Shouldn't you first know the most rudimentary facts of security assistance...

...before writing a paper entitled "Unintended Strategic Consequences of Security Assistance in the South Caucasus"?

EDIT: Geez, I'm too damn snappy these days. This Thompson thing must've knocked a screw loose. I didn't mean for this title to sound nearly so condescending and unkind as it does. This stuff is complicated, and it's not easy to figure out the details. These folks are making an honest run at the subject and I generally agree with their conclusions, so I shouldn't have sounded so universally dismissive. Sorry! Now back to the original post... [/END EDIT]

The reason I ask is that this paper isn't so much about security assistance as it is about the total clusterfuck that is U.S. policy in the Caucasus, and specifically with regard to Georgia. The authors' argument basically comes down to this: don't support partner countries in ways that have unpredictable consequences in an unstable region. And while I generally agree that this is a sensible prescription, one could reasonably argue that consequences are always unpredictable when it comes to indirect approaches like security assistance/security force assistance. Whenever you're adding an extra layer of decision making, and the decision maker at that extra level is a sovereign state, you're often going to end up with effects that are obscure to the folks who set the whole process in motion.

That said, there are a couple of pretty rudimentary mistakes when it comes to the titular subject, none more egregious than this comment about the disconnect between donor priorities and recipient wishes:

The U.S. administration has offered away to square the circle by advocating "brains before brawn” and promoting the increase of intellectual capacity. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Alexander Vershbow testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in August 2009, “Focusing U.S. assistance initially on fundamental intellectual issues like training, doctrine and personnel management . . . is our prioritized approach, and this will serve as a foundation on which Georgia can build for years to come.” This seems a sensible approach in and of itself. However, there is no guarantee that writing a check for $1 billion for Georgia means the money will go somewhere other than the defense program even if it is not specifically targeted for defense. Rather, it allows Georgia, should it wish, to reallocate funds internally.

This would definitely be a problem... if it were actually true. I mean, I suppose in a technical sense, it is true. If security assistance was provisioned by just writing a check to the partner country, then that money could just be dropped into the Georgian treasury and it becomes fungible. But that's not how the process works.

Military grant aid is provided through the Foreign Military Finance and International Military Education and Training programs, both of which are budgeted in the 150 account -- the foreign assistance budget. What this amounts to is a chunk of money dedicated to a certain country for use in purchasing U.S. military equipment, training courses, or seats in professional military education classes (war colleges, command and staff college, etc.). The recipient is obligated to use this money for its intended purpose: if Georgia got IMET money, for example, it can't buy Abrams tanks instead of seats for its majors at CGSC.

Of course, this grant aid does free up the recipient's country funds for whatever use that government chooses, if you imagine that they had already planned to buy U.S. stuff with their own money. But that's very rarely the case.

This is actually one of the few decidedly positive characteristics of military aid over other types of development aid: no one expects it to be no-strings-attached! (Well, except Pakistan, but I digress.)

Anyway, check out the article if you want some perspective on the way that a foreign and security policy based on support for client states rather than direct intervention can come back and bite you, but don't go looking for a thorough and informed analysis of the limitations of security assistance.

I guess this is what they meant by "an Army of One"

At the end of this month, Multi-National Force-Iraq becomes Mono-National Force-Iraq.

Commanders of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, as the American-led coalition is formally called, have a looming nomenclature problem.

Two days from now, there will no longer be any other nations with troops in Iraq — no “multi” in the Multi-National Force. As Iraqi forces have increasingly taken the lead, the United States is the last of the “coalition of the willing” that the Bush administration first brought together in 2003.

That is partly because the Iraqi Parliament left suddenly for summer recess without voting to extend an agreement for the British military to keep a residual training force of 100 soldiers in Iraq. As a result, those troops must withdraw to Kuwait by Friday, according to a British diplomat, who declined to be identified in keeping with his government’s practice.

As for the other two small remnants of the coalition, the Romanians and Australians, the Australians will be gone by July 31, too, and the Romanians left last Thursday, according to the Romanian chargé d’affaires, Cristian Voicu.

NATO will keep a small training presence in Iraq, but its troops were never considered part of the Multi-National Force because of opposition to the war from many NATO countries.

In response to a query, American military officials acknowledged the need for a name change, and said Multi-National Force-Iraq would officially become United States Force-Iraq as of Jan. 1, 2010, according to the deputy coalition spokesman, Lt. Col. Mike Stewart. “This is done to reflect the new bilateral relationship between U.S. forces and our Iraqi hosts,” he said.

