The Risks of Outsourcing Security: Foreign Security Forces in United States National Security Policy

Syracuse University SURFACE Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Political Science - Dissertations Affairs 12-2012 The Risks of Outsourcing Security: Foreign Security Forces in United States National Security Policy Eric Rittinger Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/psc_etd Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Rittinger, Eric, "The Risks of Outsourcing Security: Foreign Security Forces in United States National Security Policy" (2012). Political Science - Dissertations. 112. https://surface.syr.edu/psc_etd/112 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science - Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This study combines insights from international relations, diplomatic history, and civil- military relations to improve our understanding of the tenuous arrangement between the United States and its foreign military proxies. For over a century, the U.S. has armed and trained these proxies to assume responsibilities that its own military might otherwise have to bear. But throughout that time, critics have doubted whether the U.S. could or should delegate sensitive security responsibilities to “dubious” foreign soldiers. Such doubt highlights an international analog to the principal-agent problem normally associated with domestic civil-military relations. I examine why this international principal-agent problem arose, how it has evolved over the past century, and how this evolution has shifted the U.S.’s approach to bringing its foreign agents in line with its strategic objectives. From extensive archival research, I find that variation in this approach stems from changes in how the U.S., as the principal, has understood and characterized its security agents. To make sense of this finding, I advance constructivist principal-agent theory. This theory 1) reveals how the principal’s evolving perception of its agent defines different bases of the principal-agent problem and 2) shows how each of these bases specifies particular policies—from among all those available—for mitigating that problem. THE RISKS OF OUTSOURCING SECURITY: FOREIGN SECURITY FORCES IN UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY By Eric R. Rittinger B.A. American University, 2004 M.A. Syracuse University, 2008 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate School of Syracuse University Syracuse University December 2012 Copyright 2012 Eric R. Rittinger All rights reserved Acknowledgements There are many people to thank: Thanks first to my dissertation committee—Audie Klotz, Brian Taylor, Matt Cleary, Mark Rupert, and Patrick Jackson. Audie, my advisor, has been a constant source of support, guidance, and levelheadedness, steadying the ship whenever it strayed into rough waters. Brian offered detailed comments on an earlier draft and encouraged me to run with constructivist principal-agent theory when I was unsure about how to proceed. Matt also offered extensive feedback and has always pushed me to become a better thinker, writer, and researcher. Mark put me in contact with local members of School of the Americas Watch and has shown me how critical theory can enrich our understanding of U.S. foreign policy. Patrick, my undergraduate mentor, recognized that an academic vocation was my calling before I had made that recognition myself; I am grateful not only for his work on methodology, which I use throughout this dissertation, but also for his early confidence in me as a scholar. Finally, I want to thank Anne Mosher for chairing the defense, for taking the time to read the dissertation, and for providing incisive comments. Thanks to the office staff in the Political Science Department. Candy Brooks, Jacquie Meyer, and Sally Greenfield have been tremendously helpful. The department runs smoothly because of their professionalism and conscientiousness. Thanks to the archivists at the National Archives, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, the Eisenhower and Reagan Presidential Libraries, and the National Security Archive. Without their expert assistance, I would have been lost amid a sea of texts. Thanks to all my friends in graduate school. Mike Makara and Deepa Prakash, in particular, have shown me that professional colleagues can also be great friends. I also want to iv mention the members of the “Identity Reading Group”—Deepa, Asli Ilgit, Braden Smith, Vlad Kravtsov, and Jooyoun Lee. Audie welcomed me into this group during my second year in the program, and I was fortunate to be able to learn from senior graduate students who shared an interest in constructivist theory and methodology. Thanks