2017/04/12 by Stephen Biddle, Julia Macdonald, Ryan T. Baker · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Military and Defense Studies #European Union Policy and Governance #Defense, Military, and Policy Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/01402390.2017.1307745
openalex publication_date 2017/04/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
After 15 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many now see ‘small-footprint’ security force assistance (SFA) – training, advising and equipping allied militaries – as an alternative to large US ground-force commitments. Yet, its actual military efficacy has been little studied. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We find important limitations on SFA’s military utility, stemming from agency problems arising from systematic interest misalignment between the US and its typical partners. SFA’s achievable upper bound is modest and attainable only if US policy is intrusive and conditional, which it rarely is. For SFA, small footprints will usually mean small payoffs.