes seen chiefly as the domain of the former and FID as chiefly the domain of the latter. Note that in our usage, SFA missions span the range from tiny deployments of a dozen trainers to massive efforts as in Vietnam or Iraq. This broad definition enables us to assess the role of size and scope for effectiveness: many see smaller as better in SFA; this view can only be assessed if a range from small to large is examined.

² The White House, Fact Sheet: Strategy to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), 10 Sept. 2014; Tanya Somanader, ‘President Obama Provides an Update on Our Strategy to Degrade and Destroy ISIL,’ The White House (blog), 6 July 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/07/06/president-obama-provides-update-our-strategy-degrade-and-destroy-isil.

³ Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, RL30588 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 27 Apr. 2015), 25–6.

⁴ W.J. Hennigan and Paul Richter, ‘Defense chief nominee Ashton Carter, unlike Obama, backs arming Ukraine,’ Los Angeles Times, 4 February 2015, http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-defense-nominee-ashton-carter-20150204-story.html#page=1.

⁵ US Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21^st Century Defense (Washington DC: GPO, January 2012), 6; Remarks by the President at the United States Military Academy Commencement Ceremony, 28 May 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/28/remarks-president-united-states-military-academy-commencement-ceremony; Eric Schmitt, ‘U.S. Strategy to Fight Terrorism Increasingly Uses Proxies,’ New York Times, 29 May 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/world/africa/us-strategy-to-fight-terrorism-increasingly-uses-proxies.html?_r=0; idem, ‘U.S. Training Elite Antiterror Troops in Four African Nations,’ New York Times, 26 May 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/world/africa/us-trains-african-commandos-to-fight-terrorism.html; U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington DC: GPO 2014), vii; The White House, National Security Strategy (Washington DC: GPO February 2015), 9; Susan B. Epstein and K. Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance, R41856 (Washington DC: GPO 1 July 2013), 21–2.

⁶ See, e.g., Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Celeste Ward Gventer, Stephanie Pezard and Laurence Smallman, Lessons from U.S. Allies in Security Cooperation with Third Countries: The Cases of Australia, France, and the United Kingdom, TR-972-AF (Santa Monica: RAND 2011); NATO, Media Backgrounder: Afghan National Security Forces, October 2013, http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2013_10/20131018_131022-MediaBackgrounder_ANSF_en.pdf; Austin Long, Stephanie Pezard, Bryce Loidolt, Todd Helmus, Locals Rule: Historical Lessons for Creating Local Defense Forces for Afghanistan and Beyond, MG-1232-CFSOCC-A (Santa Monica: RAND 2012), ch. 7; Kenneth Katzman, Iran, Gulf Security, and U.S. Policy, RL32048 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 28 May 2015), 33–4; ‘Saudi-backed Yemeni Troops, Local Militias Gain Control of Aden, Military Officials Say,’ Washington Post, 23 July 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2015/07/23/af6ff4ee-317b-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html; David M. Herszenhorn and Peter Baker, ‘Russia Steps Up Help for Rebels in Ukraine War,’ New York Times, 25 July 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/world/europe/russian-artillery-fires-into-ukraine-kiev-says.html; Reuters, ‘U.S. Says Rwanda Aids Congo Rebels,’ New York Times, 23 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/world/africa/us-says-rwanda-aids-congo-rebels.html.

⁷ Patrick M. Regan, ‘Third Party Interventions in Intrastate Conflict,’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 46/1 (February 2002), 55–73, counting observations where the variable ‘military’ was coded as 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.

⁸ Even in Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan, where over 100,000 American troops were waging an ongoing war, the purpose of SFA was to reduce the scale of US deployments needed by training the host nation’s forces to shoulder more of the burden themselves; without SFA to create, train and equip an Iraqi, South Vietnamese or Afghan army, the US troop requirements in these theaters would have been much larger still, and in each theater, the intent was to enable US forces to drawn down as the host’s military capability improved. As President George W. Bush put it in 2005, ‘as the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down’ – or as Richard Nixon said in 1969, ‘as South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.’ See ‘Transcript, Bush Speech,’ Financial Times, 30 Nov. 2005 (https://www.ft.com/content/799de108-61f3-11da-8470-0000779e2340); Richard Nixon, speech delivered on national television, 3 Nov. 1969, as reprinted in George Katsiaficas, (ed.), Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views of the War (New York: Routledge 1992), doc. No. 33. We argue below that the determinants of success and failure, moreover, are similar across this range of situational contexts: they all pose common underlying principal–agent problems with similar underlying dynamics.

⁹ Suadad Al-Salhy and Tim Arango, ‘Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army Out of Mosul,’ New York Times, 10 June 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/militants-in-mosul.html?_r=0.

¹⁰ Joseph Goldstein, ‘Afghan Security Forces Struggle Just to Maintain Stalemate,’ New York Times, 22 July 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/asia/afghan-security-forces-struggle-just-to-maintain-stalemate.html?_r=0; Remarks by Special Inspector General John Sopko at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 13 May 2015, https://www.sigar.mil/newsroom/ReadFile.aspx?SSR=7&SubSSR=29&File=speeches/15/SIGAR_CSIS_Speech.html.

¹¹ K. Alan Kronstad, Pakistan-U.S. Relations: Issues for the 114th Congress​, R44034 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service; 14 May 2015); Austin Long, et al., Locals Rule, chap. 4.

¹² Our dependent variable is not victory or defeat but military effectiveness defined as proficiency: skill in the conduct of war. By this definition, it is possible for a skilled military to be defeated by a materially superior foe, and while combat outcomes can shed light on proficiency, skill and combat outcomes are separable. Hence, our dependent variable codings differ for two apparent stalemates – El Salvador and Korea – one which showed modest proficiency improvements with SFA (Salvador), the other of which displayed much greater improvements (Korea). On skill versus outcome definitions of military effectiveness, see, e.g., Caitlin Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2015), 4–8; Risa Brooks, ‘Introduction: The Impact of Culture, Society, Institutions, and International Forces on Military Effectiveness,’ in Risa Brooks and Elizabeth Stanley, (eds.), Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press 2007), 1–26; Stephen Biddle, ‘Military Effectiveness,’ in Robert Denemark et al., (eds.), The International Studies Encyclopedia (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2010), 5139–5156.

