全球智库信息集成服务系统

Out of more than 160 congressional statutes authorizing the U.S. government to undertake security cooperation (SC) with foreign partners, 123 of them apply to DoD

• These Title 10 authorities constitute a complex patchwork that creates confusion within DoD and with foreign partners, leading to uncertainties, canceled events, and setbacks in relationship-building and capacity-building efforts.
• It also risks tying the hands of DoD staffers working with foreign partners to counter emerging threats.

Our analysis of the challenges DoD faces in pursuing SC with foreign partners suggests that the risks of maintaining Title 10 authorities in their existing form are high

• After multiple discussions with DoD stakeholders and over a dozen congressional staff members who play key roles in security cooperation, there appears to be some agreement over the need for streamlining Title 10 authorities and potential options for doing so.

A proposed hybrid framework that categorizes standardized and specialized authorities as activity-, mission-, or partner-based helps rationalize the patchwork and reduce complexity

• Using this framework, we found options to reduce the overall number of "core" authorities — those that directly authorize engagement with foreign partners — by 15, going from 106 to 91, while strengthening and better aligning the remaining statutes.

The web of legal complexities and vested institutional interests that surround these authorities will take considerable time and effort to properly untangle

• Although there is more to do to fully realize a simplified and more-effective system of Title 10 authorities, the framework and analysis in this report should provide a useful step forward.

The accelerated proliferation of legislative authorities for the Department of Defense (DoD) in Public Law and Title 10 of the U.S. Code since September 11, 2011, has created an increasingly unwieldy and complex catalog of statutes, which has generated severe challenges to DoD's security cooperation activities. The large set of authorities for security cooperation has become known as a "patchwork" because of the need to patch together multiple authorities and associated yet unsynchronized processes, resources, programs, and organizations to execute individual initiatives with partner nations. As defense headquarter staffs shrink and planning grows increasingly complex, the risk of canceled or ineffective events has grown significantly. Moreover, policymakers and congressional staffers face growing challenges providing guidance and oversight and evaluating progress toward larger objectives.

This report develops a framework and options to streamline the patchwork of authorities in Public Law and Title 10 of the U.S. Code that the DoD employs for security cooperation with partner nations. The objective is to frame Title 10 security cooperation authorities in a holistic, logical way, identify redundancies and gaps, and offer recommendations for changes in authorities that reduce the complexities involved in implementing them and make it easier for DoD's security cooperation workforce to use them to work with partner nations in support of U.S. national security strategy.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  DoD Challenges in Utilizing Title 10 Authorities

• Chapter Three

  A Framework for Categorizing SC Authorities

• Chapter Four

  Rationalizing the Patchwork: Options for Improvement

• Chapter Five

  Conclusion

• Appendix A

  List of Existing SC Authorities

• Appendix B

  List of Revised Authorities