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There has been a perception that security cooperation (SC) represents an effective and low-cost means to realize national security goals. This belief in the importance of SC's capacity-building was, for example, articulated in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which argued that "U.S. security is inextricably tied to the effectiveness of our efforts to help partners and allies build their own security capacity." The point was further emphasized in the 2014 QDR, which stated that while the U.S. must maintain the capacity to act unilaterally when necessary, "[t]he Department of Defense will rebalance our counterterrorism efforts toward greater emphasis on building partnership capacity especially in fragile states." In both of these cases, the belief has been that using SC to build partner nations' security capacity, so that that they can play a larger role in maintaining their internal political stability and contribute to regional security initiatives, will relieve some of the burden from the Joint Force our joint security objectives, thereby reducing the need for the U.S. to commit blood and treasure to realize U.S. national security objectives. While we believe that its underlying logic is sound, we do not believe this strategic guidance gives sufficient direction to the military planners and operators who must translate a belief in the general efficacy of SC into concrete programs, projects, plans and missions. Indeed, it is not sufficient that staff officers and senior decision makers only employ SC principles, but they must do so in ways that maximize their effectiveness in realizing U.S. and partner nation objectives. Planning staffs must be able to identify the particular security tools and programs that are likely to bring the greatest return on their investments of scarce time, money and resources and the conditions within which the application of those SC tools will most likely succeed. This is particularly true during a time of constrained resources which require that "the U.S. should make careful, explicit choices about its partnership investments—a tailored rather than an omnivorous approach—based on prioritized desired effects" while pursuing an SC strategy that asks "how exactly might building the capacity and capabilities of U.S. partners lead, through their actions, toward outcomes that help protect U.S. national security interests?" We believe that this is an appropriate time to ask these hard questions and raise these difficult issues, and we are pleased that this special issue has been conceived of to consider these and other matters concerning the practice and efficacy of SC. We seek to contribute to staffs' and warfighters' capacity to effectively plan to employ the tools at their disposal, which include SC, by articulating one means through which the impact of SC activities might be more rigorously assessed and the return on their investments in these programs calculated. Although we focus on one specific aspect of SC in this paper, global health engagement (GHE), we wish to emphasize that the approach advocated here can be applied to any category or sector of SC: to include foreign military financing, international military education and training, infrastructure, governance and so on. This site displays abstracts of MOC Warfighter articles. Department of Defense CAC-authenticated users may download full copies of the articles at this site. Others may request copies of specified articles by contacting the MOC Warfighter administrator.

In a highly influential article in International Security, Stephen Stedman introduced a model of "civil war spoilers," which focused valuable attention on the generally underappreciated role of elites in determining the course of negotiations and in implementing intrastate peace accords. For all its virtues, however, the spoiler model did not suggest the best set of strategies for deterring or defeating those who might seek to undermine peace processes. This is because context-specific and actor-specific measures tend to affect diplomatic instruments only at the margin and because, while spoiler type does not change over time, actors' commitment to fulfilling the provisions of peace accords often does; thus these static characteristics cannot be the critical variables the spoiler model suggests they are. Instead, as a detailed reexamination of three of Stedman's case studies (i.e., Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia) demonstrates, a capabilities-based model offers a more parsimonious and generalizable explanation for why, when, and under what conditions actors who seek to undermine the peace will emerge or retreat. As such, the real key to deterring and defeating would-be spoilers lies in the possession and exercise of the material power to coerce or co-opt them, rather than in the capacity to discern their true character or personality type.

Current sanctions orthodoxy argues that groups' ability to set policy depends on their total budget. According to such a perspective, successful sanctions must target the unfriendly within the target countries while shielding "innocent bystanders" from harm. The authors argue that the focus on groups' aggregate budget constraint and the war-of-attrition view of policy formation misconceives of how policies are determined. The most effective groups to sanction will be those whose spending has the greatest marginal effect on policy. The authors show that this will often be the very innocent bystanders that prevailing theories have argued must be protected. Although this conclusion is conditional on their level of institutional empowerment and their having sufficient resources to make an impact on policy if properly motivated, when these initial conditions are met, a sanctions design can be specified with a high degree of prospective utility for sender states.

AbstractA large and increasing share of international humanitarian and development aid is raised from nongovernmental sources, allocated by transnational NGOs. We know little about this private foreign aid, not even how it is distributed across recipient countries, much less what explains the allocation. This article presents an original data set, based on detailed financial records from most of the major U.S.-based humanitarian and development NGOs, which allows us for the first time to map and analyze the allocation of U.S. private aid. We find no support for the common claim that aid NGOs systematically prioritize their organizational self-interest when they allocate private aid, and we find only limited support for the hypothesis that expected aid effectiveness drives aid allocation. By contrast, we find strong support for the argument that the deeply rooted humanitarian discourse within and among aid NGOs drives their aid allocation, consistent with a view of aid NGOs as principled actors and constructivist theories of international relations. Recipients' humanitarian need is substantively and statistically the most significant determinant of U.S. private aid allocation (beyond a regional effect in favor of Latin American countries). Materialist concerns do not crowd out ethical norms among these NGOs.

A large and increasing share of international humanitarian and development aid is raised from nongovernmental sources, allocated by transnational NGOs. We know little about this private foreign aid, not even how it is distributed across recipient countries, much less what explains the allocation. This article presents an original data set, based on detailed financial records from most of the major U.S.-based humanitarian and development NGOs, which allows us for the first time to map and analyze the allocation of U.S. private aid. We find no support for the common claim that aid NGOs systematically prioritize their organizational self-interest when they allocate private aid, and we find only limited support for the hypothesis that expected aid effectiveness drives aid allocation. By contrast, we find strong support for the argument that the deeply rooted humanitarian discourse within and among aid NGOs drives their aid allocation, consistent with a view of aid NGOs as principled actors and constructivist theories of international relations. Recipients' humanitarian need is substantively and statistically the most significant determinant of U.S. private aid allocation (beyond a regional effect in favor of Latin American countries). Materialist concerns do not crowd out ethical norms among these NGOs. Adapted from the source document.