	Issues

The debates and discussions among U.S. government officials and outside stakeholders about the use of partnership in support of national security are inchoate, but a number of facets of the debates are discernible, including worldview; goals; effects; priorities; resourcing; assessments; roles and responsibilities; and risk. This section describes each facet of partnership strategy, analyzes its treatment in recent guidance, and raises questions that may be germane to congressional oversight. Worldview

In general, a state's national security strategy is likely to derive from some worldviewâa set of assumptions about the nature of the world order and the exercise of power within it, together with a view of that state's role on the world stage. While worldview may not be explicitly stated, identifying its influence on U.S. strategy, including the role of partnership within that strategy, may be helpful to rigorous oversight. The DSG's fundamental "shift toward the future" underscores concern with a broad range of security challenges, in contrast to the almost singular focus on CT as a driver for partnership in 2006. Should partnership be the default starting point for engagement on the world stage? The 2006 QDR called for building international partners' capabilities in order to meet those broader challenges. At the same time, the 2006 BPC roadmap, more explicitly than any other guidance, also invoked the idea of savings: "The Department's efforts to build the planning and operational capabilities of partner agencies and international partners have the potential to reduce the length of U.S. force deployments, minimize the range of circumstances in which U.S. forces are called upon, and preserve the Department's financial resources." Moreover, many specific partnership activities may aim at multiple effectsâdigging a well might build local good will for further tactical-level cooperation but may also develop capabilities that host nation forces could apply at home or abroad, foster effective host nation civil-military collaboration, deepen U.S. ability to work with host nation partners on a range of issues, and/or demonstrate U.S. commitment as part of a broader, orchestrated bilateral relationship. The 2010 NSS calls for the use of whole-of-government partnership approaches, including roles for a number of U.S. departments and agencies, to help achieve a wide array of desired effects in support of U.S. national security interests. But such a laundry list of desired effects does not indicate how specific activities generate specific effects, does not provide clear guidelines concerning which of the effects are most important for protecting U.S. interests, and does not convey the strategic logic, if any, by which some effects generate others. Prioritization

Opportunities for partnership in support of national security are theoretically unbounded, so prioritization is essential both to focus effort and to conserve resources. Published strategic guidance documents are generally short on prioritization, while internal guidance reportedly has not settled on a single approach toward prioritization:
The 2010 NSS and QDDR cast the broadest net, using "partnership" to refer to the full spectrum of U.S. government engagement around the world, providing exhaustive lists of the geographic areas ripe for partnership, the substantive arenas in which partnership should be applied, and the categories of potential partners. Resources

The broad partnership debates often seem to assume that partnership yields savings over time. To the extent that savings is part of the desired ends, it may be helpful for partnership strategy to outline the curves of investment and expected pay-off over time, including when and how both curves will be reflected in budget requests. Assessments

One potential fundamental challenge to congressional oversight of Administration partnership efforts in support of national security is the lack of a clear assessment model for gauging the impact of partnership efforts. In theory, rigorous assessment requires as a starting point a clear and specific articulation of desired ends, together with a clear logic for assessing progress toward those ends. Second, some effects may be achieved partially, along a spectrum, rather than in the binary terms of success or failure. As a rule, strategic guidance regarding partnership has been vague about desired effects, and it has not addressed the balance among qualitatively different kinds of effects. But it does not assign roles and responsibilities to specific agencies. To that end, the guidance called for the use of national security planning guidance (NSPG)âinternal, classified guidance, issued by the White House to all agencies with a national security role, which would confirm specific priorities, and clarify and assign roles and responsibilities. Key questions concerning integration of effort and division of labor for partnership efforts in support of national security might include the following:
How can the U.S. government best establish, and refine as needed, shared overall priorities for partnership efforts in support of national security? What is the proper distribution of roles and responsibilities for partnership in support of national security among U.S. government departments and agencies? Given that many different departments and agencies are likely to share responsibility for partnership in support of national security, and that many individual programs require various combinations of participation, funding, and consent from multiple agencies, how can Congress best provide effective oversight?
Over the last few years, the term "partnership" has spread like wildfire through official U.S. national security guidance documents and rhetoric. At the Department of Defense (DOD), which spearheaded the proliferation of the term, "partnership" has been used to refer to a broad array of civilian as well as military activities in support of national security. At other U.S. government agencies, and at the White House, the use of the term "partnership" has been echoed and applied even more broadlyânot only in the national security arena, but also to all facets of U.S. relationships with foreign partners.
"Partnership" is not new in either theory or practice. To illustrate, U.S. strategy during the Cold War called for working with formal allies, through combined planning and the development of interoperable capabilities, in order to deter and if necessary defeat a Soviet threat. And it called for working with partners in the developing world to cultivate the allegiance of states and societies to the West, and to bolster their resistance to Soviet influence. Congress provided oversight in the forms of policy direction; resources and authorities for programs ranging from weapons sales to combined military exercises to cultural exchanges; and accountability.
New in recent years is both the profusion of the use of the term partnership andâin the aftermath of both the Cold War and the first post-9/11 decadeâa much less singular focus for U.S. global engagement. Recent defense and national strategic guidance clearly conveys the view that partnership is good. But as a rule, it provides much less sense of what partnership is designed to achieve and how that protects U.S. interests; it does not clearly indicate how to prioritize among partnership activities; it does not assign specific roles and responsibilities for partnership across the U.S. government; and it does not indicate how to judge whether partnership is working.
A lack of sufficient strategic direction could raise a series of potential concerns for Congress:
Without sufficient national-level strategic guidance, good decisions about the use of partnership tools in support of national security may still be made on a case-by-case basis. But the natural default, practitioners suggest, may be toward embracing available opportunities, building further on evident successes, and falling in on existing patterns of engagement. In effect, that approach means optimizing at the sub-systemic levelâfocusing on the trees rather than on the forestâwhich may not optimally address defense and/or national-level strategic priorities. Without a clear articulation of the "ends" of partnership in support of national security, and whether and how those ends contribute to protecting U.S. interests, it may be difficult for agencies to judiciously prioritize partnership requirements against those for other national security missions. Without a clear articulation of the "ways and means" of partnership in support of national security, it may be difficult for agencies to gauge the extent to which partnership capabilities are distinct from others, or alternatively constitute "lesser included" subsets of other capabilities; and it may be difficult for agencies to consider appropriately the implications of partnership requirements for shaping and sizing the military force and the civilian workforce. Without a clear strategy of partnership in support of national security, linking ends with ways and means over time, it may be difficult for U.S. agencies to craft appropriate assessment tools to gauge the impact of partnership efforts on achieving defense and national security objectives, rather than resorting to the common default of focusing on "outputs," such as whether or not a training event took place. Without a clear distribution of roles and responsibilitiesâand corresponding resources and authoritiesâacross the U.S. government for partnership in support of national security, it may be difficult for departments and agencies to plan and execute efficiently, and to integrate their efforts effectively. Without a clearly stated premise regarding resourcingâone that links initial investments in partnership efforts to any expected future savings as partners assume greater responsibilities over timeâit can be difficult to anticipate the budgetary implications of partnership in support of national security. Without sufficient strategy for partnership in support of national strategy, together with appropriate assessment tools, a clear division of labor across the U.S. government, and resourcing expectations, it can be difficult for Congress to effectively allocate resources and authorities among agencies, and to ensure accountability for effective and efficient execution.