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Notes
1 Daniel Sukman, ‘The Institutional Level of War’, Strategy Bridge, 5 May 2016.
2 Ibid.
3 The criticism of the School of the Americas, for example, stems largely from the widespread human rights abuses by its graduates. See Lesley Gill, The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas (London: Duke University Press, 2004). Comparable criticism has recently been levelled at the British government over training to Saudi forces. See Aaron Merat, ‘“The Saudis Couldn't Do it Without us”: The UK’s True Role in Yemen’s Deadly War’, The Guardian, 18 June 2019.
4 White House, ‘Statement by the President on Syria’, 4 February 2012, <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/04/statement-president-syria>, accessed 31 August 2020; White House, ‘Remarks by President Obama to the United Nations General Assembly’, 28 September 2015, <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/28/remarks-president-obama-united-nations-general-assembly>, accessed 31 August 2020; BBC News, ‘Obama Tells UN: Syria's Assad Must Go’, 28 September 2015.
5 Muhammad Ali, ‘Syria: Arming the Rebels’, PBS Frontline, 27 May 2014.
6 Jakub Janovsky, ‘Seven Years of War — Documenting Syrian Rebel Use of Anti-Tank Guided Missiles’, Bellingcat, 4 May 2018.
7 Conflict Armament Research, ‘Weapons of the Islamic State: A Three-Year Investigation in Iraq and Syria’, 2017.
8 Faysal Itani, ‘The End of American Support for Syrian Rebels Was Inevitable’, The Atlantic, 21 July 2017.
9 Department of State, ‘The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS’, <https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/bureaus-and-offices-reporting-directly-to-the-secretary/the-global-coalition-to-defeat-isis/>, accessed 16 June 2020.
10 Department of State, ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, <https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/>, accessed 16 June 2020.
11 Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Tom Perry, ‘New Syrian Rebel Alliance Formed, Says Weapons on the Way’, Reuters, 12 October 2015.
12 Amnesty International, ‘Syria: US Ally's Razing of Villages Amounts to War Crimes’, 13 October 2015, <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/syria-us-allys-razing-of-villages-amounts-to-war-crimes/>, accessed 16 June 2020.
13 Philip Gordon and Amanda Sloat, ‘The Dangerous Unravelling of the US-Turkish Alliance’, Foreign Affairs, 10 January 2020.
14 William Michael Schmidli, ‘Institutionalizing Human Rights in US Foreign Policy: US-Argentine Relations, 1976–1980’, Diplomatic History (Vol. 35, No. 2, 2011), p. 353.
15 US Government Accountability Office, ‘US Assistance to Yemen: Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Food Aid and Assess Security Assistance’, Report to Congressional Committees, GA-13-310, 22 March 2013, p. 33.
16 A trend dating back to the Yemeni Civil War. See Helen Lackner, Yemen in Crisis: The Road to War (London: Saqi Books, 2017), p. 135; Gregory Johnsen, The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia (London: W W Norton & Co, 2013), pp. 44–45.
17 Jack Watling and Namir Shabibi, ‘Defining Remote Warfare: British Training and Assistance Programmes in Yemen, 2004–2015’, Oxford Research Group/Remote Control, 2018.
18 US military assistance and reimbursements reportedly amounted to $21 billion by 2001. See US Government Accountability Office, ‘Pakistan Assistance: Relatively Little of the $3 Billion in Requested Assistance Is Subject to State’s Certification of Pakistan’s Progress on Nonproliferation and Counterterrorism Issues’, GAO-11-786R, 19 July 2011.
19 Coll, Directorate S.
20 C Christine Fair, In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
21 Coll, Ghost Wars.
22 Sean MacFarland, remarks at the American Enterprise Institute, 18 March 2019, 00:46:00, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWHffWl0DUY>, accessed 17 June 2020.
23 Ronen Bergman, The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power (New York, NY: Free Press, 2008), pp. 51–90.
24 Afshon Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 102–09.
25 Michael Knights, ‘The Houthi War Machine: From Guerrilla War to State Capture’, CTC Sentinel (Vol. 11, No. 8, 2018), pp. 15–23.
26 Khamenei.ir, ‘Iran's Readiness to Arm Resistance Will Significantly Influence the Fight Against the Zionists’, 1 September 2019, <https://english.khamenei.ir/news/7007/Iran-s-readiness-to-arm-Resistance-will-significantly-influence>, accessed 18 June 2020.
27 Though this was stopped in 1977 with the election of Jimmy Carter. See William H Mott IV, United States Military Assistance: An Empirical Perspective (London: Greenwood Press, 2002), pp. 97–98; David M K Sheinin, Argentina and the United States: An Alliance Contained (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006), pp. 157–64.
28 Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands (London: Pan Macmillan, 2010), p. 223.
