U.S. Army Building Partner Capacity for Global Security
This paper examines the growing importance of building partner capacity as a core component of U.S. national security strategy. Drawing on scholarship from Marquis et al., Moroney, and Reveron, the paper identifies three categories of potential partners—coalition partners, regional leaders, and indigenous partners—and explores the challenges inherent in collaborative military efforts, including free-rider risks and political suitability concerns. The paper argues that security cooperation programs, shared strategic interests, and capability-gap bridging are essential tools for sustaining the U.S. Army's global partnerships, particularly in the ongoing war on terror. It concludes by calling for a more specific execution roadmap to guide partner capacity building efforts.
- Introduction: Growing Threats and the Case for Partnership: Rationale for U.S. military partnership amid rising threats
- Types of Partners in Capacity Building: Coalition, regional, and indigenous partner categories defined
- Challenges in Military Collaboration: Risks, free riders, and political suitability in partnerships
- Partnership in the War on Terror: Why sustainable terror strategy requires allied capacity
- Security Cooperation Programs and Shared Interests: Incentives, shared goals, and cooperation program design
- Improving the Execution Roadmap: Calls for specificity in partner capacity guidance
- References: Cited sources and bibliography
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Grounds every major claim in cited scholarship, drawing consistently on RAND Corporation research and Reveron's policy analysis to establish credibility.
- Organizes the argument logically—moving from the rationale for partnership, to types of partners, to challenges, to practical recommendations—making the reasoning easy to follow.
- Balances theoretical framing with concrete policy recommendations, such as revising the execution roadmap and appealing to partner incentives like equipment and training.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of multiple policy sources around a single thesis. Rather than summarizing each source in isolation, the writer weaves Marquis, Moroney, and Reveron together to build a cumulative argument, using quotations selectively to anchor key definitional and normative claims while keeping the analytical voice their own.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with the geopolitical rationale for building partner capacity, then defines the three partner types identified by Marquis et al. It proceeds to address collaboration challenges and political suitability, pivots to the war on terror as a primary use case, discusses security cooperation incentives and shared interests, and closes with a critique of the current execution roadmap alongside a call for greater specificity. This structure mirrors a classic policy analysis format: problem → context → constraints → recommendations.
Introduction: Growing Threats and the Case for Partnership
Going forward, threats to U.S. national interests are likely to increase, even as the list of increasingly bold adversaries continues to grow. Geopolitical shifts are also likely to threaten global peace and order. Threats to the national interests of the U.S. could also be seen as threats to the country's allies. Former Secretary Carter once pointed out that, thanks to the United States' core interests, Israel is assured of "continued qualitative military edge, and why we're working with our Gulf partners to make them more capable of defending themselves against external aggression" (Cordersman, 2015). On the basis of these facts, the U.S., as the world's sole superpower, ought to foster closer working relations between its Army and those of other countries so as to better address emerging global threats and other challenges.
Types of Partners in Capacity Building
Building partner capacity is not a new issue. However, as Marquis et al. (2010) point out, it is only recently that this concept "migrated to positions near the top of the U.S. national security agenda." In essence, three kinds of potential partners in capacity-building efforts have been identified by Marquis et al. (2010): coalition partners, regional leaders, and indigenous partners.
The authors define a coalition partner as "a willing provider of significant stability operations-related capability in support of coalition operations outside the nation's own borders" (Marquis et al., 2010). Such a partner ought to be internally stable, have a strategic rapport with the U.S., and be recognized by the international community as a legitimate government. A regional leader, on the other hand, is viewed as "an actual or potential provider of capability and leadership for regionally based stability operations that are compatible with U.S. interests" (Marquis et al., 2010). Lastly, indigenous partners are states that are fragile but cooperative and friendly to the U.S., and whose collapse could threaten U.S. interests.
Challenges in Military Collaboration
It is important to note that capacity and capability building with partner armies is fraught with a number of challenges. In typical collaboration efforts, each player has an interest it attempts to secure, and collaboration becomes sustainable only when those interests are aligned. Collaboration also comes with a significant degree of inherent risk. These risks include the possibility of collaborating with free riders and reliability concerns when working with certain formations. Assessments should therefore be conducted by the DoD to ensure that partnering armies not only have the necessary resources but are also genuinely invested and involved.
An assessment of the political suitability of partners is also a key consideration. According to Reveron (2016), the U.S. deems democratic governments as acceptable partners in capacity-building efforts due to their democratic ideals—namely, the promotion of basic freedoms and the maintenance of credible electoral and justice systems. Partnering with such governments in military operations is considered appropriate, given the inherent risks of training rogue governments that could turn the skills and capabilities gained against their own citizens.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.