Strengthening U.S. Strategic Influence: How to Make IMET the Most Powerful Tool in the Security Cooperation Toolkit

By Major Thomas Dyrenforth, U.S. Army and Major Sean McMahon, U.S. Army

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Introduction

            In 2017, the United States budgeted over $100 million for the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. However, no standard metric exists to determine whether this program is a success. Additionally, although several indicators suggest that the most strategically valuable aspect of the IMET program is the individual relationships it establishes between students and the U.S. government, graduate management and continued engagement are non-standardized and largely neglected. This paper identifies measurements of program effectiveness as a key knowledge gap in assessing the IMET program’s level of success. Additionally, the authors conclude that lack of coordinated IMET graduate management has resulted in significant underutilization of key strategic resources. Therefore, this paper recommends that improvements must be made to program metrics and graduate management in order to realize maximum benefit from the IMET program.

Photo: "Dempsey Speaks at National Defense University; June 5, 2014," Department Of Defense

The IMET program has been lauded for years for its ability to train foreign military officers and build lasting relationships. It is not rare for U.S. defense officials to work with a host-nation Chief of Defense who spent a year or more training in the U.S. through this program. Many U.S. Security Cooperation Officers (SCOs) rank IMET among their most powerful tools in accomplishing their missions around the world.[1] The program is deemed so strategically important that Congress has increased its funding 70 percent since 2000, now allocating nearly $110 million annually.[2]

However, while many anecdotes exist that support IMET’s positive effect, there remains no formal system to track IMET graduates or evaluate the program’s impact on U.S. strategic interests. Many defense officials working in U.S. embassies have limited visibility of which foreign partners have received training over the long-term, and a majority of IMET graduates are never contacted again.

Research suggests that the most strategically valuable aspect of the IMET program is the individual relationship formed between each graduate and the U.S. government. However, the current system focuses predominantly on the front-end process of getting students to and through the program, while it neglects the management of long-term relationships after graduation.

The U.S. invests heavily in developing thousands of strategic relationships with defense partners around the world, only to let the majority of them atrophy. If this program is as vital to the U.S. security cooperation toolkit as security cooperation practitioners suggest, it warrants a more systematic approach to measuring and leveraging its potential.

Problem Background: Focusing on the Wrong Thing

The IMET program provides training and education on a grant basis to international students from partner nations with the overall goal of furthering regional stability through effective, mutually beneficial military-to-military relations.[3] Authorized by Section 541 of the Foreign Assistance Act, IMET is administered by the Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (DoS PM) and executed by the Department of Defense (DoD).[4] According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s (DSCA) official “Green Book,” IMET is the cornerstone of security assistance training and is intended to provide long-term strategic benefits to both the U.S. and partner nations.[5] For over four decades, IMET has received praise for its crucial role as a building-block for cultivating deep and long-lasting relationships with senior military officers from partner countries.

While visiting thirty-seven different U.S. embassies in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America from 2015 to 2016, we often asked each U.S. defense official we met to name their most cost-effective security assistance program.[6] Nearly every officer provided the same response: IMET. However, none of the officers could point to tangible results demonstrating the program’s overall strategic effectiveness aside from two basic measures: 1) how much each office spent annually on the program and 2) how many international students traveled to the U.S. for training. These are measures of program performance, not program effectiveness. No standard metric exists to determine whether this program is truly a success.

To make matters worse, many of the officials interviewed admitted that they had minimal awareness of IMET graduates after they return to their home country. The U.S. government is investing over $100 million annually into a program without any way to objectively measure its effectiveness or maximize its return on investment. Regrettably, these problems have been repeatedly identified for more than twenty-five years.

