Report: US Security Cooperation Knotted in Bureaucracy: A new report in the wake of big changes to the Pentagon’s security assistance apparatus argues the sector’s wider web of US government bureaucracies is still profoundly tangled.
Security cooperation has been a cornerstone of US defense strategy, with $250 billion spent in at least 137 countries since 9/11. By bolstering partner security forces — from local police to elite troops — it’s meant to prevent future crises, a way to do more with less.
Yet, in spite of a recently-signed defense policy bill that aims to rid the Pentagon of its organizational, transparency and training woes for security assistance, the government overall is a knot of 46 entities with slim to no coordination between them or a means of gauging whether these programs actually work.
A report by Open Society Foundations senior policy adviser Rose Jackson, published Monday, offers a blueprint for Department of Defense and beyond. Its recommendations aim to improve internal transparency, make the workforce more capable and standardize processes for planning, budgeting and programming.
