Grant aid to Egypt: the more things change...

On April 15 of this year, the president signed the spending bill (pdf) which kept the government from shutting down. Despite the ouster of Mubarak two months earlier, grant military assistance to Egypt remained the same as in past years: a $1.3 billion Foreign Military Financing (FMF) earmark, cash that expressly "shall be available for grants only for Egypt." That's consistent with the language of past years, and the dollar amount has held steady (pdf) since the late 1980s.

As you'll know if you pay attention to the news, we still don't have signed appropriations bills for 2012; there's another shutdown threat for the end of the week. In fact, there's not even any talk of a full-year spending bill at this stage in the game: the Congress is just trying to pass legislation to keep the lights on through the middle of November, when they'll have to take this up all over again. (The stopgap bill is currently being held up by disagreements over how to pay for something like $6 billion in disaster-relief funding, which makes perfect sense when you think about the fact that we're dealing with something like 0.2% of the damn budget.)

What we do have, though, is an FY 12 State Department and Foreign Operations spending bill (pdf) that's made it out of committee in the Senate, which is something, I guess. Language in that bill (especially where it's consistent with language in the draft of the House bill (pdf)) will probably make its way into whatever legislation ends up appropriating money for FY 2012, whenever that happens. Here's what's new:

[U]p to $1,300,000,000 shall be made available for grants only for Egypt, including for border security programs and activities in the Sinai: Provided further, That prior to the obligation of funds appropriated under this heading for assistance for Egypt, the Secretary of State shall certify to the Committees on Appropriations that the Governments of the United States and Egypt have agreed upon the specific uses of such funds, that such funds further the national interests of the United States in Egypt and the region, and that the Government of Egypt has held free and fair elections and is implementing policies to protect the rights of journalists, due process, and freedoms of expression and association [p. 49 of the pdf]

(The House draft merely states that funds will be made available "with the expectation that the Egyptian military will continue to adhere to and implement its international obligations, particularly the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty," which is also taken up later in the Senate bill. Of course, the SecState can waive that provision if deemed "important to the national interests of the United States," so there's that.)

Beyond the requirement for democratic and liberalizing reform, the certification provision is in there to make it clear that the post-Mubarak government can't suddenly re-imagine its military priorities and redesignate funds they'd previously committed to spend on U.S.-approved goods and services. It's not much for advocates of conditioned aid to latch on to, but it's more than the basically un-caveated aid written into previous spending bills. (All grant assistance is bound by the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act, of course, which does require adherence to certain human rights standards, &c.)

Here's the bottom line: the money is still going to flow, whatever happens in the coming months on elections or civil liberties in Egypt. The distribution of military aid to Pakistan requires a certification that Pakistani government entities are fully cooperative in the fight against anti-Afghan insurgents and terrorist groups; ADM Mullen finally admitted last week that the USG can make no such declaration in good faith, and yet the aid still flows. The bilateral relationship with Egypt is much stronger and much more institutionalized, and many of the peculiar details of Egyptian aid are premised on the understanding and assumption of stability over the long term. (Egypt and Israel, for example, are exceptional among grant aid recipients in that they aren't required to pay the full balance of their purchase costs in the year of sales agreement; in fact, unspent aid is held by the U.S. in an interest-bearing account from year to year.) The money will keep on coming unless Congress acts to expressly block it.

One more thing that's worth noting in the Senate bill, however, is Sec. 7039(a):

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Foreign Military Financing Program’’ for assistance for Egypt may be transferred to, and merged with, funds appropriated for assistance for Egypt under the heading ‘‘Economic Support Fund’’ [p. 134 of the pdf]

This is interesting because it permits the transfer of money appropriated for military aid to an account used for economic assistance -- that is, to a fund specifically intended "for the purpose of improving the lives of the Egyptian people through education, investment in jobs and skills (including secondary and vocational education), and access to finance for small and medium enterprise with emphasis on expanding opportunities for women, as well as other appropriate market-reform and economic growth activities" (p. 135 of the pdf). It seems unlikely to happen, but the option's there.

