Small footprint, small payoff: The military effectiveness of security force assistance

Biddle, Stephen; Macdonald, Julia; Baker, Ryan

doi:10.1080/01402390.2017.1307745

Cited by 66 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…While these developments suggest that this type of operation provides a perfect solution to project combat power at minimal costs, there are also serious risks involved. Misalignment in interest between local authorities and governments deploying security force assistance forms a common risk that can seriously limit the utility of such operations (Biddle et al 2018). This clearly demonstrates the endemic weakness of assisting troops under control of another party.…”

Section: Security Force Assistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Operations in Irregular Warfare

Kitzen

2020

Handbook of Military Sciences

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Irregular warfare differs tremendously from the regular, conventional warfare for which Western armed forces traditionally have been optimized. This chapter explores this contrasting form of warfare and its underlying body of knowledge which characterizes irregular conflicts as violent struggles involving nonstate actors and states that seek to establish power, control, and legitimacy over relevant populations. Due to military asymmetry and the political nature of the struggle, the use of force mostly takes unconventional or unorthodox forms and is typically combined with other, non-kinetic, activities. As such, irregular warfare favors an indirect approach that does not focus on military defeat, but on winning the population(s) at stake and eroding the opponent's will. This forces conventionally focused armed forces to adapt to the specifics of an irregular conflict. In order to discuss the way western militaries have operationalized the irregular warfare mission, this analysis first describes terrorism and insurgency, the

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Section: Security Force Assistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Operations in Irregular Warfare

Kitzen

2020

Handbook of Military Sciences

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“…Bapat (2011) and Boutton (2019b) argue that foreign aid can increase terrorism because, in some cases, it creates perverse incentives for recipients to sustain their terrorism problem in order to receive aid. Other arguments by Byman (2006), Watts, Shapiro and Brown (2007), Biddle, MacDonald and Baker (2018), and Ladwig (2017) point to systematic preference divergence between the United States and its partner countries as the primary obstacle to military aid effectiveness. Principal–agent dynamics, they argue, prevent the donor from imposing conditions on or monitoring the actions of the host regime, allowing the host to pursue its own interests.…”

Section: Military Aid Effectivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Why is this the case? This question has puzzled policy makers for many years, and though scholars have recently begun addressing it (Bapat 2011; Biddle, MacDonald and Baker 2018; Ladwig 2017), theories of military aid effectiveness have not systematically incorporated the politics and civil–military relations of the recipient country. This is an important oversight, and has left us with an incomplete understanding of why military assistance appears to uphold stability in some cases, and to undermine it in others.…”

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confidence: 99%

Military Aid, Regime Vulnerability and the Escalation of Political Violence

Boutton

2019

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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This article offers an explanation for the failures of US military assistance programs in some countries. The author argues that the effects of military aid are conditional upon the vulnerability of the recipient regime. Power consolidation by an insecure leader often provokes violent opposition. However, because military aid strengthens the security forces of the recipient state, it generates a moral hazard that encourages exclusionary power consolidation, with the expectation that continued military aid will help manage violent blowback. Using proxies for regime vulnerability and an instrument for US military aid, the study shows that military aid increases anti-regime violence in new regimes (particularly new democracies) and in all personalist regimes. In contrast, military assistance has no effect on violence in established, non-personalist regimes. The article develops a novel theory of how regime characteristics condition responses to external military support, and identifies a distinct mechanism through which military aid increases domestic political violence.

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“…Understanding this dynamic, she added, tells us much about contemporary states that have adapted to an increasingly complex security environment. 4…”

Section: From the Editorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the editors

2018

Journal of Strategic Studies

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Small footprint, small payoff: The military effectiveness of security force assistance

Cited by 66 publications

References 42 publications

Operations in Irregular Warfare

Operations in Irregular Warfare

Military Aid, Regime Vulnerability and the Escalation of Political Violence

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