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Document created: 1 September 2007
Air & Space
Power Journal - Fall 2007
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Col Stephen Schwalbe, PhD, USAF*
The Department of Defense (DOD) has not positioned itself to efficiently and effectively exploit continuing personal relationships between its military officers and international officers. Although the department spends millions of dollars every year to encourage the development of lifelong friendships among these individuals, it currently has no mechanism to track such relationships. Given the current environment, having a “foreign-friendship” database of international officers who could provide assistance during a crisis (from resolving the arrest of an Airman to facilitating overflight permission) would prove quite useful.
RAND analyst William McCoy Jr. concludes that “military officers believe that the primary reason the United States trains foreign military personnel is to establish military-to-military relationships that may be useful in times of crisis.”1 For example, in fiscal year 2002, the DOD oversaw the spending of $70 million for its International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, which involved over 10,000 foreign military students in the United States.2 By establishing IMET, Congress intended to “encourage effective and mutually beneficial relations . . . between the United States and foreign countries.”3 The program’s objectives include developing “rapport, understanding, and communication links” with students likely to hold key positions in their home country’s government. The DOD, then, seeks to use IMET as “an instrument of influence” by establishing foreign friendships with American officers.4
However, when a need arises, how would DOD leadership determine which American officers personally know particular foreign officers? Currently, we have no mechanism in place to make that determination. The colleges within Air University keep separate databases on international officers who have attended in residence. However, they do not indicate the status of any relationships between them and their American classmates. Because of the critical nature of foreign-language capability, however, the Air Force began conducting voluntary, servicewide surveys in 1996 to identify personnel with linguistic proficiency and recorded the results in the Foreign Language Skills Assessment (FLSA) database, resident on the virtual Military Personnel Flight Web site. This information allows Air Force leaders to easily identify Airmen who have language training.5 The DOD and Air Force need a similar means of tracking voluntary data regarding active friendships with foreign officers.
Because of his involvement with Pakistan’s special forces during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pervez Musharraf became close with many senior US military officers. When Musharraf seized power in Pakistan in 1999, Pres. Bill Clinton called him to find out what was going on. Instead of returning the call, Musharraf contacted Gen Anthony Zinni, USMC, with whom he had worked during the Kargil war with India earlier that year.6 Numerous examples, not all involving American flag officers, clearly demonstrate the need to institutionalize this information so the United States can fully exploit such relationships. Foreign officers or officials may offer assistance purely of their own volition, partly based on the strength of their ties with the US officer. Although these types of relationships are probably common among senior officers in the DOD, no one really knows enough about them to analyze and take advantage of them.
As a caveat, such a friendship database program should not become the responsibility of the intelligence community even though it has a wealth of experience with this kind of information. Nor should it come under the purview of the Office of Special Investigations, a situation that might deter US officers from volunteering data about their foreign friendships. Rather, responsibility should fall to the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs (SAF/IA), which directs the service’s international programs, activities, and policies. That agency fulfills its mission by managing the Air Force’s security assistance, armaments cooperation, and international programs (such as IMET), and by conducting comparative weapons analyses. Working closely with many foreign officials, SAF/IA selects Airmen to work in US embassies abroad as part of either the Defense Attaché Office or Security Assistance Office. As such, it is the most appropriate organization to manage the proposed database.
Periodically, SAF/IA could send out a tasking to all Air Force officers, asking them to submit voluntary information about any ongoing relationship with a foreign officer or official and to respond to a variety of questions designed to evaluate the strength of their ties. Similar to the numerical range utilized by the FLSA database, a “1” could represent infrequent contact (e.g., only an annual holiday season’s greeting), and a “5” could indicate almost daily correspondence. Such information would allow DOD leadership to communicate with and request assistance from the appropriate US officers.
Although SAF/IA has contemplated establishing a foreign-friendship database for some time, that office has not applied the necessary resources. This article advocates the development and execution of such a repository as soon as possible.
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
*Colonel Schwalbe, now retired, formerly served as associate dean of distance learning and professor of international security studies, Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
Notes
1. William H. McCoy Jr., Senegal and Liberia: Case Studies in U.S. IMET Training and Its Role in Internal Defense and Development, RAND Note (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1994), 3.
2. Actually IMET receives its funding from the Department of State’s international-affairs budget.
3.“International Military Education and Training (IMET),” FAS: Federation of American Scientists, http://www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/training/IMET2.html.
4. Ibid.
5. Unfortunately, the database is not comprehensive, storing information offered voluntarily by only active duty Airmen (not those in the Guard or Reserve). See the virtual Military Personnel Flight Web site at http://wwa.afpc .randolph.af.mil/vs.
6.“Pervez Musharraf,” http://pervez.musharraf.net/Pervez_Musharraf.htm.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University
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