Examining the Institutional Effects of Military-to-Military Assistance

• In Event: Designing Security Institutions in Developing Countries

Abstract

Countries around the world are increasingly compelled to employ a comprehensive institutional response to combat violent irregular threats such as insurgencies and terrorism. Developing countries, in particular, often confront destabilizing threats that emerge domestically in under-governed territories or are linked to larger transnational networks of terror. But many countries have proven unable to effectively deploy their security institutions — military as well as civilian — when responding to such threats even if they have sufficient resources at their disposal. Transnational actors like as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Abu Sayyaf in Southeast Asia, and the Haqqani network in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been able to flourish under precisely these conditions. Such organizations present a significant security threat to international peace and stability and the United States and its partners have made it a priority to help countries fight insurgent and terrorist movements within their borders.

In our paper, we analyze how state institutions in developing countries are influenced by foreign military assistance. Current security sector assistance policy is designed to help strengthen the capacity of partner countries to meet evolving security challenges. However, the effect of several U.S.-sponsored military education, training, and equipment programs, such as the International Military Education and Training (IMET) and the Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF) programs, remains in question. Using our new Domestic Security Institutions (DSI) database on all developing countries, we examine the effect of U.S. aid, weapons, and training on institutions across states. The outcome of interest is a range of institutional actors and their features, including command-and-control structures, operating systems, and inter-agency interactions.

Our paper has crucial implications for why domestic security institutions are organized the way that they are, and the extent to which foreign assistance can shape established security institutions to increase effectiveness in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.

Authors

• Leonardo R. Arriola, University of California, Berkeley

• Aila M. Matanock, University of California-Berkeley

• Michaela Mattes, UC-Berkeley