Security cooperation as a tool of American foreign policy.

摘要

The subject of this study is the American government's decision-making process associated with security cooperation. These are activities conducted with allied and friendly foreign defense establishments to build closer bilateral relationships in a given region. It is also directed towards specific states, with the intent of building allied and friendly capabilities for self-defense and coalition operations, and providing U.S. forces with peacetime and contingency access and en route infrastructure that can be used in support of ongoing military operations. Through an examination of how security cooperation-related decision-making worked in the strategic national-level relationship between the Departments of Defense and State, along with the operational theater-level connection with the regional combatant commands that are responsible for the Middle East/South Asia (U.S. Central Command) and Europe (U.S. European Command), the findings demonstrated that periodic breakdowns in a coordinated security cooperation related decision making process did occur. The results were typically a lessened ability to attain all major American foreign policy goals for certain states.; The study involves two hypotheses: (1) The national-level security cooperation decision-making process is negatively impacted by problems in the relationship between the Departments of Defense and State. (2) There are two principal-agent causal factors for the interruption of the security cooperation decision-making process: (a) combatant commands are focused on operational missions while the State Department orients on longer-term foreign policy objectives and (b) at times, the combatant command believes that it understands the regional security cooperation issues better than anyone in Washington because it is geographically closer to the problems in the region.; The findings demonstrated that, at times, national-level security cooperation decision making was negatively impacted by how the Departments of Defense and State interacted, with the resulting disjointed guidance that emerged. The analysis also confirmed that DoD, to include the combatant commands, had a definite emphasis on near-term operational goals, in contrast to the State Department's focus on longer-term foreign policy-related objectives. Finally, the research identified an additional causal factor in the lengthy security assistance lead times mandated by the Congressional approval process.