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Article Excerpt
[The following are excerpts of a report prepared for members and committees of the Congress by the Congressional Research Service. References to Annexes or Appendices have been retained in the excerpt even though the Annex or Appendix itself may not be included. A full copy of the report can be found at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34639.pdf.]
Summary
The Department of Defense (DoD) has long played a role in U.S. efforts to assist foreign populations, militaries, and governments. The use of DoD to provide foreign assistance stems in general from the perception that DoD can contribute unique or vital capabilities and resources because it possesses the manpower, materiel, and organizational assets to respond to international needs. Over the years, Congress has helped shape the DoD role by providing DoD with its mandate for such activities through a wide variety of authorities.
The historical DoD role in foreign assistance can be regarded as serving three purposes: responding to humanitarian and basic needs, building foreign military capacity and capabilities, and strengthening foreign governments' ability to deal with internal and international threats through state-building measures. The United States and the U.S. military benefit from DoD foreign assistance activities in several ways. U.S. diplomacy benefits from the U.S. military's capacity to project itself rapidly into extreme situations, such as disasters and other humanitarian emergencies, enhancing the U.S. image as a humanitarian actor. Humanitarian assistance, military training, and other forms of assistance also provide opportunities to cultivate good relations with foreign populations, militaries, and governments. U.S. military personnel have long viewed such activities as opportunities to interact with foreign militaries as part of their professional development. Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, DoD training of military forces and provision of security assistance have been an important means to enable foreign militaries to conduct peacekeeping operations and to support coalition operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
DoD's perception of the appropriate non-combat role for the U.S. military has evolved over time. Within the past few years, the perceptions of DoD officials, military officers, and defense analysts have coalesced around a post-9/11 strategy that calls for the use of the U.S. military in preventive, deterrent, and preemptive activities. This strategy involves DoD in the creation of extensive international and interagency "partnerships," as well as an expanded DoD role in foreign assistance activities. Critics point to a number of problems with an expanded DoD role in many activities. Indeed, a key DoD document acknowledges that state-building tasks may be "best performed by indigenous, foreign, or U.S. civilian professionals." Nevertheless, although reluctant to divert personnel from combat functions, DoD officials believe that the U.S. military must develop its own capacity to carry out such activities in the absence of appropriate civilian forces.
In the second session of the 110th Congress, members have faced several choices regarding the DoD role in foreign assistance. The Bush Administration has proposed legislation to make permanent two controversial DoD authorities. It has also proposed legislation to enable U.S. government civilian personnel to perform some of the tasks currently carried out by the U.S. military, as well as to form a civilian reserve corps for that purpose. Congress may also consider options to improve DoD coordination with civilian agencies on foreign assistance activities.
Introduction (1)
The Department of Defense has long played a role in U.S. efforts to assist foreign populations, militaries, and governments. The use of DoD to provide foreign assistance stems in general from the perception that DoD can contribute unique or vital capabilities and resources because it possesses the manpower, materiel, and organizational assets to respond to international needs. Over the years, Congress has shaped the DoD role through a wide variety of authorities contained in the Foreign Relations and Intercourse (Title 22 U.S. Code) and Armed Services (Title 10 U.S. Code) statutes, and through annual legislation. To some analysts, the DoD role has been in effect a product of Congress's willingness to fund defense rather than foreign affairs budgets. In some instances, the activities in which DoD participates serve an institutional purpose for the U.S. military, providing U.S. soldiers and sailors with opportunities for military training, for cultivating military-to-military contacts, and for gathering information on foreign countries where they may someday be called to operate.
The historical DoD role in foreign assistance can be regarded roughly as serving three purposes:
* Responding to humanitarian and basic needs--Since at least the 19th century, U.S. military forces have provided urgent assistance to foreign populations in time of disasters, such as earthquakes and floods. More recently, U.S. military forces have also provided aid in humanitarian crises such as famines and forced population movements. DoD aids foreign populations under authorities to conduct humanitarian assistance in a variety of other circumstances, including as an adjunct to military training and exercises with and as part of military operations.
* Building foreign military capacity and capabilities--DoD provides military equipment, weapons, training, and other assistance to build up the military capacity and capabilities of friendly foreign countries. Such support is provided to augment military capacity to perform counternarcotics, counterterrorism, internal defense, border defense, and other missions, and as part of post-conflict state-building. The origins of current programs date to the early years after World War II, when the United States sought to help rebuild Europe.
* Strengthening foreign governments--Besides building foreign military capacity, DoD plays a role in U.S. efforts to help foreign governments secure their territories against internal and international threats with a variety of non-military tools. These include state-building efforts, such as strengthening police forces, and bolstering the legitimacy of foreign governments by undertaking small-scale economic, health, and social projects (and in the case of conflict zones, political projects), generally in areas outside capital cities. Although such efforts were carried out sporadically as early as the 19th century, the post-World War II U.S. occupations in Germany and Japan are regarded as state-building models. More recently, DoD support for border protection and nuclear non-proliferation initiatives strengthens foreign governments by curbing international threats.