¹³ Few, for example, account for non-US SFA, confounding causal attribution; the literature also tends to be stronger in empirical observation than deductive theory construction. Among the most important of these studies are Department of Defense Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Simulation and Analysis Center, Security Force Assistance Skills and Capabilities Study (Washington DC: GPO 2010); Mara E. Karlin, ‘Training and Equipping Is Not Transforming: An Assessment of US Programs to Build Partner Militaries’ (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University 2012); Stephen Watts, Caroline Baxter, Molly Dunigan, and Christopher Rizzi, The Uses and Limits of Small-Scale Military Interventions, MG-1226-RC (Santa Monica: RAND 2012); Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, Beth Grill, Stephanie Young, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Joe Hogler, and Christine Leah, What Works Best When Building Partner Capacity and under What Circumstances?, MG-1253/1-OSD (Santa Monica: RAND 2013); Michael McNerney, Angela O’Mahony, Thomas S. Szayna, Derek Eaton, Caroline Baxter, Colin Clarke, Emma Davies, Michael McGee, Heather Peterson, Leslie Payne and Calin Trenkov-Wermuth, Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool, RR-350-A (Santa Monica: RAND 2014). Walter C. Ladwig III, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency: US Involvement in El Salvador’s Civil War, 1979–92,’ International Security, 41/1 (Summer 2016), 99–146 adopts a principal–agent lens similar to ours but focuses on counterinsurgency per se rather than the broader issue of SFA as a whole (note that we treat SFA in conventional, as well as counterinsurgent, warfare), with particular emphasis on the Salvador case. Daniel Byman, ‘Friends Like These: Counterinsurgency and the War on Terrorism,’ International Security, 31/2 (Fall 2006), 79–115 similarly adopts a principal–agent framework, but like Ladwig does not focus on SFA per se and does not attempt to distinguish preconditions needed for success and failure.

¹⁴ Our cases thus involve state recipients, but our theory’s logic also applies to many non-state recipients, such as Iraqi Kurds or the Free Syrian Army; our argument is not limited to states.

¹⁵ See, e.g., John Ferejohn and Charles Shipan, ‘Congressional Influence on Bureaucracy,’ Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 6 (1990), 1–43; Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991); Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, ‘Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms,’ American Journal of Political Science, 28/1 (1984), 165–79; Mark Pollack, ‘Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting in the European Community,’ International Organization, 51/1 (1997), 99–134; Daniel L. Nielson and Michael Tierney, ‘Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform,’ International Organization, 57/2 (2003), 241–76; George W. Downs and David M. Rocke, ‘Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection: The Principal-Agent Problem Goes to War,’ American Journal of Political Science, 38/2 (May, 1994), 362–380; Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2003); Idean Salehyan, ‘The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,’ Journal of Conflict Resolution, 54/3 (2010), 493–515.

¹⁶ Note that ‘adverse selection’ in principal–agent theory does not mean that the principal is always free to choose, or select, an agent. On the contrary, the concept of adverse selection refers to the problem of principals being unable to choose an agent who is highly qualified. In economics, this is typically because the principal’s offer is most attractive to the least-qualified agent, encouraging better qualified agents to exit the market until offers improve. In SFA, this is because only flawed agents enter the ‘market’ for assistance: stable, legitimate, institutionally mature governments rarely suffer from insurgencies, or terrorist basing, or the kind of domestic unrest that invites foreign predation threats – hence, they are rarely candidates for US SFA in the first place. If SFA is under consideration, it is typically because the agent is flawed – which limits US freedom to choose ideal agents. This is particularly so for wartime SFA in counterinsurgencies such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam. In such wars, the agent is, necessarily, the threatened government the US wishes to preserve. The fact that they are suffering insurgencies means that they are likely to be deeply flawed – but the US is rarely free to choose some better qualified local ally than the threatened regime, as the point of the war is to preserve the regime. (On occasion, the US has tried to create an alternative ally via coup, as it did with Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam, but this hardly enabled the selection of a legitimate successor.) The central problem of adverse selection in SFA is thus the principal’s inability to select an ideal agent. But like interest misalignment, adverse selection’s effects vary in magnitude from case to case. Some insurgent-threatened regimes are worse than others; below, we argue that the US should try, where possible, to avoid assisting the worst agents by staying out of such wars altogether. But the word ‘selection’ in adverse selection should not be taken to mean that the US has unconstrained freedom of choice among a diverse marketplace of candidate agents.

¹⁷ For more detailed treatments of PA theory, see, e.g., Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort, The Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002); Gary J. Miller, ‘The Political Evolution of Principal-Agent Models,’ Annual Review of Political Science, 8 (2005), 203–25; Susan Shapiro, ‘Agency Theory,’ Annual Review of Sociology, 31 (2005), 263–84; Kathleen Eisenhardt, ‘Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review,’ Academy of Management Review, 14/1 (January 1989), 57–74. Note that in the economics literature, ‘adverse selection’ normally requires that the principal not know the agent’s type (i.e., whether the agent is diligent or not); in our analysis, the principal can know the agent’s type and still be subject to adverse selection because the principal has a limited range of agents from which to choose in meeting a given threat, and all of the potential agents will often present major interest misalignments with the principal.

¹⁸ Below, we apply this logic to SFA informally, but formalizations of PA theory can readily be adapted to SFA. For an introduction to formal PA theory see, e.g., Laffont and Martimort, The Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model. For a formal PA model of SFA, see Eli Berman, et al., ‘Deterrence with Proxies,’ in progress.

¹⁹ Michael J. Lyons, World War II: A Short History, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 1999), 185–8; Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (New York: Holt 2002), 11–14.

²⁰ Steven Erlanger, ‘France and Britain Lead Military Push on Libya,’ New York Times, 18 Mar. 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/africa/19europe.html; James Kitfield, ‘Obama: The Reluctant Warrior on Libya,’ The Atlantic, 18 Mar. 2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/obama-the-reluctant-warrior-on-libya/72678/; Patrick Hennessy, Philip Sherwell, and Andrew Gilligan, ‘Barack Obama’s State Visit to Britain Hit by Splits Over Libya,’ The Telegraph, 21 May 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8528195/Barack-Obamas-state-visit-to-Britain-hit-by-splits-over-Libya.html.

