U.S. Security Sector Assistance in the Gulf - What is it Doing? How Effective is it?
By Major Joshua L. Schulze, U.S. Air Force
According to Washington critics, America’s track record for providing Security Sector Assistance (SSA) to our Gulf state partners is abysmal. The range of experts contends that SSA in the Gulf and the greater Middle East is a “faith-based policy,” predicated on a “persistent fantasy,” one that generates counterproductive pathologies that undermine U.S. foreign policy. The criticisms boil down to two main arguments. 1. Because Gulf militaries are not self-sufficient, then security assistance has failed. 2. The U.S. receives disproportionately less benefit relative to the aid it provides. This paper counters the two arguments and presents empirical evidence and rational argumentation to demonstrate what security sector assistance is doing in the Gulf. The research concludes that U.S. security assistance is objectively effective in meeting its intended goals. The conclusion suggests a disparity in Washington regarding what SSA ought to accomplish. The implications are significant because of the influence wielded within Washington’s foreign policy establishment — a battleground between think tanks, lobbyists, and academics that are promoting the end of security sector assistance to the Gulf. Countering this trend requires a critical analysis of the provider and partner expectations for the SSA relationship.
Security Assistance in the Gulf: It’s not that “Hard”
In his comprehensive treatise on security assistance, William Mott warns us of the “cyclically fashionable” critiques of U.S. security sector assistance. The revolving crisis requires practitioners to embrace SSA’s complexity to overcome the ambiguity of what it is and is not. Accordingly, this paper presents security sector assistance as a non-coercive element of soft power versus a coercive element of military and economic hard power. The endeavor aims to derive mutual security benefits for the provider and the partner nation. Therefore, to measure effectiveness, one must take into account the security expectations of the provider and the partner nation to identify areas of convergence.
U.S. Expectations for SSA in the Gulf
In recent testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Bradley Bowman captured the goals and benefits of SSA in the Gulf. These goals were examined and summarized here as U.S. expectations of the Gulf security relationship.
- Build-up military partners to help America achieve security objectives at a lower cost
- Promote access to critical bases, ports, and airspace
- Support regional stability that generates economic growth
- Facilitate military training to enhance American values and influence opportunities
-Invest in the U.S. defense sector and reduce weapons development cost
Most of these goals and expectations are relatively straight-forward to evaluate. From an economic standpoint, long-term stability in the Gulf has led to significant trade benefits for the U.S. In 2019 alone, the U.S. conducted $70.3 billion in bilateral trade with Gulf partners,
$24.4 billion of which was a positive trade balance directly contributing to GDP. In terms of access, the Gulf nations host U.S. service members in every country. As of September 2020, 8,247 personnel served across a dozen airbases, ports, and posts in the Gulf. One of the most underappreciated benefits is in the U.S. defense sector. Arms sales notifications for Gulf states totaled $278.5 billion from 2000-2019, $64.5 billion in delivered and fielded weapon systems. This funding supports the defense industry in America and subsidizes innovation and arms development. From a cost perspective, the U.S. military graduated 50,000 trainees from 2000 to 2019 -- approximately 98% of the training was funded by the Gulf nations. The overall scorecard suggests that America is benefiting greatly from the intended goals of the U.S.– Gulf SSA relationship. From a cost-benefit perspective, U.S. SSA to the Gulf nations is highly effective.