During the past few years, Congress has provided DoD with new, non-combat authorities to prosecute the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and to conduct counterterrorism (2) activities elsewhere. Congress granted these authorities in response not only to the immediate needs of U.S. military operations in conflict zones, but also to the Bush Administration's efforts, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 (9/11), to redirect and reshape U.S. government capabilities in a new strategic environment. As a result, some analysts believe that DoD is playing an increasing role in assisting foreign populations, militaries, and governments. Critics view this role as potentially detrimental to U.S. foreign policy, citing a perceived lack of strategic coordination between DoD and the State Department (and other agencies where applicable), a failure to ensure that DoD programs are sustainable, and a militarization of the United States' image abroad. These analysts call for greater clarity and reforms in defining DoD's foreign assistance role and responsibilities. (3) This report provides Congress with historical context and current information and perspectives regarding DoD's role and responsibilities in a range of foreign assistance activities.
In an overview and appendices, this report provides background information on and discusses issues related to the DoD's role in providing U.S. foreign assistance and undertaking foreign assistance-type activities. Topics include the types of assistance DoD provides, the authorities under which DoD conducts its programs, and coordination and cooperation mechanisms between DoD and other agencies. The report begins with a brief introduction to the three areas in which DoD plays a role in foreign assistance and to Congress's part in authorizing that role. Next, the report briefly discusses the general evolution of DoD's role and the Department of State's current perception of that role based on current national security needs. The report then provides an overview of the evolution of the DoD role and current activities in the three areas cited above, with a snapshot of the varying perspectives on the DoD roles in these areas. Finally, the report discusses issues that Congress may wish to consider. The appendices provide more detailed information on the current and most significant foreign assistance programs in which DoD plays a role.
This report refers to a Department of Defense role in foreign assistance rather than a U.S. military role because DoD may use either military troops or civilian contractors, or both, to implement programs. The term U.S. military is used only for activities in which U.S. troops are used exclusively.
Overview: DoD's Evolving Response to Perceived Needs
DoD's perception of the appropriate non-combat role for the U.S. military has evolved over time. During the years in which the United States' primary national security threats were posed by other States, there were differing perspectives within DoD on the use of the military in non-combat roles. With the fall of the Soviet Union, these differences sharpened. Within the past few years, the perceptions of DoD officials, military officers, and defense analysts have coalesced around a post-9/11 strategy that calls for the use of the U.S. military in preventive, deterrent, and preemptive activities. This strategy involves DoD in the creation of extensive international (and interagency) "partnerships," as well as an expanded DoD role in foreign assistance activities.
The February 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report (QDR) is the first key document that reflects the evolution of DoD thinking as it grapples with the implications of 9/11 for U.S. national security and U.S. defense policy. (4) The assertion of top U.S. defense officials and military leaders that DoD needs "new and more flexible" authorities to operate in the current strategic environment forms the rationale for DoD's request for new authorities, (5) especially to advance a new "Partnership Strategy." (6)
As outlined in the 2006 QDR, the Partnership Strategy is one of DoD's key tools for the United States' "long war" against a new threat--that is, the decentralized networks of "violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice," who "will likely attempt to use" weapons of mass destruction "in their conflict with free people everywhere." (7) Countering such networks, as well as the rogue powers that may sponsor them, will require "long-duration, complex operations involving the U.S. military, other government agencies and international partners," which are waged simultaneously in multiple countries. (8) To do so will also require that the United States "assist others in developing the wherewithal to protect their own populations and police their own territories, as well as to project and sustain forces to promote collective security." (9)
In the 2006 QDR, as elsewhere, DoD maintains that developing the foreign "wherewithal" to enhance domestic and collective security requires a "whole of government" approach. Through the November 2005 DoD Directive 3000.05, entitled the Directive on Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations, defense leaders mandated that DoD "be prepared to conduct and support" civilian agencies in conducting SSTR operations, but also indicated doubt that civilian agencies will create the needed capabilities to carry out state-building tasks. Thus, while DoD acknowledges that state-building tasks may be "best performed by indigenous, foreign, or U.S. civilian professionals," it also sees a need to develop its own capability to perform "all tasks necessary to establish or maintain order when civilians cannot do so." (10) As reflected in the 2006 QDR, DoD is placing a new emphasis on the utility of non-combat foreign assistance activities and expects to continue to play an important, if not a proportionately expanding, role in U.S. foreign assistance in the developing world.
DoD subsequently reiterated these points. In October 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates referred to this new perception of the DoD role:...
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