²¹ These figures are based on cumulative spending on: Foreign Military Financing, the Military Assistance Program, ‘Section 1206,’ International Military Education and Training, and Excess Defense Articles. The data are a subset of those used in Michael McNerney, et al., Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool, and were derived from the US Agency for International Development ‘Greenbook.’ See also Stephen Watts, Jason H. Campbell, Patrick B. Johnston, Sameer Lalwani, Sarah H. Bana, Countering Others’ Insurgencies: Understanding U.S. Small-Footprint Interventions in Local Context, RR-513-SRF (Santa Monica: RAND 2014), 173. On Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban, see, e.g., Kronstadt, Pakistan-U.S. Relations, 7–8; on ethnic cleansing in Sudan, see, e.g., Ted Dagne, Sudan: The Crisis in Darfur and Status of the North-South Peace Agreement (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, 15 June 2011), 23–4; on the nationality of foreign fighters in ISIL, see Aaron Y. Zelin, ICSR Insight: Up to 11,000 foreign fighters in Syria; steep rise among Western Europeans, International Center for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, Dec. 2013, http://icsr.info/2013/12/icsr-insight-11000-foreign-fighters-syria-steep-rise-among-western-europeans/ (assuming the report’s ‘high estimate’; if the report’s ‘low estimate’ was used, then four of the top six states would be among the top 15 recipients of US SFA); on Afghanistan, see Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2014, http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results.

²² Patricia L. Sullivan, Brock F. Tessman, and Xiaojun Li, ‘U.S. Military Aid and Recipient State Cooperation,’ Foreign Policy Analysis, 7 (2011), 275–294.

²³ The Spearman’s Rho is −0.14 with a p value of 0.09. This calculation assumes the 15 countries in NATO at the end of the Cold War received essentially no SFA from the US from 2000 to 2010. A proxy measure for SFA was derived from data used in Michael McNerney, et al., Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool; corruption was measured using the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, available at http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/. The Stata code used is available from the authors upon request.

²⁴ Note, again, that the word ‘selection’ does not imply freedom to choose an ideal agent, but in fact the opposite. On adverse selection in counterinsurgency, see Byman, ‘Friends Like These,’ 99–109.

²⁵ Douglas North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (New York: Cambridge University Press 2009), e.g., 20. For a similar analysis, see Stephen David, Choosing Sides: Alignment and Realignment in the Third World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1991).

²⁶ See, e.g., Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle, ‘Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 19/2 (June 1996), 171–212; Risa Brooks, Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes (New York: Oxford University Press 1998); James Quinlivan, ‘Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East,’ International Security, 24/2 (1999), 131–65; Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army, 15–18; Eliot Cohen, ‘Distant Battles: Modern War in the Third World,’ International Security, 10/4 (Spring 1986), 143–171.

²⁷ On the distinction between internal and external threats and its role in regime decision making, see also Michael Desch, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2001); David Edelstein, ‘Occupational Hazards: Why Military Occupations Succeed or Fail,’ International Security, 29/1 (Summer 2004), 49–91; Biddle and Zirkle, ‘Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,’; Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army, ch. 1.

²⁸ Cf. Andrew Boutton, ‘U.S. Foreign Aid, Interstate Rivalry, and Incentives for Counterterrorism Cooperation,’ Journal of Peace Research, 51/6 (2014), 741-754, which argues that US aid recipients prefer to arm against external rivals whereas the US prefers the opposite. Often, however, the recipients’ nominal interest in arming against foreign rivals actually serves the internal interest of placating a domestic military that benefits from this, as in Pakistan: see, e.g., Azeem Ibrahim, ‘How America is Funding Corruption in Pakistan,’ Foreign Policy, 11 August 2009; Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (London: Pluto Press 2007). Our usage of internal and external is relative to the government itself: internal threats are those posed to government actors by other factions within the government (e.g., the military or other rival elites); external threats are those outside it (e.g., insurgents or neighboring states).

²⁹ See, e.g., Feaver, Armed Servants, ch. 3.

³⁰ In many PA relationships, principals combat information asymmetries by sanctioning or rewarding agents based on outcomes rather than monitoring behavior directly: if the agent delivers a satisfactory product, the principal pays (and vice versa) whether the principal can observe the agent’s level of effort or not. In SFA, however, outcome-based monitoring faces major causal attribution challenges: if the agent fails in combat, is this because the agent is shirking or because war is uncertain and outcomes are influenced by a host of exogenous variables beyond the agent’s control? (Feaver, Armed Servants, ch. 3). We thus assume that to overcome information asymmetries in SFA requires direct monitoring of the agent’s behavior.

³¹ See, e.g., Daniel Markey, No Exit from Pakistan (New York: Cambridge University Press 2013), 2–4; Alex Rodriguez, ‘Afghans fear U.S. Drawdown will allow Taliban to regroup,’ Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2011; Dan Morse, ‘Former ‘Sons of Iraq’ Targeted by Insurgents after U.S. Pullout,’ Washington Post, 28 Jan. 2012.

³² An anonymous reviewer referred to this as ‘the paradox of SFA’ – if US interests are important enough to provide SFA, the local ally has an incentive to shirk on the assumption that the US will take up the slack rather than accept mission failure. In PA theoretic terms, this represents agency loss attributable to moral hazard on the part of the agent and is very similar to the problem of banks that were ‘too big to fail’ in the 2008–9 financial crisis and could thus accept risk on the assumption that they would be bailed out if the risky gambles failed.

³³ Both are forms of moral hazard, and both aggravate agency loss in SFA, but only the former is emphasized in most PA theoretical literature. (For an exception, see Miller, ‘The Political Evolution of Principal-Agent Models,’ 220–3). The authors thank Eli Berman and David Laitin for this insight.

³⁴ See, e.g., David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb, United States Special Operations Forces (New York: Columbia University Press 2007), 156, 195; Steven Metz, ‘New Challenges and Old Concepts: Understanding 21st Century Insurgency,’ Parameters, Winter 2007–8; David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009), 283; Austin Long, ‘Small Is Beautiful: The Counterterrorism Option in Afghanistan,’ Orbis, 54/2 (January 2010), 199–214; Carter Malkasian and J. Kael Weston, ‘War Downsized: How to Accomplish More with Less,’ Foreign Affairs, 91/2 (March/April 2012), 111–121; T. X. Hammes, ‘Counterinsurgency: Not a Strategy, But a Necessary Capability,’ Joint Force Quarterly, 65/2 (April 2012), 48–52; Howard Altman, ‘SOCOM’s Goal: Pre-empt Wars,’ The Tampa Tribune, 19 May 2013, http://www.tbo.com/list/macdill-air-force-base-news/socoms-goal-pre-empt-wars-b82486657z1.