IMET’s Evolution

IMET has served as a security assistance tool within the U.S. diplomatic inventory since 1976. During that time, the program has evolved thanks to increased funding and scrutiny alike. The two most notable improvements since the 1980s were the introduction of Enhanced-IMET (E-IMET, where senior host-nation civil servants within the defense sector are eligible for training) and the adoption of the Leahy Law (a prohibition on the U.S. providing training to foreign militaries or individuals suspected of committing “gross human rights violations”[7]). Over the last two decades, most of the literature regarding IMET has focused on these two changes. However, the same literature consistently pays close attention to two primary issues: the inability to capitalize on graduates following training and the continued issues with program assessment.

INSS Assessment, 1995: A program with powerful potential

One of the first major assessments of the program was produced in 1995 by the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS). The INSS team’s report was authored by John Cope, a Senior Fellow at the National Defense University (NDU). According to the report, “[IMET] promotes U.S. interests and is the most successful program of its kind.”[8] Cope hailed the numerous benefits of IMET, specifically commending the program’s effectiveness in helping professionalize foreign officers and increasing interoperability in partnered operations, as well as the potential opportunity to connect with and leverage graduates. Cope recommended expanding IMET to increase democracy and human rights training, growing the E-IMET capacity, and standardizing and formalizing graduate relations.[9] At the same time, Cope’s assessment highlights that implementing many of these recommendations will require support not only from multiple U.S. stakeholders, but from the nations receiving the assistance as well.[10]

Survey Assessments, 2007-2009: Similar conclusions, backed by data

From 2007-2009, two different research groups collected some of the first systematic survey data on IMET graduates in an attempt to better measure program effectiveness. The first project (State Department and DISAM Study on the Effectiveness of International Military Education and Training Program: 2007-2009), which produced a joint report from DoS and DoD, drew from a representative sample of 2007-2009 IMET graduates across all U.S. military schools.[11] It found that when measured against all IMET objectives, graduates showed “a strong increase in student understanding of the goals of international peace and security, utilization of defense resources, increased military capability, and improved understanding of internationally recognized human rights …achieving [IMET’s] Foreign Assistance Act mandated purpose.”[12] Based on this, the report recommended that the IMET program should continue, providing in the authors’ judgment a particularly high return on investment. Importantly, the report emphasized that the greatest graduate benefits were associated with attendance to PME courses, which provided prolonged exposure to the U.S. and deeper academic study.[13]

A second report (Impact of International Military Education on Graduate Education), produced in 2008 by the Center for Civil-Military Relations and funded by DSCA, was narrower in focus, but reached similar conclusions about IMET effectiveness. This report featured research conducted in 17 countries between January and December 2007 that analyzed the long-term benefits of IMET by examining international graduates at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The authors’ findings suggested IMET’s strong long-term benefit to the participants. Notably, for the surveyed NPS graduates, IMET was linked to future promotion and career advancement, exposed participants to the importance of civilian control of the military, promoted building partner institutional capacity, and had a force-multiplying effect once graduates return home and teach what they have learned to their colleagues.[14] Quantitatively, over 94% of the study’s respondents reported that their IMET experience increased their knowledge of both their own military specialty and of U.S. systems and practices.[15] Although the study was not representative of the entire IMET population, some of its recommendations echoed those seen elsewhere: improve efforts to maintain contact with graduates and develop a systematic means of program evaluation.[16] However, the authors deemed the final point the most difficult to implement due to the paucity of evaluative processes currently instituted in other U.S. security assistance programs and the difficulty with measuring relationships.

GAO Assessments, 1990-2017: More than twenty-five years without substantive changes

Outside of DoD, analysts of the IMET program have made similar conclusions. Since 1990 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released two major IMET assessment reports, as well as numerous reports dealing with security cooperation and foreign assistance more broadly.[17] In its 1990 report to Senator Patrick Leahy, then-chairman of the Foreign Operations Committee, GAO criticized the IMET program for its failure to evaluate effectiveness and pointed to a specific lack of “guidelines for monitoring the use of IMET graduates” following training.[18]

Two decades later, GAO released a long-awaited update recommending that IMET expand its human rights training and again develop a “system for evaluating the effectiveness of the IMET program.”[19] In terms of evaluation, the report recommended adopting existing evaluation practices used by “other State and DOD agencies,” although not directly naming other successful models.[20] Although the 1990 report had recommended tracking all graduates, GAO estimated that by 2011, DOD accurately maintained records for only one percent of graduates. The 2011 report makes it evident that while human rights training has steadily increased since the early 1990s, the inability to evaluate IMET and track graduates continues to be a major weakness.