Countering Assumptions of what SSA Ought to accomplish in the Gulf
Nowhere outside the Washington's foreign policy establishment does anyone suggest that making Gulf nations militarily self-sufficient is a realistic goal. The U.S. benefits from being the provider of choice for the Gulf. Their security needs are the foundation of America’s benefits. However, improving the Gulf states’ military performance is a universally acknowledged challenge. Ken Pollack’s seminal survey of Arab state militaries explains the predicament and underscores the angst in Washington. Pollack argues that the Arab states’ militaries suffer from complex cultural, political, and economic factors that structurally inhibit military effectiveness. The Gulf nations are particularly susceptible as rentier autocracies with minority citizenry (some as low as 10% of the population), limited incentives to serve, strong tribal affiliations, and a deep (and warranted) cultural fear of military coups. Critics politicize this phenomenon and point to SSA programs’ inability to resolve the structural issues inherent in Arab societies. In reality, it will require years of deep and cross-cutting transformation to optimize Arab states’ militaries. While the U.S. can play a role, much of the change required may take generations. However, when one examines Gulf security strategy and behavior, the actual expectations are already being realized and do not include military self-sufficiency.
Gulf Expectations for SSA
Each nation in the Gulf has its own agenda and expectations for U.S. security assistance. However, experts identified some common trends based on their security behavior and international relations theory. Matt Gray makes a compelling argument that Gulf state security behavior exhibits a modified form of omnibalancing. Each state is simultaneously balancing against external and domestic threats to regime legitimacy. From the perspective of the Gulf states, U.S. security assistance is expected to address all threats. This includes balancing against obvious threats like Iran and helping Gulf states balance against each other. The ongoing Gulf rift crisis first initiated in 2017 illustrates an example of the latter. The persistent core-periphery tension between Saudi Arabia and the five smaller states is an often overlooked component of Gulf security dynamics. Gulf nations expect security aid to help balance against internal, external, and lateral threats.
A related aspect of Gulf state security behavior is strategic hedging. Guzansky argues that Gulf states do not rely on any one security provider. This behavior is evident in the states’ diffusion of multiple security providers. In this construct, the U.S. is in a crowded “security market.” The Gulf nations diversify across competing security providers to protect themselves from abandonment. Emma Soubrier explains that Gulf states view defense contracts as a tool of influence to guarantee external commitments to national security, not as a tool to build military independence. From the Gulf perspective, long-term U.S. security commitments are the intended goal of SSA, and they are willing to provide generous compensation for this arrangement.
Identifying a Convergence of Security Interests
In light of the complex security dynamics in the Gulf, there is a convergence of security interests in the omnibalancing construct that must be evaluated. In addition to providing arms transfers through direct commercial sales (DCS) and foreign military sales (FMS), the U.S. approach is unique in that it offers military training to its partners at a reduced rate. As alluded to previously, the Gulf states seek arms transfers for a variety of reasons. However, their participation in U.S. training is a good indicator for evaluating SSA effectiveness as it is directly related to improving their military and security apparatus -- their omnibalancing efforts.
By focusing on training, one can discriminate from Gulf nations’ propensity to procure expensive defense contracts for the sake of security guarantees. From the U.S. perspective, the training also provides influence opportunities to impart American values such as commitment to the rule of law, civilian control of the military, and the ethics of the profession of arms. Logically, as more graduates complete U.S. military training over time, there should be a measurable improvement in each states’ military and security apparatus.
U.S. and Gulf State Investment in Training
The dominant SSA training program in the Gulf is under the FMS program, but the U.S. also provides training under a dozen other programs. Each year, the Department of State (DoS) provides the Foreign Military Training Joint Report to Congress. The annual report outlines every military training event and the total number of individuals trained for each country. Under the FMS program, for the period 2000-2019, Gulf partners funded $2.5 billion to train 47,664 personnel. Additionally, the DoS funded training through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program and the Department of Defense (DoD) funded training through the service academies, Regional Centers for Security Studies, U.S. CENTCOM, and eight other programs graduating approximately 10,000 students between 2000 and 2019. The expenditures for each program in each year varies considerably, but a side-by-side comparison of Gulf state costs versus U.S. costs reveals U.S. aid was around 2% of the big four Gulf states’ contributions (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait). The number of U.S. military trainees reported in the data serves as a good source for evaluating U.S. SSA effectiveness over time.
