Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, successive U.S. and Department of Defense leaders concluded that the traditional set of security assistance and security cooperation tools did not meet the needs of the changed strategic landscape. Recent events, particularly the battle between the Afghan government and the Taliban over Konduz, as well as the collapse of U.S.-trained and equipped forces in Iraq and Syria in the face of the Islamic State, have called into question whether these BPC programs can achieve their desired effects. If not, why not? Since the term's introduction in 2006, it has been used to describe DOD programs, a strategic rationale for building the security forces of weak and failing states, and broader DOD cooperative activities with a variety of actors, including the State Department, U.S. state and local governments, security institutions in foreign countries, private companies, and nongovernmental organizations. These goals included victory in war or war termination; managing regional security challenges; indirectly supporting a party to a conflict; conflict mitigation; building institutional and interpersonal linkages; enhancing coalition participation; and alliance building. The overall results are depicted in Figure 1 below:
 Figure 1 suggests that in the case studies CRS researched, BPC efforts have been the least effective —relative to the strategic goal the United States sought to achieve—when used as a war exit strategy. BPC efforts have been most effective when used to build interpersonal and institutional linkages with other states and to build alliances. What Is "Building Partner Capacity"? Indeed, as a RAND study noted, BPC is more a "term of art" than a specific program or capability. CRS then selected 20 case studies since World War II, organized by strategic rationale, to determine whether a given BPC effort had its intended strategic effect (an explanation of the methodology can be found in the text box below). In 1984, largely as a result of congressional intervention, the U.S. program to assist anti-communist forces in Afghanistan increased significantly. According to the RAND Corporation, regional centers—which include the APCSS—are a critical tool for the DOD to engage with nations and advance U.S. national objectives by
exposing partner nation leaders to U.S. values and rule-of-law, governance, and policies; shaping partners' strategic thinking; nurturing relationships that facilitate U.S. access to the highest levels of partner nations' governments; building communities of interest among partner nation officials from across regions to encourage regional interaction and problem-solving; providing neutral venues for addressing regional conflicts; and offering one of the few security-related engagement tools for smaller countries that have limited military-to-military engagement with the United States. In the cases explored, the BPC efforts that appeared to be the least effective were those associated with victory in war/war termination or, in other words, those efforts wherein the United States based its exit strategy from a conflict on growing capable, durable local forces. The track record of these efforts is mixed, and has at times led to unintended consequences that create long-term strategic challenges. Are the resources for BPC and related efforts sufficient to accomplish stated objectives? Does BPC produce a meaningful return on investment? Given the paucity of literature on the subject, significantly more work could be done to explore and explain BPC successes and failures. Conclusion

The increasing priority that successive U.S. administrations have placed on Building Partner Capacity programs and activities prompted CRS to try to understand the efficacy of these programs. Accordingly, this study sought to understand what, exactly, constitutes DOD's Building Partner Capacity programs, and whether they proved an effective means toward advancing U.S. strategic objectives.
Since 2001, successive U.S. administrations have increasingly prioritized efforts to build foreign security forces—particularly in weak and failing states—arguing that doing so advances U.S. national security objectives. In turn, the Department of Defense (DOD) has invested billions of dollars in "Building Partner Capacity," a term that refers to a broad set of missions, programs, activities, and authorities intended to improve the ability of other nations to achieve those security-oriented goals they share with the United States. As a consequence, these efforts and programs have been a growing focus of Congressional attention. Many partner capacity building programs and activities have their roots in the post-World War II period, if not well before, yet today they are implemented more widely, and often with greater resourcing, than efforts prior to September 11, 2001. Indeed, building partner capacity was a central feature of the 2003-2010 Iraq campaign, and is a core component of the ongoing current campaigns both in Afghanistan to counter Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and in Iraq/Syria to counter the Islamic State.
Recent events, particularly the battle between the Afghan government and the Taliban over Konduz, the inability of DOD-led efforts to produce more than a "handful" of anti-Assad, anti-Islamic State (IS) forces in Syria, and the collapse of U.S.-trained forces in Iraq in the face of the Islamic State, have called into question—including in Congress—whether these BPC programs can ever achieve their desired effects. CRS surveyed the publicly available literature on the subject, and found the debate on the strategic effectiveness of BPC and related programs nascent, at best. While a variety of studies explore programmatic effectiveness, very few explore what the United States sought to achieve when engaging in a BPC effort, and whether or not doing so led to desirable outcomes.
The increasing emphasis that the U.S. government is placing on BPC as a means to achieve strategic goals, combined with the paucity of the literature on this subject, prompted CRS to explore the historical track record of BPC efforts to help determine whether they produced outcomes consistent with U.S. strategic objectives. Twenty case studies since World War II were explored; each was grouped according to one of seven strategic goals that U.S. sought to accomplish. These goals included
victory in war/war termination, managing regional security challenges, indirectly supporting a party to a conflict, conflict mitigation, enhancing coalition participation, building institutional and interpersonal linkages, and alliance building.
Given that U.S. leaders often argue that a BPC effort could help accomplish more than one of the above goals, determining what constitutes the "primary" strategic objective for a given BPC effort required analytic judgment. CRS organized the cases according to public statements at the time, with particular attention paid to how leaders described the purpose of the BPC effort. Effectiveness was judged based on two criteria: whether the strategic goal was achieved, and whether the effort produced unintended consequences that were obviously and meaningfully damaging to U.S. national interests. Within the case studies explored, BPC was least effective as a tool for allowing the United States to extract itself from conflict (victory in war/war termination). However, it was most effective as a tool for building interpersonal and institutional linkages, and for alliance building.