Civil-Military Balance in U.S. Security Assistance, the Case of Ukraine

• In Event: U.S. Military Post-War Analysis

Abstract

What explains the civil-military balance in U.S. security assistance, and how this balance affects the outcomes? In this paper, I model the distribution of responsibilities between civilians and the military in security force assistance as a result of pushing and pulling dynamics in which actors may push for having more influence or pull out to reduce involvement. I argue that the degree to which U.S. civilian officials and military officers are involved in security assistance is determined not by the military’s push for more power but by the persistent tendency of U.S. civilian officials to pull out by deferring to the military in building partner’s forces (training, equipment, doctrine, education) and to partner’s civilians in implementing the political side of the effort (institutional reform, fighting corruption, etc.) This paper shows that the persistent deference to the military by U.S. civilian executives in the implementation of security assistance strips U.S. civilians of political influence in security assistance projects even when de jure they have the power to exercise influence through directing, adjusting, withholding, or, in extreme cases, terminating security assistance. This paper builds on elite interviews and archival research on the two most different cases of U.S. security force assistance — Ukraine and Iraq. It finds that civilian deference in security assistance implementation is so persistent that it remains intact regardless of the demands and challenges of any particular case.

Author

• Polina Beliakova, Massachusetts Institute of Technology