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31 many states increasingly rely on the United States for either the actual provision of security or the training and equipment necessary to perform security functions. While militaries historically have cooperated against a common adversary, the decline of interstate war and the rise of transnational threats have made the prospect of exporting security more compelling.1 Paul Collier argues that the role for advanced militaries of the world is “to supply the global public good of peace in territories that otherwise have the potential for nightmare.”2 Militaries conducting security assistance activities are rooted in the lessons of the Cold War, which taught that by providing for other countries’ security, the United States could advance its trade agenda and prevent the emergence of military competitors. Likewise, countries protected by American security guarantees could focus on their own political and economic development while allowing the United States to solve their countries’ security dilemmas. While world political systems did not quite “reach the end of history” in 1989, no peer competitors have emerged to challenge Western-oriented democratic–capitalist systems.3 However, weak countries are still threatened by internal instability and transnational forces, so the United States and its allies provide these countries the tools to improve regime security. Today, the United States provides security assistance to about 150 countries (see table 2.1). Although the focus on providing for allies’ security has been common since World War II, after the Cold War ended, the military’s prominence in international affairs has greatly increased. Far from giving way to a peace dividend, transnational forces have produced less security. Weak states provide sanctuary for terrorists, pirates, drug traffickers, and criminal gangs who challenge state authority in many countries. Consequently, U.S. strategy has shifted from containment to engagement and has generated greater demand for the U.S. military to train other militaries to either supplement its force or serve as peacekeeping surrogates. As former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright put it, what was “the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t 2 Military Engagement, Strategy, and Policy 32 Chapter 2 use it?”4 Albright’s view prevailed in the 1990s, which resulted in stepped up military activities in countries such as Haiti, Yugoslavia, East Timor, and Colombia . During the Clinton years, the U.S. military was engaged in dozens of military deployments with missions that varied from providing logistic support to UN peacekeeping missions to conducting stability operations in the Balkans. Very few of these activities resembled traditional combat, but when President Clinton deployed the military, he was accused of tomahawk diplomacy or “wag the dog” military actions to distract the public from domestic issues. Setting aside underlying political motivation for military actions, critics simply missed that the military became an essential non-warfighting tool of national power. And this is largely consistent with United Nations thinking marked by the 1992 Agenda for Peace that charged its members “to stand ready to assist in peace-building in its differing contexts: rebuilding the institutions and infrastructures of nations torn by civil war and strife; and building bonds of peaceful mutual benefit among nations formerly at war.”5 While Gov. George Bush stated during the 2000 presidential election that he abhorred this “misuse” of the military, President Bush did not alter course. In fact, use of the military in non-warfighting ways actually escalated at the same time traditional uses of the military occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, located in Djibouti, shifted its mission from counterterrorism operations to civil affairs. U.S. Southern Command reorganized away from a warfighting command to better reflect the security cooperation missions it conducts. And U.S. Africa Command was created with a deliberate security assistance mission. To formalize these activities, President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 44 in 2005, which directed the United States to “work with other countries and organizations to anticipate state failure, avoid it whenever possible, and respond quickly and effectively when necessary to promote peace, Table 2.1 Expanding Security Programs 2000 2009 Status of Force Agreements 40 90 NATO members 15 28 Security partners 125 150 Foreign military financing budget $3.6 billion (FY01 est.) $5.2 billion (FY10 request) International military education and training budget $58 million (FY01 est.) $110 million (FY10 request) Source: 2000 budget data from: “All Fund Sources ‘Spigot’ Report,” http://www.state.gov/ documents/organization/4018.pdf. 2009 budget data from: Department...

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