³⁵ Department of the Army, FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency (Washington DC: US GPO, 2006), esp. ch. 6.

³⁶ For a partial list of such cases, see Regan’s data cited in ‘Third Party Interventions in Intrastate Conflict.’ As large as Regan’s enumeration is, it omits some cases that fit our definition of SFA and does not address our dependent variable. Other SFA datasets exclude non-US providers, risking downward bias on estimates of SFA effectiveness.

³⁷ Note that whereas SFA was the primary US military activity in El Salvador, SFA was only one of multiple US military missions ongoing in Iraq after 2003. SFA can occur in a variety of specific settings, and our examination of Iraq (and also Korea) is designed in part to shed light on a range of such contexts.

³⁸ This is a central argument of Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2004).

³⁹ US General Accounting Office, ‘El Salvador: Military Assistance Has Helped Counter but not Overcome the Insurgency,’ April 1991, 9; Karl R. DeRouen and Uk Heo (eds.), Civil Wars of the World: Major Conflicts Since World War II (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007), 344.

⁴⁰ Joint Department of State/Department of Defense Memo, ‘U.S. Military Trainers in El Salvador,’ 21 Sept. 1983, accession no. ES04255, Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University (DNSA); Robert D. Ramsey, Advising Indigenous Forces: American Advisors in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press 2006), 84; Richard Haggerty, El Salvador: A Country Study (Washington DC: Library of Congress 1990), 224, A.J. Bacevich et al., America Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador (Washington DC: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis 1988), 5; US General Accounting Office Report, ‘El Salvador: Extent of US Personnel in Country,’ 9 July 1990, 10–13. Not all analysts accept the 150 figure above: Haggerty, 226, e.g., argues that the 55-person cap was maintained throughout.

⁴¹ In fact, the 1984 Salvador mission still ranked in the 91st percentile of all US SFA as recently as 2009 (as measured by the sum of spending on Foreign Military Financing, the Military Assistance Program, ‘Section 1206,’ International Military Education and Training, and Excess Defense Articles; these data are a subset of those used in Michael McNerney, et al., Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool, and were derived from the US Agency for International Development ‘Greenbook’). On typical SFA mission size, see, e.g., Craig Whitlock, ‘U.S. Has Deployed Military Advisors to Somalia, Officials Say,’ Washington Post, 10 January 2014; Schmitt, ‘U.S. Training Elite Anti-terror Troops in Four African Nations.’.

⁴² Embassy San Salvador to Department of State, ‘Annual Integrated Assessment of Security Assistance for El Salvador,’ Telegram 011 May 4151, 1983, accession no. ES03993, DNSA; David H. Ucko, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador: The Lessons and Limits of the Indirect Approach,’ Small Wars & Insurgencies, 24/4 (2013), 671–672; William M. Leogrande. Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press 2000), 132; Benjamin C. Schwarz, American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and El Salvador: The Frustrations of Reform and Illusions of Nation Building (Santa Monica: RAND 1991), 9–10, 16, 44.

⁴³ Of course, no government is a unitary actor, and Salvadoran politics in this era featured rivalry between, inter alia, traditional landholding families (together with their military allies) and a rising urban business elite more open to American-backed reforms. See, e.g., LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 572–573; Mark Peceny and William D. Stanley, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ Politics and Society, 38/1 (2010), 83; Ladwig, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,’ 109–138. This rivalry made US preferences even riskier for the traditional plutocracy, consistent with our theory, but space constraints preclude an extended account here. We thus treat recipient political interests chiefly through the lens of the ruling agrarian plutocracy and its conflict of interest with the US. On the agent’s interests in El Salvador, see Ucko, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 673–74; Peceny and Stanley, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 72–73; Schwarz, American Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 59–62; US Central Intelligence Agency, ‘El Salvador: Managing the Military,’ 1 April 1988, accession no. EL00233, DNSA.

⁴⁴ Peceny and Stanley, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 73–75, 81–82; Schwarz, American Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 45–49.

⁴⁵ Critics of US policy often see American calls for reform in El Salvador as insincere efforts to conceal complicity with Salvadoran abuses: see, e.g., Mayra Gomez, Human Rights in Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua (New York NY: Routledge 2003), 123–24; William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since WWII (London: Zed Books 2003), 357–363. See also, LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that the underlying US interest was to resist Soviet influence, not to preserve plutocratic privilege per se, which implies a difference in priorities between the US and its ally. Unless all US officials valued Salvadoran plutocratic privilege as highly as the plutocrats themselves did, the result is some degree of interest divergence, as PA theory would expect, even if US motives were not pure.

⁴⁶ Ucko, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 688; Cecil E. Bailey, ‘OPATT: The US Army SF Advisers in El Salvador,’ Special Warfare 17/2 (2004), 24; Ramsey, Advising Indigenous Forces, 87–88, 96.

⁴⁷ US General Accounting Office, ‘El Salvador: Military Assistance Has Helped Counter but not Overcome the Insurgency,’ April 1991, 26–28; Haggerty, El Salvador: A Country Study, 224; Embassy San Salvador to Department of State, ‘Vice President Bush’s Meetings with Salvadoran Officials,’ Telegram 114 December 1567, 1983, accession no. EL00815, DNSA.

⁴⁸ Embassy San Salvador to Department of State, ‘Human Rights Under Cristiani – The First Year,’ Telegram 11 August 8338, 1990, accession no. EL01166, DNSA; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Military Commanders’ Resentment and Opposition to U.S. Government Pressure,’ 25 January 1984, document no. 0000049079, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room (CERR), 2.

⁴⁹ LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 265–7; Eric Rittinger, ‘Putting the Moral in “Moral Hazard”: Agency, Human Rights, and United States Foreign Security Force Development,’ Paper prepared for the APSA Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, 2012, SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2106748.