More recently, a 2017 GAO report released findings of its office’s thorough review of six U.S. government agencies that provide foreign assistance, to include both the DoS and DoD. Discussing DoD security assistance broadly, GAO’s “main concerns about the DOD evaluations focused on implementation of the methods used. In particular, [GAO] found limitations in sampling methods including descriptions of the target population, data collection methods, and data analysis.”[21] The report’s findings suggest that the evaluation challenges from which the IMET program suffers are consistent with a broader trend in evaluating DoD security assistance programs. 

Recent Critiques: Lack of graduate engagement is a huge missed opportunity

More recently, Joint Force Quarterly published an article in 2014 by two professors within NDU’s International Student Management Office (IMSO). The authors reviewed the numerous benefits of the growing IMET program, but argued that its long-term return on investment remains ambiguous. This is due in large part to the lack of contact maintained after IMET students graduate. The lack of communication is poor and often “the majority of [IMET] graduates are never tracked, contacted, or heard from again in their home countries.”[22] The authors, Russell Thacker and Paul Lambert, attribute this common theme to a “lack of policy guidance, limited resources, poor coordination, and an overall absence of focus on this aspect of education.”[23] They argue that increased attention to IMET graduate management will enable U.S. diplomats and defense officials to cultivate real relationships which will prove beneficial for both the U.S. and its host-nation partners.

In June 2016, Joshua Kurlantzick published a policy memorandum through the Council on Foreign Relations with his assessment of the IMET program.[24] While highlighting the program’s evolution and steady funding increases, the report focused most of its attention to IMET’s deficiencies. The critique offered reform recommendations centered around how participants are selected, how graduates are tracked, and how U.S. leaders can more effectively use IMET as a diplomatic tool in bilateral relations. According to the report, reforming IMET to allow efficient graduate tracking will improve the program’s effectiveness and lead to positive secondary effects, such as increased defense sales and deep-rooted strategic relationships.

Over the last two decades, numerous assessments have given the IMET program strong marks for its successes – professionalizing foreign officers, promoting human rights, and increasing interoperability with partners – but many of the same criticisms from the early 1990s still linger today. There remains no formal system to track IMET graduates, evaluate the program’s effectiveness, or leverage relationships to boost U.S. long-term strategic interests. IMET’s long-range return on investment remains uncertain as the U.S. has yet to address these shortcomings.

A review of the literature shows that the U.S. government has made steady improvements to IMET program management, but only to the point at which students graduate. How the U.S. manages and benefits from the IMET program beyond graduation day, however, has remained noticeably unchanged.

Why This Problem Remains Unaddressed: Mismatched Incentives

Although IMET’s shortcomings remain unaddressed, the U.S. continues to invest heavily in this program. Four major barriers to improving IMET’s effectiveness and capitalizing on the U.S. investment exist: myopic policies, lack of effective coordination, inadequate funding for graduate management, and a lack of capacity at the embassy level.

Myopic policies: Lacking a strategic approach to monitoring and evaluation

While IMET is legislated by Congress and managed by the DoS, the program is executed by DSCA, which coordinates funding and provides priorities to the Combatant Commands (CCMD). DSCA’s large mandate for IMET includes allocated funding and direction to track graduates following training.[25] DSCA effectively administers this large program, but its critics point to its deficiency with graduate tracking as evidence of lacking strategic policies. A June 2015 Office of the Inspector General report stated that DoS’s project manager directly relies on DSCA to monitor IMET, but was unsatisfied because DSCA “lacked a strategic approach,” with monitoring and evaluating IMET.[26] The issues with program evaluation and graduate tracking are not new or unique to the IMET program, and DSCA continues to search for the best way ahead from previous recommendations.