Oh yeah, and while we're on the subject: PCCF is back! (See p. 10 of this pdf.) In the International Security Assistance section of the State budget! Instead of in the Defense budget! And with a billion dollars! That's $200 million more than the $800 million appropriated for FY 11! Foreign policy is saved from militarization! At least until somebody needs to slash a bil from the aid budget, anyway; then DoD will change the way it calculates inflation, or something, and slide that extra billion in under its catastrophically shrunken topline. Or something.

Police development: more bang for your buck

This morning, Andrew Exum highlighted a throwaway piece in the Washington Post on the police in Egypt. Like many unstable and/or despotic states, the police forces are among the greatest threats to the citizens of those countries. Whereas in most Western countries the police exist to protect the people, in most of the rest of the world the police exist to protect the state from the people. As you can imagine, governments love and people hate this setup. In cases like Egypt, changing the police forces to protect the people can go a long a way to improving the stability of the country - especially after they've tried and failed to suppress the population.

Change of this nature requires significant work on not just the training of police, but cultural adaptation and development. Evolving the mindset of established forces can take a long time, if it's not a generational effort. Sacking the police and starting over usually fails as well. Just like disbanding militaries, firing armed and trained policemen introduces a destabilizing force onto the streets; a force that had had better luck with the previous regime (see Iraq). It also presents the difficulty of vetting new police, often in countries with low literacy (see Afghanistan). Mere training programs from the U.S. also do not even begin to address the problem - often the police are already moderately trained. While improving their skills and capabilities are necessary, developing them as professional police requires a change in mindset and should be the focus of U.S. police assistance. The entirety of the literature on this topic supports this, even if development doesn't always do the trick (obviously, the host nation needs to really want to change its ways).

Ex is right in the gist of his post - if we're invited to help these newly-democratizing nations, we should start with the police. I diverge from his position in that we shouldn't start a training program, we should initiate a police development program (again, if invited to do so). Funding-wise, a small team of police development experts that help the Egyptians revamp their police structure, policies, and police academy curriculum would provide dividends much greater than the investment. This should be our focus in the region, not military aid, which is expensive for the USG and provides little return in stability or U.S. national objectives.

For those of you not in the small circle of people and organizations that work on police development issues, the USG's primary organization for doing this is the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). (Disclosure: With my previous company I did some work with ICITAP, but they were never a client.) This is a fantastic program within the Department of Justice that I was very impressed with, both here in Washington and in the field. And they really get it, which is why I'm giving them this free advertisement. They also come in a quite cost effective as they have relatively small staff and are funded by other USG agencies when implementing programs abroad. The challenges to getting them out into the field, though, is that they have a relatively small staff and are funded by other USG agencies when implementing programs abroad. In spite of their good work in many places (see Kosovo, Iraq, Panama, and a host of others), they aren't always the first agency used for U.S. police programs. Often, train and equip contracts are used first - sometimes succeeding, but often not and then require ICITAP expertise to sort things out. Another challenge for ICITAP is that police development often takes 10 or more years if done correctly, which is often beyond the political and budgetary horizons of the U.S., so the U.S. often chooses haste over right. We need to stop doing that.

The point of all of this is to say that police development is what the U.S. should focus their efforts on if we're asked to asked to help out in these countries. And we're asked to do so, the USG should support ICITAP missions to conduct these development and reform operations (in conjunction with their their DoJ OPDAT brethren and DoS INL training programs). In these days of governmental austerity, it is a cost effective way to meet USG objectives and the needs of the local governments and people.

Rumblings in Gabon

In the last couple of days, some of the Africa-based/interested reporters I follow on Twitter have mentioned growing signs of political turmoil in Gabon (just do a search, you'll find them).

Since Ink Spots friend Carl Prine asked what I thought might be Egypt/Tunisia implications for sub-Saharan Africa, I thought I would dig around a little bit and see what I would find. I haven't yet seen any implication for the current political deadlock in Cote d'Ivoire but I'll be writing about that for Valentine's Day.

Gabon, you might recall, is a small, oil rich, former French colony in West Africa. Libreville has long been home to the Bongo family. Omar Bongo died a couple years ago and his son Ali, was "elected" President.

This blog post (from Accra) explains what has been going on in Gabon. In short, the opposition leader, André Mba Obame, who is thought to have won the 2009 elections that permitted Bongo Jr. to replace his father, has sworn himself in President (January 29th). He took refuge in the Libreville offices of the UN Development Program's (the article says it's the party's HQ but on further checking it's UN offices, see the links below). Security forces violently tried to take over the compound and thousands of students (and citizens) have taken to the streets, not just in the capital but around the country on several occasions since then. In addition, a private TV station was ordered to shut down and the opposition party was disbanded.

