The Pentagon's military aid role grows
Since we began the "Just the Facts" project in the 1990s, a constant theme has been the Defense Department's steadily growing role in assigning military aid. First for the "war on drugs," later for the "war on terror," the Pentagon has accrued ever greater authorities to use part of its $664 billion annual budget to aid foreign military forces.
This is undesirable for several reasons.
- It weakens the State Department's role in determining which militaries get how much aid. Because is designed to consider and protect all U.S. interests in a country — not just security but development, diplomatic relations, democracy, human rights, environmental protection and others — the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act placed the State Department in charge of foreign aid, including security assistance. Routing such aid through the Defense budget reduces the State Department's authority.
- It weakens congressional oversight, including human rights protections. The congressional committees that authorize and fund State Department-managed military assistance oversee a $50 billion annual budget that gets significant scrutiny, since foreign aid is not politically popular in the United States. Aid that goes through the regular foreign aid budget channel is subject to conditions — including important human rights protections — and must be reported to Congress and the public. This website's database depends heavily on these reports. By contrast, aid that goes through the enormous defense budget is an almost invisible fraction of the total, and receives little scrutiny from the relevant committees.
- It gives the Pentagon a greater diplomatic role. Giving the Defense Department significant autonomy over aid to foreign militaries can bring about situations in which military-to-military ties with a country are stronger than diplomatic ties.
The biggest leap forward in Defense budget military aid came in 2006, when Section 1206 of that year's National Defense Authorization Act created a new program authorizing the Pentagon to use $200 million of its budget to "train and equip" foreign militaries and police. This program, known simply as "Section 1206," closely resembled the State Department-run Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, and was supposed to expire at the end of 2007. It was extended through 2008 and raised to $300 million, then extended again through 2011 and raised to $350 million. The 2011 Defense budget request will reportedly include a proposal to increase the 1206 program budget to $500 million in 2011. Between 2006 and 2008 — the years for which we currently have data — Section 1206 was the fifth-largest source of U.S. military assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean.
Now, as the Obama administration prepares to send Congress its 2011 budget request, the future of the Section 1206 program, which would expire at the end of that year, is a topic of much internal debate.
This is evidenced by a letter (PDF) Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on December 15. The letter proposes that the two departments pool their funds for military and police aid — but also economic development assistance — in three areas: security capacity-building, stabilization and conflict prevention. These pools, which Gates calls "Shared Responsibility, Pooled Resources" or SRPR, would require "dual-key" approval for expenditure of funds. (The analogy refers to a door or vehicle that requires two people to turn keys in order to unlock or start it.)
Each pool would operate with joint formulation requirements in the field and dual-key concurrence in Washington, DC. Legislation would endow these funds with inherent authority to achieve their purposes. Each department would be able to add funds to the pool to meet a departmental imperative, although the use of these funds would be subject to the dual-key approval requirements.
A "dual key" process is preferable to the Pentagon having autonomy to carry out its own security assistance policy. However, if made permanent this proposal would be a defeat for the State Department, which until recently was the only "keyholder." Since at least the 1990s, though, the State Department has not been assigned the resources needed to do the job on its own, while the Defense Department has. This proposal would make that reality permanent, irreversibly solidifying the Defense Department's foreign assistance role.
The Bush administration's secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, consistently yielded to the Defense Department on the Section 1206 jurisdiction issue. Secretary Clinton's department, on the other hand, has sought to re-take some of the lost turf. However, a January 20 post to Foreign Policy magazine's diplomacy blog, "The Cable," indicates that the State Department already gave in to the Defense Department's request to increase the Section 1206 budget to $500 million in 2011.
"That literally is the result of vigorous arm wrestling within the administration," one source familiar with the discussions said. The battle had been waged primarily between the shops of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro, but finally Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew got involved.
"Eventually State backed off," the source said. "They're not sure they have the capacity to actually run the 1206 programs." …
Insiders working on the issue also suggested that State didn't match up bureaucratically inside the fight. The Pentagon just has so many more people and resources to bring to bear, and besides, the State Department's strategy review, the QDDR, isn't complete.
Meanwhile, "The Cable" says, the Gates proposal for a jointly administered SRPR pool does not, for now, appear to be going anywhere.
[Capitol] Hill staffers, who would be the ones appropriating the money, said there was no follow-through. Many saw the memo as a decoy and not really operative in any sense.
The security-assistance turf battle is heating up in ways that will affect future assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. And it is taking place while the congressional foreign affairs committees consider a rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act that could change the picture still further. We can expect more flare-ups over the coming year. But given the Defense Department's larger budget, political capital and bargaining power, it will be difficult - not impossible, but difficult - to forestall an outcome that doesn't involve a greater U.S. military role in foreign aid.