James Micciche
The ongoing transformation of the United States’ foreign policy has led to many of its supporting apparatuses to adapt, reorganize, evolve, or even cease operations. Security cooperation, which has been an institutionalized instrument of the United States’ foreign policy since the end of World War II, is one such capability that requires the adoption of new strategic concepts to better align with current executive direction and guidance. Specifically, the Department of Defense should integrate the core concepts of offshore balancing into the planning and execution of US security cooperation efforts by selecting and sponsoring key regional bilateral partnerships. Such a strategy overcomes ongoing service reorganizations, strengthens bilateral ties between the United States and key regional powers, advances US security interests at reduced costs, and improves the effectiveness of security cooperation efforts.
A Changing Environment
The United States’ foreign policy and its supporting apparatuses are undergoing a fundamental shift away from the multilateral foreign policy that guided America since the early 1940s. The Trump administration’s focus on homeland and hemispheric defense, bilateral engagement, and increased demands for burden sharing is a far departure from the liberal internationalist policy that guided America for the last seventy-five years. Under the current realist approach to foreign policy, the executive branch has instituted sweeping changes ranging from closing the country’s primary instrument of non-defense foreign assistance (USAID) to renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War. Concurrent to reimagining foreign policy, the administration is emphasizing increased government efficiency and is actively promoting cost-saving and dismantling of bureaucratic structures.
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