As the website Global Voices explains:

Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of the nation’s capital, Libreville, on January 29th, and faced violent suppression from Ali Bongo’s troops. Protests have spread to other cities, and the crackdown against them has become increasingly fierce. Protests planned for February 5th and 8th were both suppressed with tear gas. At this point, it’s unclear whether protesters will be able to continue pressuring the government, or whether the crackdown has driven dissent underground.

Anyway, these stories (here, here, here) describe what has been going on there. But to summarize: the Bongo family is thought to have stolen 8% of the country's GDP but while oil revenues have made a small group of people rich, 30% of the country's 1.5 million people still live in poverty, and it's clear that Bongo Jr. likely didn't win. He retains the support of France, major French investors such as Vincent Bollore --yes, the Bollore who lent Sarkozy his yacht so that the President could go on vacation.

I went looking around for stories in the French speaking media but was unsuccessful (nothing in Le Monde, nothing in Jeune Afrique, same thing from Radio France Internationale). One of the articles I linked to above mentions an interview with Bollore which basically says he supports Bongo and stability in Gabon (and that democracy there provides a basis for foreign investment). One of the articles mentions there was a small protests in Paris to support the people of Gabon. Unlike for both Tunisia and Egypt, senior French officials--that is the French Foreign Minister for Tunisia who used a Ben Ali jet while she was on vacation there during the protests and the Prime Minister, Francois Fillon who used a Mubarak jet in Egypt--have not yet been re-exposed for their scandalous friendship with Gabon's leadership but I think that's a matter of time.

I couldn't find much else but keep a tab on this page, it will be interesting to see whether the people of Gabon are inspired by their Tunisian and Egyptian sisters and brothers.

You're so vain, you probably think this revolution is about you

Congratulations the Egyptian people! In the past few weeks, I and others occasionally lost faith that they would actually force the removal of Mubarak from power. Oh we, of little faith. This has been a most intriguing and inspiring course of events that every American should celebrate. Over 80 million people have set the stage for self-determination. Wow.

However, we all know not all Americans are going to celebrate this for what it is. This thirdling blogger isn't going to change the discourse on this topic, but I'm going to say it anyway: American pundits, this revolution isn't about you. For those elements on the left that want to declare victory for your side, note you had little influence on this. The USG's policies in the past month have been cryptic at best and while there may have been back channel discussion, I'd like to think it was to do the right thing. If that is the case, I'm not going to pat you on the back for siding with the right side of history.

Elements on the right get a rebuke, too. Enough of your scare mongering. If you truly understand and care for our nation's forefathers, then you would immediately see they would celebrate this. A whole peoples taking their future out of the hands of a despot and placing it within their own. Might Islamist groups be part of the new government? Sure - if that's what the Egyptian people want. It is not for us to say what government Egyptians should have and to think otherwise is arrogance in the extreme and despotism from without.

So no, this revolution isn't about you. It's about the Egyptian people and their freedoms. America's role should be to step in when asked for assistance and otherwise let these emancipated peoples choose how they want to be governed. It is what we demanded for ourselves 235 some odd years ago. Their path ahead will be difficult enough without foreign interference. Do not make this about you, because it's about them and their courage and their freedom. Give them this day, celebrate their victory, and wish them your best. It is the right thing to do.

Friday quick-hits

There is a lot of stuff to talk about right now, and we've been largely absent from the conversation. Egypt is at the top of the list, of course. I'm reticent about engaging in the sort of sudden-expertism that's so prevalent in the blogosphere and on cable news, but there are certainly angles to this story that we can meaningfully weigh in on (for me it's American security assistance to Egypt and the broader U.S.-Egypt mil-to-mil relationship), and I hope to get to that in the near future. But for now I'm mostly focused on the immediate struggle against the Old Enemy (and late-afternoon drinks with some defense-blogging luminaries), so I just want to hit you with a few brief notes.