Lack of coordination: Effective coordination stops once students graduate

A lack of coordination is another barrier to IMET improvement. Coordination occurs throughout all levels of the IMET program, but it is generally insufficient and overwhelmingly focuses on getting students to and through training, rather than leveraging graduates over the long-term. One area where coordination is not synchronized is the relationship between IMSOs, DSCA, and Security Cooperation Officers (SCOs) carrying out IMET at the embassy level.

The IMSOs are located at the various military training schoolhouses that host international students, such as NDU; Army, Navy, and Air War Colleges; the Naval Postgraduate School; and numerous others. The IMSOs serve as the direct conduit between an international student and their professional military education. While some IMSOs attempt to track graduates, much of the ongoing graduate management is done on an ad hoc basis because there is no standardized mechanism that works across IMSOs to reinforce tracking and data management. Currently IMSOs lack the incentives, accountability, and resources to improve current systems and establish standardized graduate management systems across the different schoolhouses.

One area where coordination opportunities exist but are not fully realized is at the annual Security Cooperation and Education Training Working Group (SCETWG), held at each geographic CCMD. This annual meeting brings together all SCOs, CCMD decision makers, and representatives from DSCA and various IMSOs to review all security assistance programs. To prepare for the SCETWG, SCOs are required to update the Security Assistance Network (SAN) with a single metric on IMET graduates: positions of prominence attained. Unfortunately, updating the SAN is painstakingly tedious and produces output that is difficult to use due to poor data management.[27] SCOs are provided with a cursory review of IMET policies and available courses, but much of the discussion focuses on program funding and not program effectiveness. Without a formal discussion of program effectiveness and IMET return on investment at the SCETWG, this disincentivizes conducting such analysis and reflection at the country-team level.  

Funding: Lack of a graduate management budget limits engagement capacity

Another barrier to success is IMET funding. The Foreign Assistance Act does not direct DoS to implement an IMET graduate management program, and DoS funding in its current state supports only student training. DSCA, the implementing agency, does have more flexibility in terms of adjusting policy to enable a graduate management program, but has yet to institute such a program. The problem with IMET funding is not necessarily the amount of funding, but rather who should fund such a program: DoS, DSCA, or individual schoolhouses? Current DoS and DSCA funding priorities call for maximizing the number of trainees, at the expense of developing a cadre of mid-to-senior-level graduates that can provide strategic benefit for years to come.

Lack of in-country capacity: Scarcity of manpower and resources inhibit improvement

Perhaps the most unavoidable obstacle within IMET is the lack of capacity available for SCOs at the embassy level. SCOs are assigned to embassies for two- to three-year tours and endure a chaotic pace administering security assistance programs, executing countless tasks, liaising with host-nation senior leaders, and reporting various requirements to their CCMD headquarters. In many embassies, only a single officer is responsible for all security assistance programs.

IMET is only one of many security assistance programs, and is not typically given equitable attention compared to the costlier foreign military sales and financing programs. Carrying out the required duties and responsibilities leaves little time for SCOs to implement discretionary programs. With little incentive from the CCMD or DSCA to assess graduates or conduct graduate management, this gets marked as a task to be addressed when essential work is complete. Thus, any recommended solution that places the SCO as the center of gravity or significantly increases their workload will likely struggle to succeed.