⁵⁰ Director of Central Intelligence, El Salvador: Government and Insurgent Prospects (Washington DC: Central Intelligence Agency 1989) Special National Intelligence Estimate, February 1989, 19; U.S. GAO, ‘El Salvador: Military Assistance Has Helped Counter but not Overcome the Insurgency,’ 24; Michael Childress, ‘The Effectiveness of U.S. Training Efforts in Internal Defense and Development: The Cases of El Salvador and Honduras,’ (Santa Monica: RAND 1995), 30; Ladwig, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,’ 132–133.

⁵¹ Peceny and Stanley, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 82–84; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 276–7; Ladwig, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,’ 123–124; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, ‘El Salvador’s Insurgents: Key Capabilities and Vulnerabilities,’ 5 May 1990, document no. 0000530672, CERR, iv.

⁵² Ucko, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 676; Hugh Byrne, El Salvador’s Civil War: A Study of Revolution (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1996), 149; Schwarz, American Counterinsurgency Doctrine.

⁵³ Ladwig, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,’ 139–141, 144–145; Ucko, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 676–77; Michael J. Hennelly, ‘US Policy in El Salvador: Creating Beauty or the Beast?’ Parameters, 231 (Spring 1993), 64; Embassy San Salvador to Department of State, ‘ESAF Compliance Unsatisfactory on Jesuit Investigation,’ Telegram 17 October 2056, 1990, accession no. EL01203, DNSA. As Schwarz put it in 1991, ‘One hundred and eight murders committed by a state’s armed forces and death squads connected to them is a record that no truly democratic and just society could tolerate …. To some degree, this reduction may arise from the adoption of a more discriminating, but no less chillingly effective, strategy for political killings and from the fact that because of past murders, there are simply fewer politically suspect persons alive and in El Salvador.’ (Schwarz, American Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 23, 37.) Abuses certainly fell, but US pressure never completely solved the problem.

⁵⁴ See, e.g., US Central Intelligence Agency, ‘El Salvador: Assessing the Impact of Rebel Surface-to-Air Missiles,’ 5 May 1991, document no. 0000808523, CERR; Ucko, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 676–77; Ramsey, Advising Indigenous Forces, 87; Peceny and Stanley, ‘Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,’ 84; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 572–573.

⁵⁵ Haggerty, El Salvador: A Country Study, 224.

⁵⁶ Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations since 9/11, RL33110 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 2014), 62.

⁵⁷ Catherine Dale, Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategies, Approaches, Results, and Issues for Congress, RL34387 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 2009), 67–8.

⁵⁸ US Government Accountability Office, ‘Stabilizing Iraq: DOD Cannot Ensure That U.S.-Funded Equipment Has Reached Iraqi Security Forces,’ (Washington DC: GAO 2007). Iraq also received equipment from its neighbors, including ground vehicles from Egypt, helicopters from the UAE and Russia, and armored vehicles from Jordan. See Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (New York: Vintage Books 2012), 107; Kenneth Katzman, Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights, (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 2014), 36.

⁵⁹ US National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (Washington DC: GPO November 2005), 3; Dale, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 31–2; Daniel Byman, ‘An Autopsy of the Iraq Debacle: Policy Failure or Bridge Too Far?’ Security Studies, 17/4 (2008), 603–14; Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War (Washington DC: Brookings 2007).

⁶⁰ Byman, ‘Autopsy of the Iraq Debacle,’ 603–14.

⁶¹ Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 144, 147, 184–5. See also James A. Baker, III, and Lee H. Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report (New York: Vintage Books 2006), 12.

⁶² Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 216, 228, 290–2, 334, 360–5, 440–2, 585, 591–2, 609–10, 675, 679–80, 682–3.

⁶³ Ibid., 361.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 228, 290–2, 384–6, 446–8. On the Awakening and its role in Iraq, see Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey Friedman and Jacob Shapiro, ‘Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?’ International Security, 37/1 (Summer 2012), 7–40; Austin Long, ‘The Anbar Awakening,’ Survival, 50/2 (April/May 2008), 67–94.

⁶⁵ Dale, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 67–8.

⁶⁶ Seth W. B. Folsom, In the Gray Area: A Marine Advisor Team at War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2010), 68.

⁶⁷ Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 365.

⁶⁸ Ben Connable, Military Intelligence Fusion for Complex Operations: A New Paradigm, OP-377-RC (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation 2012), 9–10; Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan (Washington DC: Center for a New American Security 2010), 21.

⁶⁹ US Army, Army Support to Security Cooperation, FM 3-22 (Washington DC: GPO 2013), 6-6; U.S. Army, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Special Forces, FM 31-20-3 (Washington DC: GPO 1994), I-3; U.S. Army and Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, table 6-5; see also U.S. Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance, Commander’s Handbook for Security Force Assistance (Washington DC: GPO 2008), 6, 40.

⁷⁰ Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon, ‘The Iraqi Army Was Crumbling Long Before Its Collapse, U.S. Officials Say,’ New York Times, 12 June 2014.

⁷¹ Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 60–1, 247, 486–7, 490–4; Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Books 2010), 62.

⁷² Quoted in Ricks, The Gamble, 283; see also Marisa Cochrane, The Battle for Basra (Washington DC: Institute for the Study of War 2008), 15; Richard Iron, ‘The Charge of the Knights,’ RUSI Journal 158/1 (2013); Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 474–5, 477–8.

⁷³ This does not mean the 2007 US ‘Surge’ accomplished nothing – it was necessary for a major reduction in violence by mid-2008: Biddle, Friedman, and Shapiro, ‘Testing the Surge,’ 7–40. But it did not create an effective ISF: Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Stand Up and Be Counted: The Continuing Challenge of Building Iraqi Security Forces, H.R. Rep (Washington DC: GPO 2007), 104–5.

⁷⁴ Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 146, 341, 542–3; Greg Jaffe, ‘An Iraqi General Faces Risk From Within His Ranks,’ The Wall Street Journal, 30 August 2007, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118843607054513040; Committee on Armed Services, Stand Up and Be Counted, 104.

⁷⁵ See, e.g., Baker and Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report, 9–10; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 146–9, 185–7.

⁷⁶ 25 March 2007, en route to a Joint Security Station in Khadamiya.