1. Read Jason's tank-wonk piece on what changing Army org structure means for armor culture and the future employment of tanks. Then read this excellent (if incidental) companion story in Aviation Week by Friend of Ink Spots Paul McLeary, Andy Nativi, and David Eshel: "Future of Main Battle Tank Looks Secure." Good contributions to the never-ending "Is Armor Dead?" debate.

2. Check out this review of the new Rumsfeld book by Bloomberg defense guy Tony Capaccio. Note this excerpt in particular:

“What was unique about Iraq was that the intelligence community reported near total confidence in their conclusions,” Rumsfeld writes. “Their assessments appeared to be unusually consistent.”

Now get in the way-back machine and go read Eli Lake in The New Republic in September 2002. This is six months before the Iraq war started, remember. Money paragraph:

But this is all mere speculation, because there is no NIE for Iraq and there probably won't be one anytime soon. The reason for this omission is that the Iraq hawks running the Pentagon and staffing the office of the vice president long ago lost faith in the CIA analysis. So they set up their own network for analyzing and collecting intelligence regarding Iraq and have been presenting it to the president themselves. The result is that instead of Bush receiving one assessment of the facts on the ground, he has for months been receiving two--one (more cautious) from the CIA and the other (more optimistic) from the Iraq hawks. As one former CIA analyst says, "Not since Vietnam has there been as deep a divide over intelligence as to enemy capabilities as you are seeing now in Iraq." The administration's confusion on Iraq, in other words, goes even deeper than its critics understand. It's not just that different factions in the administration disagree about U.S. policy vis-a-vis Saddam. They disagree about the fundamental facts on which that policy should be based.

The whole article is worth reading -- it's a thoughtful look at how the intersection of intelligence and policy is fraught with all sorts of problems of ideology, perception, and so on. Great, great work from someone I frequently butt heads with. Oh yeah, and Rumsfeld: face.

3. And finally, the Most Disingenuous Quote of All Time award goes to the anonymous defense industry flack who told Politico's Jen DiMascio (re: foreign military sales to Egypt)

“We do this because we are told by the U.S. government it’s in the U.S. national interest,” a defense industry official said, referring to U.S. sales abroad. “If at any time it stops becoming so, ... it’s not too hard to say we’d be on board with that.”

Um, riiiiight. That's why there's no Lockheed guy in Baghdad lobbying MNF-I and the Iraqi MoD that the F-16 is the best solution to Iraq's air-defense needs, right? They're just siting at their desks in Bethesda waiting for an order to come in, then executing on USG requests to support the national interest? Sure.

Hey, "national interest" can be a really complex mix of things, and it can include jobs and economic strength and industrial base health and a whole bunch of other stuff aside from military-strategic concerns. I get that. But it is just totally obscene for arms manufacturers to suggest that they only sell systems abroad "because [they're] told by the U.S. government it's in the U.S. national interest" -- with the further implication that they're not out ahead of the USG pimping their stuff as the best solution for everybody involved. Sure, the defense industry just fills orders as a public service, with the almost not-even-worth-mentioning side benefit that it helps to sustain their business and increase revenue. Bullshit.

And on that happy note, enjoy your weekend.

Support for the democratic aspirations of all people: why more talk, less action is the right way to go

In last night's State of the Union, President Obama made brief reference to the anti-totalitarian struggle of democracy activists and protestors in Tunisia, and also to recent elections in South Sudan. He failed to mention the burgeoning unrest in Egypt, something for which he was criticized as a sort of front-runner ("notice he mentioned Tunisia after the whole thing was settled, but didn't say anything about Egypt!", blah blah blah). Here's the bit from the transcript:

Recent events have shown us that what sets us apart must not just be our power -– it must also be the purpose behind it.  In south Sudan -– with our assistance -– the people were finally able to vote for independence after years of war.  (Applause.)  Thousands lined up before dawn.  People danced in the streets.  One man who lost four of his brothers at war summed up the scene around him:  “This was a battlefield for most of my life,” he said.  “Now we want to be free.”  (Applause.)

And we saw that same desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator.  And tonight, let us be clear:  The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.  (Applause.)

After eight years of the Bush Doctrine ("The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world"; "...it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world"; "All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you"; etc.), there's been a lot of justifiable anxiousness to see how the Obama administration would shake out on the question of democracy promotion. The signs have been encouraging, at least from my perspective: repeated assurances that America favors liberty and democracy, but a steadfast refusal to let the perfect be the enemy of the good -- to let our inability to shape the world to our will frustrate us into bleating disengagement, or worse, aggressive war.

