U.S. Military Assistance: Obstacle or Opportunity for Reform?

Project on Middle East Democracy and the Heinrich Boll Foundation 

Cook then began with a discussion of the political implications of military assistance to the Middle East. In terms of principles, he asked whether the U.S. is committed to promoting democracy, to which he answered an “easy yes,” but the country’s record on the issue is tremendously inconsistent. As to why the U.S. has not been effective, the questions become: What are Washington’s real security concerns? How does aid advance U.S. interests? Does assistance promote democracy? Can assistance be leverage for political change? In Egypt, he argued that military assistance has neither created a strong interoperable force nor consistently advanced U.S. strategic interests. As such, U.S. decisions are shaped by the inertia of previous decisions, with a real need to rethink the core understanding of American foreign policy. While it is true that the regimes receiving assistance have worked to create a political order conducive to U.S. interests, he questioned whether the aid was the key factor or whether these regimes would have sided with the U.S. in any case.

Cook is skeptical of using military aid to leverage democracy because it requires a political will he does not see in the average American politician. U.S. policymakers view Middle Eastern militaries as a safety value to prevent the political unrest that threatens U.S. interests as seen in the 1979 Iranian revolution and Algeria in the 1990’s. Even though the State Department thoroughly tracks abuses by recipient governments, he believes that security concerns always take precedence over human rights and that Arab leaders have demonstrated a capacity to handle numerous threats to their legitimacy without democratizing. He argued that the U.S. could use aid to promote democracy, but that punitive measures are ineffective because administrations are not willing to sacrifice security concerns. The U.S. should instead adopt a “more honey, less vinegar” approach that offering supplementary military assistance in exchange for genuine reform measures. This investment would secure U.S. interests while hopefully constraining regimes such as Egypt, because they are in need of reform their military. He is doubtful about the success of such a venture, but is confident that it would be more constructive than failed attempts to punish regimes by cutting existing aid.

Hokayem focused on military aid from the regional perspective, explaining that there are many different types of militaries receiving assistance, but that a number of Arab states received their military training from the Soviet Union. Hokaym noted that the U.S. does not bear primary responsible for the authoritarian regimes in the region, in contrast to the situation in Latin America where the U.S. had trained military officers that mounted coups and repressed their societies . Within this debate there are two perspectives: first there is the “high politics’” question of how military aid can transform governments, while the second is to ask how aid can reform Arab militaries. He believed this second point offers a considerable avenue for reform because the regimes are dependent on their militaries. Transforming the professional nature of militaries will change security culture and work to address the abuses militaries carry out on behalf of their governments. Breaking down different military aid relationships in the region, Hokayem argued that military assistance has not been able to leverage democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan because the situations are too massive. The U.S. army was asked to build a force of several hundred thousand troops in such a short time that they could not assure that new troops were properly retrained. In addition, the U.S. forces were asked to create a national security apparatus for which they were unaccustomed and it is only the shift to a COIN strategy that has begun to shift the military paradigm toward focus on building a relationship between the Iraqi military and the people.

He saw the Palestinian security force as the most successful and professional outcome of U.S. aid, but he questioned its ability to become a legitimate national force. In Lebanon, he highlighted the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, which trains officers in the U.S. and instills them with an American sense of military professionalism, but the weakness of Lebanese institutions will not support these new attitudes. In Yemen, he warned that ongoing COIN training was positive, but that the same tactics learned to fight insurgents can be used by regimes to suppress dissidents. Lastly, he argued that in the absence of security the military emphasis is much less on political reform and more on capacity building. This cannot be blamed on the U.S., but he did not have an answer on how to offer assistance to transform such situations.