⁷⁷ Estimate based on iraqbodycount.org data. See also Hannah Fischer, Iraq Casualties: U.S. Military Forces and Iraqi Civilians, Police, and Security Forces (Washington DC: GPO 2010).

⁷⁸ Gen. James L. Jones, U.S. Marine Corps, chairman, The Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6 Sept. 2007), 9–10. The Commission saw the ISF as improving, but far from effective, in 2007; post-2007 experience displayed little of the improvement the Commission hoped for.

⁷⁹ On ISF cronyism, see, e.g., Dale, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 101.

⁸⁰ On ISF corruption, see, e.g., Stuart W. Bowen, Learning from Iraq: A Final Report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office [GPO] 2013), e.g., 95, 99; on death squad activity, see, e.g., Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 146–8, 185–7, 367, 542–3; Baker and Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report, 9–10.

⁸¹ Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘Iraq Military Situation Report’ Up-Front (blog), Brookings Institution, 14 June 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/06/14-iraq-military-situation-pollack; Yasir Abbas and Dan Trombly, ‘Inside the Collapse of the Iraqi Army’s 2nd Division,’ War on the Rocks (blog), 1 July 2014, http://warontherocks.com/2014/07/inside-the-collapse-of-the-iraqi-armys-2nd-division/.

⁸² Robert K. Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea: KMAG in Peace and War (Washington DC: US Army Center for Military History 1962), 48–50, 98.

⁸³ Steven L. Rearden, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The Formative Years 1947–50 (Washington DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense 1984), 264, 503; Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 101–03.

⁸⁴ Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 100.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 88–90.

⁸⁶ Ibid., 141; SIPRI Arms Transfer Database, ‘Transfer of major conventional weapons: sorted by supplier (United States). Deals with deliveries or orders made for year range 1950 to 1953.’ Available at: http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers.

⁸⁷ Bryan Gibby, ‘Fighting in a Korean War: The American Advisory Mission from 1946–53’ (PhD Diss., Ohio State University 2004), 309–310.

⁸⁸ Ramsey, Advising Indigenous Forces, 10; Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 160, 161, 178–9. Note that this manpower increase was accompanied by substantially increased financial costs, though separating SFA from the general war effort is extremely difficult. A 2008 CRS report comparing the costs of major US wars (focusing on military operations only) places Korea at 320 billion in USD2008: Stephen Daggett, ‘Costs of Major U.S. Wars,’ CRS Report to Congress RS224 July 2926, 2008.

⁸⁹ Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 180–81.

⁹⁰ Ibid., 185.

⁹¹ Jongnam Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers: The Americanization of the South Korean Army, 1945–1955’ (PhD Diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2006), 60–62; Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 9, 112–13; Allan Millett, ‘Understanding is Better than Remembering: The Korean War 1945–54,’ Dwight D. Eisenhower Lectures in War and Peace (Manhattan: Kansas State University 1997). Note that this American unwillingness to build more than a light, ‘constabulary’ military in the south was based on a failure to understand the gravity of the North Korean threat and created a ROKA that was ill-equipped for the conventional invasion in 1950; this surely reduced the ROKA’s ability to deter invasion. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight.

⁹² James F. Schnabel, United States Army in the Korean War: Policy and Direction – The First Year (Washington DC: Center for Military History 1992), 180, 182, 194.

⁹³ Schnabel, United States Armv in the Korean War, 353; Bryan Gibby, The Will to Win: American Military Advisors in Korea 1946–53 (Montgomery, AL: University of Alabama Press 2012), 175. Revised US objectives were articulated in spring 1951 in a document known as NSC 48/5. This acknowledged that the Chinese Communist forces’ entry into the Korean conflict made a military solution to the political question of Korean unification impossible and it called for a negotiated settlement and the eventual disengagement of the US from its military commitment in Korea.

⁹⁴ National Archives and Records Administration, College Park MD, henceforth NARA: Department of Defense Office of Public Information, Press Branch Fact Sheet on Military Assistance to the Republic of Korea, 6 July 1950. This document states clearly that ‘military assistance was provided by the US to the Republic of Korea to support a force designed to prevent border raids and to preserve internal security.’ See also Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers,’ 60–62. On reports of ROKA corruption, see NARA: US Military Advisory to the Republic of Korea, Office of the Chief, Semi-Annual Report Period Ending 31 December 1949, 3–4.

⁹⁵ The speed and scale of the post-invasion interest alignment between Rhee and the US were also facilitated by the historical US role in establishing the military government in Seoul following World War II, the prior US assistance in building the ROKA, the ongoing relationships these policies facilitated, and the ethnic homogeneity of South Korea (by contrast with the sectarian heterogeneity of Iraq) – though the invasion itself played an especially powerful role.

⁹⁶ On the campaign’s early phases, see Ramsey, Advising Indigenous Forces, 7–9; also Paul M. Edwards, Combat Operations of the Korean War (NC: McFarland and Company 2010); Center for Military History, ‘U.S. Army Campaigns: Korean War.’ Available at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/kw.html.

⁹⁷ Schnabel, United States Army in the Korean War, 180, 182, 194.

⁹⁸ Ramsey, ‘Advising Indigenous Forces,’ 8–9; Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers,’ 102–03; General Paik Sun Yup, From Pusan to Panmunjom (Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc 1999), 161. Rhee continued to push for a larger army and more equipment, resisting the US emphasis on professionalization and training through mid-1951. The ROKA’s continued poor performance in the face of North Korean and Chinese assaults in April and May 1951, however, provided renewed incentive for Rhee to cooperate with US demands for intensive training programs.

⁹⁹ Ramsey, ‘Advising Indigenous Forces,’ 10, 18–19.

¹⁰⁰ HQ Eighth US Army Korea (EUSAK), ‘Special Problems in the Korean Conflict,’ US Army Military History Research Collection (Carlisle PA: Army War College 1952), 8.

¹⁰¹ Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers,’ 65–66.

¹⁰² Ibid., 141–42.