So how about the president's comments last night? They're the sort of thing that will surely disappoint (and perhaps outrage) folks on both sides of the democracy-promotion argument: realists and isolationists will contend that we ought not concern ourselves with the political struggles of others, while neoconservatives and liberal hawks will complain that the president wasn't concrete enough about the ways that our "support" will manifest itself (as they did during the Green protests in Iran). Unromantic as this parsing may be, the whole thing really comes down to what you think "support" means, and what it ought to mean. I happen to think that selective engagement -- that is to say deeper involvement in instances where we've determined that American influence can be meaningful and have predictable results, with a continuation of nice, flowery words about freedom and liberty and democracy, plus a helping of public-diplomacy and Radio Free _____, in all other instances -- is the right approach. I don't think a blanket expression of guaranteed material support for all pro-democracy movements in authoritarian countries is a great idea, and I'm happy that neither this president nor any other (even George W. Bush) has made any such pledge.

As Elliott Abrams has said, there is genuine continuity in U.S. foreign policy on this question.

Let me just say a few things first about the first question: Should we be promoting democracy? My answer is yes, we have been for decades under presidents of both parties.

But again, there have been some significant differences on what exactly "promoting democracy" ought to constitute. (I feel confident that Abrams and I disagree.) The real continuity is in rhetorical support, in the way American leaders formulate our counry's self-image. I've always loved this speech given to the House of Representatives by John Quincy Adams on July 4, 1821, when he was Secretary of State (a section of it was the epigram to my graduate thesis). This is the kind of "support [for] democratic aspirations" I can get behind:

America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. [...] Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

To repeat a theme I've touched on in past weeks: if our foreign policy serves to destroy or disfigure beyond recognition our own constitutional republic -- even in the service of liberty for others -- then it has failed.

And so I pose a question to Elliot Abrams and Jennifer Rubin and those who criticized the White House and Congress over a "failure to act" during the Iranian elections and the Tunisian revolt and the current Egyptian troubles: what would you have us do? What is it that's expected of us? Hell, let's even forget about the comparatively simple case of Iran, where the government generally opposes U.S. policy aims and the populace seems predisposed to democracy and liberalism; what about in places where our foreign policy and security interests are generally served by an oppressive or even totalitarian government, as in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and in many cases even China? Shadi Hamid gets at the root of the problem in The Atlantic:

The Middle East just got more complicated for the Obama administration. The January 14 popular revolt in Tunisia, the first ever to topple an Arab dictator, has called into question a basic premise of U.S. policy in the Middle East - that repressive regimes, however distasteful, are at least stable. They can also be counted on to support key American interests, which is part of why the U.S. provides them with substantial assistance. Tunisia was considered one of the least likely to fall, but it fell. Across the region, opposition groups, hoping to repeat Tunisia's successes, are emboldened and increasingly active. For the first time, they know what change looks like. More importantly, they now believe it can happen in their own countries. But in the growing battle between Arab autocrats and popular oppositions, the U.S. is finding itself torn between the reliable allies it needs and the democratic reformers it wants.

I've added the emphasis at the end. Hamid continues:

But the problem the U.S. faces currently is the same it faced during the short-lived "Arab spring" of 2005: For now, it is difficult, if not impossible to have both a democratic Middle East and a pro-American one. Because anti-Americanism is so widespread (in part because the U.S. supports reviled autocrats), and because Islamist groups represent the largest oppositions, any freely elected government will want to distance itself from U.S policies.

And here's where we get to the crux of the whole democracy-promotion dilemma: free people do not define their own interests in the same ways, and those interests will not always stand in peaceful harmony with those of other free people around the world. Freedom may be a universal good, but universal freedom certainly will not result in universal peace. One more from Hamid:

The U.S., then, finds itself in the unenviable position of being a status quo power in a region where so many detest the status quo, wish to fight it, and may - or perhaps inevitably will - one day bring it crashing down.