Measuring Security Sector Improvements
The best available empirical source for measuring security sector improvements over time is the Fund For Peace (FFP) Security Apparatus indicator (SAI). The FFP published the core report, the Fragile States Index, annually for 178 countries since 2006. The index includes 12 indicators, one of which focuses specifically on security. The annual report is published in multiple influential journals, newspapers, and academic articles, making it the best-known security unit of analysis available. The SAI focuses on quantitative and qualitative data to provide a numerical score from 1.0 (excellent rating) to 10.0 (worst rating) based on several analytical factors. Some of the analytical factors include number of fatalities in conflict; threats to the state; perceived trust of citizens; state monopoly of force; degree of civilian control over the military; appropriate use of force; and professionalization of military and security forces. The indicator rating allows researchers to track security trends over time. The indicators focusing on 360-degree security factors make it a useful measure for evaluating U.S. SSA contributions to Gulf state omnibalancing efforts.
Conclusion
U.S. security assistance to the Gulf is meeting most of its intended goals. It provides significant economic and defense benefits to the U.S. and ensures access to key bases and ports in the Gulf. Additionally, the investment is mostly funded by the Gulf nations themselves, countering any argument that the U.S. is not reaping a return on investment. Contrary to Washington critics, transforming the Gulf nations’ militaries into completely independent and self-sufficient forces is unrealistic. Nor is such a goal in the best interests of the U.S. or the Gulf states. Such an argument confuses U.S. SSA effectiveness with Arab military effectiveness. While critics may argue that SSA ought to make Gulf militaries self-sufficient, the reality is that U.S. SSA as an element of soft power requires a deeper understanding of the security complexities in the Gulf. Arab States' perceptions of internal, external, and lateral threats drives their security calculus. The result is omnibalancing and hedging behaviors that complicate U.S. security sector assistance.
However, the data suggests that U.S. military training contributed to security sector improvements for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman, and to a lesser extent, Qatar. U.S. training did not seem to affect the UAE or Bahrain the same way, indicating that more analysis is required. In the case of UAE, it may mean that UAE’s success may have more to do with foreign assistance or independent measures separate from U.S.-provided training. The latter case of Bahrain is especially concerning as it suggests that U.S. SSA might be negatively impacting Bahrain’s security. The sample size was limited to 14 years of data, so the results must be weighed and interpreted with care. Only with continued analysis and reflection can SSA practitioners counter the “cyclically fashionable” critiques and the highly politicized claims from Washington’s foreign policy establishment..
About the Author
Major Josh Schulze is a CENTCOM FAO trainee at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He served as an enlisted cryptologic linguist (Arabic & Swahili) from 1994-2009 and as an intelligence officer from 2009 to the present. Major Schulze has deployed in support of combat and peace keeping operations throughout the Middle East and North Africa since 1999.
Thanks for posting this insightful & important article.
If the author could provide hyperlinks or other citations to the various authors cited in this good article, that would be appreciated & most helpful.
Related to this emerging functional area of SSA, curious about whether any FAOs (of any Service) are assigned, attached, or otherwise provided on request to support the various Security Cooperation Organizations (SCOs) resident & engaged in SAA-relevant activities in their respective host countries, as the operational or tactical levels, (i.e., advise, assist & facilitate the force-modernization interests & programs of their foreign military counterparts).
A parallel question is about specific indications of policy, program, or practice by Dept of the Army for any provision, integration & employment of qualified FAOs as SMEs in support of the US Army's Security Force Assistance Command (SFAC) & its assigned SFA Brigades with regional alignments to support GCCs.
While qualified FAOs are well-positioned to advise, assist, and contribute their expertise, and insights, especially as "counterpart clarifiers" [a borrowed term] at MAJCOM & GCC levels (i.e., CENTCOM in my regional of concentration & related operational background as a US Army FAO [FA 48G]), there has thus far been no public mention about the presence, roles & effectiveness of FAOs in SCOs or SFA elements.
"FAOs Forward!"