¹⁰³ Gibby, ‘Fighting in a Korean War,’ 173–74. Note that these policies represent conditionality even under unusual interest alignment between the principal and the agent: interest alignment does not preclude conditionality, and conditionality is advisable under all but perfect interest alignment. Note also that the intrusiveness of US monitoring of ROKA behavior might have obtained even without SFA, given the scale of US interests in winning the war – we note the role intrusive monitoring played in SFA efficiency in this case, but we do not assume that the US monitored intrusively only because it was providing SFA. Note, finally, that the efficacy of US conditionality in Korea was improved by rigid ROK press censorship, which mitigated the danger of nationalist backlash from Koreans – and enabled the US military to threaten Rhee and his forces without undermining US domestic support for Rhee’s government. On wartime censorship in the ROK, see, e.g., Louise Williams and Roland Rich (eds.), Losing Control: Freedom of Press in Asia (Canberra, ANU Press 2000), 194–195; Bruce Cummings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York: W.W. Norton and Co. 2005), 347; Kyu Ho Youm, Press Law in South Korea (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press 1996), 46; Kyu Ho Youm, ‘Press Freedom under Constraints: The Case of South Korea,’ Asian Survey, 26/8 (Aug., 1986), 870.

¹⁰⁴ Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers,’ 159, 160–161.

¹⁰⁵ In exchange for economic and military aid, and the promise of a mutual defense treaty: Gibby, ‘Fighting in a Korean War,’ 291.

¹⁰⁶ Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers,’ 48, 52.

¹⁰⁷ Gibby, ‘Fighting in a Korean War,’ 106.

¹⁰⁸ Na, ‘Making Cold War Soldiers,’ 48–49; Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 134.

¹⁰⁹ NARA: US Military Advisory Group To the Republic of Korea, Semi-Annual Report 1949, 12–13.

¹¹⁰ NARA: US Military Advisory Group To the Republic of Korea, Semi-Annual Report 1 January 1950, Annex No. 9, Status of Training, 1st Korean Infantry Division.

¹¹¹ NARA: US Military Advisory Group To the Republic of Korea, Semi-Annual Report 1949, 2nd Bn, 17th Regiment, Korean Army 16 May 1949.

¹¹² NARA: Ibid., 17th Regiment, 7th Brigade, Korean Army 23 May 1949.

¹¹³ NARA: Ibid., 9th regiment, 7th Brigade, Korean Army 16 May 1949.

¹¹⁴ NARA: US Military Advisory Group To the Republic of Korea, Semi-Annual Report 1 January 1950, Annex No. 9, Status of Training, 1st Korean Infantry Division.

¹¹⁵ Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, 181.

¹¹⁶ Gibby, ‘Fighting in a Korean War,’ 243.

¹¹⁷ Ramsey, ‘Advising Indigenous Forces,’ 9.

¹¹⁸ Gibby, ‘Fighting in a Korean War,’ 288.

¹¹⁹ Ibid., 269–70.

¹²⁰ Richard W. Steward (ed.), American Military History Volume II: The US Army in a Global Era, 1917–2003 (Center of Military History, US Army, Washington DC 2005), 245.

¹²¹ KMAG Command Report, December 1952, Section I, 1. Quoted in Gibby, Will to Win, e-Reader location 4826.

¹²² Gibby, Will to Win, e-Reader location 4913.

¹²³ Alfred, H. Hausrath, Problems in the Development of a Local National Army Based on Experience with the Republic of Korea Army (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University 1956), 218. Quoted in Gibby, Will to Win, e-Reader location 4913.

¹²⁴ KMAG Command Report, December 1952, Section I, 1. Quoted in Gibby, Will to Win, e-Reader location 4821.

¹²⁵ Ramsey, ‘Advising Indigenous Forces,’ 9.

¹²⁶ For similar conclusions on the effectiveness of small footprints, see, e.g., Major Fernando M. Luján, Light Footprints: The Future of American Military Intervention (Washington DC: Center for a New American Security 2013); Watts, et al. The Uses and Limits of Small-Scale Military Interventions.

¹²⁷ In fact, if interests are perfectly aligned, then neither conditionality nor monitoring is needed – under such conditions, PA theory predicts zero agency losses even with unmonitored, wholly unconditional capacity building: see, e.g., Eli Berman and David Lake, eds., Proxy Wars: Suppressing Transnational Violence through Local Agents (forthcoming), ch. 1. This is a very rare special case, however. In the real world, adverse selection normally implies some degree of interest misalignment, as the case studies above and those in the Berman-Lake anthology suggest. Even in the Korean War, where US and allied interests were unusually similar, alignment was still imperfect and the US still benefited from both intrusive monitoring and conditionality.

¹²⁸ On corruption and the continued lack of civilian control over the security forces see, e.g., Thomas Lum and Ben Dolven, The Republic of the Philippines and U.S. Interests – 2014 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 2014), 2–4; Watts et al., Countering Others’ Insurgencies, 98–99. On US training of the Philippine special forces versus regular military see, e.g., Linda Robinson, Patrick B. Johnston, and Gillian S. Oak, U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Philippines, 2001–2014, RR-1236-OSD (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2016), xv–xvi, xxi, 40–41, 124. Reforms focused on small elites avoid the internal destabilization risk inherent in large-scale military professionalization in weakly institutionalized polities; elite forces small enough to be internally nonthreatening, however, are usually too small to defeat insurgent or terrorist groups big enough to be of central interest to US foreign policy – see, for example, the experience of South Vietnamese elites in the Second Indochina War, as analyzed in Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army, 71–138.

¹²⁹ Note, for example, the major improvement in Colombia’s standing in Transparency International’s annual corruption rankings between Uribe’s accession to power in 2002 and the conclusion of negotiations with the FARC in 2016: Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, available at http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/. On the effectiveness of US assistance before Uribe see, e.g., U.S. General Accounting Office, DRUG CONTROL: U.S. Assistance to Colombia Will Take Years to Produce Results, GAO-01-26 (Washington DC: General Accounting Office October 2000). On military reforms, Uribe, his agenda, and its effects, see, e.g., June S. Beittel, Colombia: Issues for Congress, RL32250 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, 23 April 2010), 4–5; Ann C. Mason, ‘National Security,’ in Colombia: A Country Study, (ed.), Rex A. Hudson, 5th ed. (Washington DC: Library of Congress Federal Research Division 2010), 283–364, 289.

¹³⁰ Stephen Biddle and Jacob Shapiro, ‘The Problem With Vows to “Defeat” the Islamic State,’ Atlantic Monthly, 21 Aug. 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/defeat-isis-containment/496682/.