Recommendations: Measure Effectiveness and Improve Graduate Management

Addressing IMET’s two shortcomings – lack of an evaluation system and graduate management program – is fundamentally about realigning incentives and synchronizing efforts. There are several existing opportunities that could be harnessed to confront the lack of program evaluation and inability to track IMET graduates. These primary opportunities address policy, coordination, and resources. Effective policy at the Joint Staff level and within DSCA will establish the regulatory framework necessary to drive change. Increasing the effectiveness of existing coordination meetings, such as the regional SCETWGs and other interagency meetings, will maximize success at no additional cost. Leveraging existing capacity within the IMSOs and Institutional Research Offices at the various DoD schoolhouses also has the potential to provide cost-effective solutions.

Measuring Program Effectiveness: A four-step approach

An effective evaluation program must start with a mandate from the Joint Staff office of Joint Force Development, known as the J7. Such direction would empower DSCA to implement the program. It would also facilitate the use of the Institutional Research, Assessment, and Accreditation Divisions (IRAAD) at NDU and the service-specific war college institutional research offices. Part of each institutional research office’s mission is to provide research, assessment, and support services to their respective schools.[28] With the proper mandate from the J7, these offices could be mobilized to assist evaluation program implementation.

 An evaluation program can be implemented in four steps:

1) defining what "effectiveness" means for IMET,

2) identifying how to best measure that effectiveness,

3) incorporating war college institutional research offices to support the implementation of an evaluation program, and

4) formalizing a system of periodic review of the data collected.

Clearly defining program effectiveness is a vital first step. This should be based on existing policy guidelines for the IMET program. A useful starting point would be to measure the program’s effectiveness against the Presidential Policy Directive regarding Security Assistance, PPD-23.

Once program effectiveness is defined, how measures of that effectiveness (MOEs) are selected is a crucial second step. Since those executing the IMET program already possess little excess capacity, any additional requirements regarding measurement and data collection must not be overly burdensome. Once MOEs are identified, leveraging war college institutional research offices to support implementation of the evaluation program is critical to its long-term success. The institutional research offices are where the appropriate expertise and capacity to administer such a program reside. Finally, an evaluation program will be worthless unless the data it generates is analyzed in a systematic way that provides consistent and valuable feedback on the program to policymakers.

Since time is a precious resource for all stakeholders, it is vital to create a system that is standardized and simple. The first two steps will likely require external support to accomplish. Contracted assistance from knowledge management and metrics analysis professionals could help establish baseline metrics that are scientifically rigorous and realistically measurable. However, once the metrics and evaluation plan have been established, DoD possesses sufficient institutional capacity to implement and monitor a long-term evaluation plan.

DSCA cannot be content with implementing a process to evaluate IMET; it must use this system to reinforce the effectiveness of existing feedback mechanisms. After implementing a metrics program, DSCA should use annual stakeholder meetings, such as SCETWGs[29] and DoS-DSCA training policy meetings,[30] to receive feedback, discuss potential solutions, and implement positive changes. Understanding program effectiveness is only beneficial if it serves as a catalyst for improvement.

Managing Graduates: Adopting best practices and incentivizing participation

Effective graduate management is essential to increasing IMET program effectiveness. Although many stakeholders recognize this, in the current resource-constrained environment the proper incentives do not exist across the enterprise to drive change. Therefore, change must start within the Joint Staff J7

Joint Force Development office, which has joint accreditation authority over all war colleges. By establishing the presence of an effective international graduate management program as an accreditation requirement, the J7 can create the regulatory incentive necessary to motivate change.

In the initial implementation of a revamped graduate management program, DSCA would need to determine the appropriate population to focus its resources for a pilot graduate management program. Research and interviews suggest that the program would have the most impact if instituted at the five major senior-level PME institutions: NDU and the four service war colleges. [31] These institutions host foreign officers that attend courses in the U.S. that typically last twelve months, with the focus population being O-5 (lieutenant colonel equivalent) and O-6 (colonel equivalent). By focusing on this population, this smaller program is easier to implement. Additionally, by focusing on officers already tracking towards the senior ranks, it would yield the highest return on investment compared to the implementation of a system-wide plan across all PME at once.