Also nice to see that U.S. legislators aren't the only ones who leave town for a month without completing essential business, but that's really neither here nor there.

Seriously though: when you hear people dispute the "indispensable nation" moniker, consider the fact that 38 countries contributed troops to a war that most of them thought was stupid. Why? Probably because they imagine that there's something that America has to offer them, and they want us to answer the phone when they call. (Poland is a great example here.) Then read Patrick Porter at Kings of War, who reminds us that Britain's vital national interest in Iraq (if slightly less so in Afghanistan) has been the maintenance of the "special relationship" with the United States.

A perhaps bittersweet reality of this coalition is partly reflected in the casualty numbers (over 4,300 American KIA; 139 dead from other coalition partners combined): the duties performed by units from different countries differed dramatically in context and content. An example:

Th[e] chief utility [of coalition soldiers] was to free American soldiers from routine but necessary duties. Georgia’s fairly large contingent handled all the checkpoints in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, for instance, and brooked no arguments from people trying to enter, especially since few of the soldiers spoke anything but Russian or Georgian.

The deployment was popular with the Georgians, who often were seen buying reduced-price televisions and stereos at the PX to send home for resale. The country’s contribution grew to a peak of 2,000, until the soldiers were abruptly withdrawn last August and rushed home to defend Georgia after the Russians invaded.

We could say "well, it's great that all those combat-hardened Georgian troops had the Iraq experience to prepare them to defend their own soil against an aggressor" (and I'm pretty sure some conservative commentators did at the time), but how useful was performing border security and manning checkpoints when it came to repelling Russian armored columns?

This isn't to diminish the contributions of our allies and partners, because every Salvadoran manning a vehicle checkpoint frees up an American to engage in combat operations. But doesn't it highlight the way that we're moving toward not a bifurcated American Army of high-intensity, conventional combat types on the one hand and stability operations troops on the other, but rather a bifurcated coalition and a bifurcated Atlantic alliance? Or maybe not even "moving toward," but that we're already there.

It gives me a chuckle every time I hear an American defense analyst opposing European efforts to formulate a common foreign and security policy, or develop a "European army," because they're worried about the marginalization of NATO. What in the last sixty years has suggested that the Europeans are capable of defending themselves from a conventional threat without American participation?

It might be time for U.S. planners to start considering whether the commitments we've made to European territorial defense are proportional to the contributions we can expect from our Allies in future military enterprises (which by dint of geography are almost certain not to include defense of the American homeland). The Brits sure are trying to convince us that there is value in maintaining our relationships, and in the case of the UK it's nearly impossible to argue otherwise. Perhaps we could say the same about Ukraine, seeing as influence over that country makes it possible for Russia to threaten our interests on the European continent.

But Georgia?

This is rich...

...coming from a Russian:

On Sunday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticized the U.S. over its continued support of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, saying the alliance "is not ready" to absorb them. Mr. Biden visited both states during his trip through the region last week, and reaffirmed U.S. support for both to join the alliance.

"We don't think it's right to drag certain countries into military and political alliances against the will of their people," Mr. Medvedev said on Russia's NTV television.

I guess it's a good thing all the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Lithuanians, etc. were already pro-Russia commies when you guys got there!

But more on point:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration considered Russia a "great power" and wanted it to be a strong and prosperous country, in an apparent effort to reassure Moscow that the White House remains committed to efforts to "reset" bilateral relations.

Mrs. Clinton made the remarks in response to a question about Vice President Joe Biden's suggestion, during a Wall Street Journal interview published on Saturday, that Russia's weakening economy was likely to make it more amenable to cooperate with the West on national security issues.

"We view Russia as a great power," Mrs. Clinton said on NBC News's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "Every country faces challenges. We have our challenges, Russia has their challenges. There are certain issues that Russia has to deal with on its own."

She said the Obama administration didn't believe it has an upper hand in its ties with Moscow, and noted that Mr. Biden had been the first senior administration member to publicly call for a "reset" in the two countries' relationship, in an address in Munich, Germany, in February.

Mr. Biden's comments to the Journal raised concerns in Moscow, which questioned whether he was speaking for the U.S. government. "The question is: Who is shaping the U.S. foreign policy -- the president or the respectable members of his team?" asked Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko. He said it was "perplexing" that Mr. Biden delivered the comments just as the U.S. was talking about a reset in relations.

It's tough to fault the Russians here if they're confused, because I'm not sure anyone in this country knows our priorities when it comes to continued NATO enlargement, nuclear arms reduction, and other issues associated with "reset" with Russia.