¹³¹ For a more extensive discussion, see Stephen Biddle in ‘Review Symposium: The New US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual as Political Science and Political Praxis,’ Perspectives on Politics, 6/2 (June 2008), 347–350; Ladwig, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,’ 101–104.

¹³² See also Ladwig, ‘Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,’ 144.

¹³³ On Petraeus and Crocker’s use of conditionality, see, e.g., Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon and Schuster 2013), 263–4, 341; Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq (New York: Public Affairs 2008), 81, 156, 261, 331.

¹³⁴ On the importance of intelligence collection on one’s ally in COIN, see Byman, ‘Friends Like These,’ at 82, 112; Flynn, Pottinger, and Batchelor, Fixing Intel, 19–23.

¹³⁵ Jacob Shapiro and Oliver Vanden Eynde, ‘Suppression of Naxalites by State Governments,’ in Eli Berman et al., Deterrence with Proxies: Kickoff Meeting (powerpoint, 9 September 2014), slides 96–124.

¹³⁶ As we emphasize below, SFA will sometimes be the least-bad choice even so. And at other times, the US will be constrained to attempt it regardless of its prognosis, as was the case in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example. But there are also cases where intervention is a closer call, and where a stronger understanding of the real costs and benefits of SFA could lead decision makers to decline engagement. Either way, it is important to understand SFA’s real potential with as much fidelity as possible.

¹³⁷ See e.g., Seth Jones et al., Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes (Santa Monica: RAND 2006); William Rosenau, U.S. Internal Security Assistance to South Vietnam (Santa Monica: RAND 2007); Jordan Olmstead, ‘Fixing America’s Aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan,’ The Diplomat, 23 Dec. 2014; Gordon Adams and Richard Sokolsky, ‘Governance and Security Sector Assistance: The Missing Link – Parts I and II,’ Lawfare, July 12 and 19 July 2015; Michael Shank and Cassidy Regan, ‘Aid Gone Awry in Africa,’ U.S. News.com, 19 July 2013, https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/06/19/how-american-military-assistance-goes-wrong-in-africa. Rachel Bronson, Thicker than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006), 241–5; US Government Accountability Office, U.S. Assistance to Yemen: Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Emergency Food Aid and Assess Security Assistance, GAO-13–310 (Washington DC: Government Accountability Office 2013), 19–24.

¹³⁸ Many argue that US aid to Afghanistan, for example, has had such effects: see, e.g., Sarah Chayes, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (New York: Norton 2015); idem, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (New York: Penguin 2007 ed.).

¹³⁹ Kronstadt, Pakistan-U.S. Relations.

¹⁴⁰ Katzman, Iraq: Politics, Security, and U.S. Policy, 31.

¹⁴¹ ​Stuart W. Bowen, Learning from Iraq: A Final Report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, 9 July 2013; Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy.

¹⁴² Ukraine was ranked the most corrupt country in Europe, and the 38th most corrupt in the world, in Transparency International’s 2015 ranking of 168 states: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015. On its military effectiveness, see, e.g., James Hackett, “Crisis in Ukraine – Military Dimensions, International Institute for Strategic Studies: https://www.iiss.org/en/militarybalanceblog/blogsections/2014-3bea/march-f525/ukraine-military-0218.

¹⁴³ See, e.g., Ivo Daalder, ‘Now is the time to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine,’ Financial Times, 15 Jan. 2015; Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt, ‘U.S. Considers Supplying Arms to Ukraine Forces, Officials Say,’ New York Times, 1 Feb. 2015; Reuben Gzirian, ‘Ukraine’s Got a Real Army Now. But Is It Preparing to Fight the Last Battle?,’ Atlantic Council, 9 Feb. 2016: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/ukraine-s-got-a-real-army-now-but-is-it-preparing-to-fight-the-last-war.

¹⁴⁴ Christi Parsons and David Cloud, ‘Obama announces drawdown of forces from Afghanistan, saying “tide of war is receding,”’ Los Angeles Times, 22 June 2011; Julian E. Barnes, 'General Expects Marine Corps to Shrink Due to Sequester,' The Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2013, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324373204578374833950432610; Thom Shanker and Helene Cooper, 'Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level,' New York Times, 23 February 2014.

¹⁴⁵ In fact, this is now official US policy: U.S. Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership, 6.

¹⁴⁶ Some also emphasize SFA’s role in building relationships, which is held to promote democratization and crisis cooperation: see, e.g., United States Special Operations Command, SOCOM 2020 Strategy (Tampa FL: United States Special Operations Command 2013), Richard Rubright et al., The Role of the Global SOF Network in a Resource Constrained Environment (Tampa FL: JSOU Press 2013). A complete evaluation of this role is beyond our scope; for a more detailed assessment, see, e.g., McNerney et al., Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool; Paul et al., What Works Best when Building Partner Capacity and Under What Circumstances?; Sullivan et al., ‘U.S. Military Aid and Recipient State Cooperation.’

¹⁴⁷ As a study of a single option’s effectiveness, an analysis of SFA cannot in itself recommend policy for any given contingency. Even a weak option may be better than available alternatives; to recommend any given option in any given context thus requires a net evaluation of all options and their respective costs and benefits, not just SFA’s. But such a net evaluation requires a sound assessment of each option’s likely effects; the analysis above is necessary, though insufficient, to prescribe policy for specific contingencies.

¹⁴⁸ See e.g., William A. Orme, Jr., ‘Israel’s Buffer Strip in South Lebanon Collapsing,’ The New York Times, 23 May 2000; Ian Black, ‘Saudi to Spend Millions to Train New Rebel Force,’ The Guardian, 7 Nov., 2013; Tom Gallagher, The Balkans After the Cold War: From Tyranny to Tragedy (New York NY: Routledge 2003), 99.

Additional information

Funding

This analysis is based upon work supported by the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research: [Award No. N00014-14-1-0843].​​​​​​​​​​

Notes on contributors

Stephen Biddle

Stephen Biddle, the corresponding author, is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Julia Macdonald

Julia Macdonald is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House and an Assistant Professor at the University of Denver.

Ryan Baker

Ryan Baker is a PhD candidate at George Washington University. They can be reached at [email protected].