War at Arm's Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance

An in-depth examination of how the United States can build more effective partner militaries

Military assistance has a bad reputation. Large-scale attempts to build partner militaries in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam cost the United States billions of dollars and ended ignominiously, with the collapse of local forces as American troops withdrew. Arms transfers of sophisticated, American-made weapons often appear to do more harm than good. Yet military assistance and support—operating indi...