I think this is a vitally important observation, because it helps tie democracy promotion into the broader context of U.S. efforts to shape and manage the international system -- that is, the broader context of U.S. foreign policy. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. is a status quo power on the global stage, and in almost every way: we benefit unequally from the international system as it is presently constituted, and in many respects it's in our interest to maintain it. This isn't universally true, of course: one could say, for example, that widespread global dependence on oil to meet energy needs is a fact of the international system (or a fact which bears on the international system) that is not an optimal condition for the U.S., and so we should work to shape the future in ways that mitigate in our favor.

That's what foreign and security policy is all about, and that's what our "democracy promotion agenda" and approach to human rights should also be focused on: managing change so that the world of the future is as favorable to U.S. interests as possible. When viewed in this light, Hamid's suggestion that we increase criticism of the Mubarak regime and deepen ties with opposition elements is a useful one. "It is better to have leverage with opposition groups before they come to power than afterward," he tells us; this isn't all that different from my desired approach to interstate relations, which (like Kissinger's) concedes those inevitabilities of China's rise that we're powerless to control while appreciating that American interests will be best served by creating and solidifying leverage where possible.

Security assistance: from strategic assurance to capacity building in one simple graphic

The Wall Street Journal ran a story today on the proposed $30B sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia by the U.S. Those who don't know the security assistance business may be surprised to learn that American allies in the Middle East are among the freest-spending customers in the U.S. defense materiel market, though our government is statutorily required to ensure that none of these sales endanger Israel's qualitative military edge (QME). But Israeli qualms about this particular sale are mostly overstated in the Journal piece, and that's not really what I wanted to talk about. For me, the most interesting thing in the piece is this graphic:

This, more than anything in the text, is a sign of the times. You'll notice that the leading purchasers in the early part of the last decade tended to be traditional partners like Egypt, Israel, and Kuwait, along with our NATO and east Asian treaty allies. For about half a century, security assistance was mostly about satisfying treaty obligations, maintaining regional balance, executing foreign policy commitments, and assuring allies and partners.

In the post-9/11 era, as you can see, there's been a shift: weapons system sales are now very often geared towards increasing the fighting capabilities of foreign partners, frequently focusing on counterterrorism. That's why you see states like Morocco, Iraq, and Pakistan on the list, as well as many of the traditional recipients of U.S. gear. You'll also notice that the Emiratis joined the Saudis in opening their wallets, a result of anxiety on the part of the Gulf states about Iran's intentions.

The part of the story that's not being told in the graphic: Israel and Egypt are mostly spending U.S. dollars (in the form of State-appropriated Foreign Military Finance, or FMF funds), as are the Iraqis and Pakistanis via a number of different sources of grant aid and COCOM-directed assistance. (On this latter point, I would guess that the value of 1206 cases -- in which the relevant COCOM uses Defense Department funds to purchase capacity-building materiel for a foreign partner, rather than transferring the funds to the customer as grant aid -- is not included in these numbers, but I'm not 100% sure.) As security assistance has become increasingly focused on battlefield effect rather than the more wide-ranging foreign policy and political justifications applied to traditional military aid, the USG and the Department have understandably gotten a lot more interested in what exactly being purchased. This explains why many of the leading purchasers in the latter half of the decade are recipients of grant aid and special appropriations: it's easier to convince a foreign partner to buy the system you think is most appropriate to its needs when it's your cash he's spending. Though nobody much minds that the Egyptians spend their grant money on tanks they can't maintain and aircraft they can't fly, because the objective of that security assistance program is primarily about confidence-building and regional stability, not improvement to fighting capabilities.

This highlights a fundamental tension in the SECDEF's stated intent to institutionalize the security assistance and "building partner capacity" missions as core competencies of the Department: increasing dependence on foreign partners to address security challenges demands U.S. force structures and institutions that are optimized to provide support for partner forces. But our partners' awareness that this is our desired approach, and that this approach will demand the provision of certain weapons systems in certain configurations, will often mean that they're able to resist spending their own funds on the gear that we decide is best. In short, we're going to have a hell of a time convincing foreign governments that they ought to spend their own money on U.S. gear when we've got it down on paper all over the place that it's a strategic imperative for us to build their capacity.

And: if this just turns into a massive materiel-welfare system, then are we really saving that much cash and effort by transitioning to a more indirect approach, or should we just quit dealing with the myriad challenges of being a massive proliferator and pretty much look out for ourselves?