29 Anthony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2006), pp. 294–306.
30 Human Rights Watch, ‘Mali: Lawlessness, Abuses Imperil Population’, 14 April 2015.
31 Sidharth Kaushal, ‘Adoption Capacity Theory and Naval Doctrine’, in Donald Stoker and Michael McMaster (eds), Naval Advising and Assistance: History, Challenges and Analysis (Solihull: Helion & Co, 2017), pp. 54–62.
32 Jamie Dettmer, ‘Foreign Fighters in Syria and the Threat of Domestic Terrorism in Europe’, Middle East Institute, 1 July 2014.
33 Radin, Institution Building in Weak States, pp. 7–9.
34 Noel Tichy, Managing Strategic Change: Technical, Political, and Cultural Dynamics (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1983), p. 332.
35 Gwynne Dyer, War: A Commentary by Gwynne Dyer. Part Three: The Profession of Arms (National Film Board of Canada, 1982).
36 Anthony Cordesman, National Security in Saudi Arabia: Threats, Responses and Challenges (London: Praeger Security International, 2005), p. 203; Anthony Cordesman, presentation on Net Assessment at RUSI Missile Defence Conference 2020, London.
37 Zoltan Barany, ‘Military Officers in the Gulf: Career Trajectories and Determinants’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 2019, pp. 8–9.
38 Interview by Jack Watling with senior officer previously overseeing training to Saudi Forces, November 2019.
39 An incident related to the authors by a trainer, arising from exercises being conducted during daylight hours, November 2019.
40 Although exaggerated by the Houthis, Saudi forces have been consistently outfought. See Caleb Weiss, ‘Houthis Claim Major Operation Inside Saudi Arabia’, Long War Journal, 29 September 2019. Many incidents show failures of basic military competence, such as Saudi AH-64 pilots failing to employ appropriate tactics, teamwork, or technical countermeasures and being shot down by obsolete anti-aircraft systems.
41 An eye-witness account relayed to Jack Watling by a US Special Forces officer mentoring Saudi Forces on the southern border, December 2018.
42 Michael Knights and Connor Hinney, ‘Plugging the Gaps in Saudi Arabia’s Air Defences’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 25 September 2019.
43 Correspondence with senior US trainer to Saudi forces, September 2019; briefing by Israeli ballistic-missile defence analyst, London, February 2020.
44 David Roberts, ‘Bucking the Trend: The UAE and the Development of Military Capabilities in the Arab World’, Security Studies (Vol. 29, No. 2, 2020), pp. 301–34.
45 David Witty, ‘The Iraqi Counterterrorism Service’, Brookings Institution, 2016.
46 Watling and Shabibi, ‘Defining Remote Warfare’.
47 Peter W Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (London: Cornell University Press, 2008), pp. 126–27.
48 Youssef H Aboul-Enein (ed.), Reconstructing a Shattered Egyptian Army: War Minister Gen. Mahamed Fawzi’s Memoirs, 1967–1971 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2014).
49 Philip Taubman, ‘US Plans to Train Salvador Soldiers at Honduran Base’, New York Times, 27 May 1983.
50 Pollack, Armies of Sand, pp. 275–308.
51 Humeyra Pamuk, ‘At Height of Turkish Coup Bid, Rebel Jets had Erdogan's Plane in Their Sights’, Reuters, 17 July 2016; David Axe, ‘As a Coup Raged in 2016, Turkish Air Force F-4 Phantom Crews Remained Loyal to the President’, National Interest, 1 April 2020.
52 Tim Arango and Ceylan Yeginsu, ‘Turks Can Agree on One Thing: U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup’, New York Times, 2 August 2016.
53 Robin Emmott, ‘Exclusive: Turkey Purges NATO Military Envoys After Failed Coup’, Reuters, 12 October 2016.
54 Mike Benitez and Aaron Stein, ‘The Post-Coup Purge of Turkey’s Air Force’, War on the Rocks, 19 September 2016.
55 Strachan and Harris, ‘The Utility of Military Force and Public Understanding in Today's Britain’, p. 14.
56 Liam Walpole and Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, ‘Britain’s Shadow Army: Policy Options for External Oversight of UK Special Forces’, Oxford Research Group/Remote Control, April 2018. Although written in relation to special forces – the utility of which may be contested – many of the methods outlined could have relevance in overseeing the logic behind capacity-building efforts.
57 As was risked in Niger. See Kyle Rempfer, ‘Two-Star General, Green Berets Punished for Deadly Niger Ambush that Killed 4 US Soldiers’, Army Times, 5 November 2018.
58 People tend to be more honest when not speaking their mother tongue. See Yoella Bereby-Meyer et al., ‘Honesty Speaks a Second Language’, TOPICS (Vol. 12, No. 2, 2020), pp. 632–43.
59 Interview by Jack Watling with a senior US official, formerly responsible for training South American forces, February 2018.
60 Interview by Jack Watling with a member of United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF), January 2019.