Defense Institution Building

"A key element in the Department of Defense's Defense Strategic Guidance is building the capacity of partner nations to share the costs and responsibilities of global leadership. To implement this goal, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy uses several security cooperation and assistance programs to work with partner countries to support defense institution building (DIB), i.e., build the capacity of their defense ministries. In addition, the combatant commands engage in DIB in response to the security cooperation focus areas in the Guidance for Employment of the Force. DIB has four primary components - Wales Initiative Funds-DIB, Defense Institutional Reform Initiative, Ministry of Defense Advisors, and Defense Institute of International Legal Studies - but includes all security cooperation activities that develop accountable, effective, and efficient defense institutions. The primary objective of many existing DIB activities is to help partner nations develop and manage capable security forces subject to appropriate civilian control. This report presents an analysis of a range of DIB activities, recommends a set of goals and objectives for achieving them, identifies partner nation and DIB activity selection criteria, develops a strategy for coordinating DIB activities, and recommends procedures for achieving accountability and assessment. It also identifies the most critical challenges DIB programs will face as they go forward: the inherent complexity of the DIB enterprise, the difficulty of measuring the long-term success of short-term endeavors, and the challenges of selecting partner nations for DIB activities"--Back cover.