The backbone of the graduate management program should be engagement activities that unite graduates together through continuing education. For example, utilizing invitation-only continuing education seminars would offer IMET graduates an opportunity to attend a selective event with other graduates from across similar geographic regions. These seminars could be sponsored by the schoolhouses with the option for CCMDs to serve as co-hosts. Such seminars would directly support every aspect of IMET’s strategic objectives, create an environment of increased cooperation with partners, and provide the U.S. with another tool to foster its strategic relationships. Effective seminars would be mutually beneficial to the U.S. and IMET graduates alike. Seminars would drive long-term graduate communication and tracking, and would incentivize graduates to remain engaged with the U.S. government. While seminars would be the central feature of a graduate management program, regular communication with IMET graduates would support not only these seminars, but would offer graduates a place to share lessons learned, connect with peers, and provide feedback that supports program evaluation. 

To fund a graduate management program, DSCA should make a policy change to fund the program through the base tuition for each IMET student. This would marginally raise tuition costs, but would provide the financial resources necessary for effective outreach throughout the remainder of a graduate’s career.

Lastly, a graduate management program, while standardized, should be fully implemented by the IMSOs at each schoolhouse. These graduate management specialists within each IMSO should be responsible for all interactions – email, social media, and advertising for continuing education seminars. Additionally, the IMSOs should serve as the point of contact for CCMDs and SCOs needing to reach out to graduates back in their home country. This would concentrate responsibility for relationship management with the organization with which IMET graduates feel the most affinity – their school.

Conclusion: Modest Change Will Yield Substantial Benefit

As the discussion here demonstrates, the challenges faced in maximizing IMET effectiveness are neither new nor confined narrowly to the IMET program alone. Accurately measuring effectiveness is a challenge across the spectrum of security cooperation. Congress has taken notice. In the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (2017), Congress required DoD to establish a formal system for assessing, monitoring, and evaluating (AM&E) all of its security cooperation programs.[32] Accordingly, DoD has directed DSCA as the lead agency to establish and oversee all security cooperation AM&E.[33] This moment of reflection and reorganization provides an invaluable opportunity to implement the type of improvements to IMET outlined here.  

If properly leveraged, the existing opportunities provide a means for change. However, shortsighted policies, ineffective coordination, and inadequate funding will not be overcome by simply maximizing existing opportunities. This will require a robust coalition to effect change, comprised of the Joint Staff J7, DSCA, IMSOs, IROs, CCMD J5s, and SCOs at every embassy. DSCA is the IMET program’s center of gravity. Therefore, their leadership and coordination is essential. Nothing can be improved without DSCA first creating a shared vision that is reinforced throughout the change process. With successful leadership, DSCA can mobilize a coalition to institute changes that truly will result in IMET being the signature security assistance program: a low-cost, high-return program that boosts partner capacity, fosters long-term strategic relationships, and achieves U.S. security cooperation objectives.

The changes are worth it. By establishing standardized systems for measuring IMET program effectiveness and managing its graduates, security practitioners will develop a better understanding of the return on investment (ROI) that the IMET program provides. More importantly, these solutions will establish a powerful historical record of programs and individuals that will strengthen future U.S. Defense Sector Reform and Security Cooperation objectives.

About the Authors

Major Thomas Dyrenforth is a Sub-Saharan Africa FAO currently serving as the Assistant Army Attaché to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy and a Master of International Policy and Practice from George Washington University. Major Dyrenforth has conducted multiple combat deployments to Iraq, served as an instructor of military science at West Point, and was recently assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

Major Sean McMahon is a Western Hemisphere FAO currently serving as an instructor of American Politics and Latin American Politics at the United States Military Academy.  He holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy and a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where he is currently a PhD candidate. Major McMahon has conducted multiple combat deployments to Afghanistan and was most recently assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru.

note: references are available in the full version of the article for members of www.FAOA.org by direct request to the editor.