to my family, both extended and immediate. My parents, Cynthia and Richard Rittinger, have been amazingly supportive, offering me refuge at their nearby home in Sodus, New York. My sister, Jill Rittinger-Lytwynec, convinced me to attend college at American University when I was unsure about where to go. Thankfully, I took her advice and found myself at a place where my inchoate interests in IR and politics could take off and bring me to where I am now. Finally, thanks to my partner, Erica Witz. Her companionship has kept me grounded and has reminded me that there is a world outside of the dissertation. I appreciate her willingness to listen to me go on about writing chapters, revising articles, and applying for jobs—even as she expertly manages her own law school workload. Through the frustrations and the setbacks, she’s been there, offering support, insight, and advice. Amid so many variables, she’s my constant. I dedicate this dissertation to her. v Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iv Introduction – The Challenges of Outsourcing Security to Foreign Soldiers 1 Chapter 2 – Alterity and Agency: Finding the Social Basis of the Principal-Agent Problem in the Development of Foreign Security Forces (FSF) 15 Chapter 3 – “He Ain’t No Brother of Mine’: U.S. Resistance and Responses to FSF Development in the Philippines, Dominican Republic, and Haiti, 1899-1934 52 Chapter 4 – Professionalism, Partisanship, and Agency: U.S. FSF Development in the Caribbean Basin, 1899-1933 83 Chapter 5 – Developing FSF in the ‘Developing World’: The U.S. Confronts the Cold War FSF Problem, 1945-1975 121 Chapter 6 – Putting the Moral in ‘Moral Hazard’: Human Rights and FSF Development, 1976-Present 156 Conclusion – U.S. Security Outsourcing: Past, Present, Future 212 References 226 Biographic Data 246 vi List of Tables and Figures Figure 1 26 Table 1 40 Discursive Cluster 1 46 Discursive Cluster 2 47 Discursive Cluster 3 48 Discursive Cluster 4 49 vii 1 Introduction: The Challenges of Outsourcing Security to Foreign Soldiers “If we…were not prepared to provide equipment and training needed by others, we would have to be prepared to take the graver step of using U.S. forces to defend out interests” - Lt. General Ernest Graves, director, U.S. Defense Security Assistance Agency (quoted in Shafer 1988: 90) For over a century, the United States has armed and trained foreign security forces (FSF) to assume responsibilities that its own military might otherwise have to bear. The U.S. began outsourcing military manpower in 1899 when it raised “native” units in the Philippines to help prosecute a counterinsurgency. Similar outsourcing continues today in Afghanistan as the U.S. prepares Afghan security forces to fight the Taliban on their own. But while the goal of substituting foreign soldiers for American soldiers has remained constant over time, the policies for achieving that goal have varied dramatically. Why? I argue that this variation in policy is due to changes in how U.S. policymakers have understood and characterized their security proxies. The current academic debate overlooks this variation and centers instead on the supposed effects of internationalizing American military manpower. One side argues that it engenders liberal values among foreign soldiers and promotes democracy (Atkinson 2006; Blakeley 2006; Bruneau et al. 2008; Cope 1995). The other side protests that it encourages these soldiers to conduct coups, assassinations, and torture on the U.S.’s behalf (Nelson-Pallmeyer and Bourgeois 1997; Hodge 2004; Gill 2004; McCoy 2005). Both sides presume that foreign fighters necessarily serve some strategic end. But U.S. policymakers and military officers have rarely shared that presumption. Instead, they have treated these fighters as flawed proxies and doubted whether to trust them with arms and training. By dwelling on strategic objectives—whether 2 spreading democracy or military power—the current debate thus neglects the tactical difficulties inherent in delegating security responsibilities to “dubious” foreigners. I investigate these difficulties by internationalizing the principal-agent problem normally associated with domestic civil-military relations (Feaver 2003; Sowers 2005). Specifically, I apply the principal-agent framework to a “transnational organization of military power,” an organization through which foreign militaries become extensions of the U.S. military, either formally or informally (Barkawi 2006: 47). Instead of treating civilian policymakers as the principal and their own military as the agent, I treat the U.S. (including both civilian and military officials) as the principal

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