A Sub-Sahara African Army's Perspectives of Security Force Assistance Training Effectiveness.

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study

Introduction

Description of the Topic

The topic of my study was the effectiveness of U.S. training conducted as part of

Security Force Assistance (SFA) programs for foreign partner nation armies. Developing

the capabilities and capacities of allied partner nation security forces is a long-standing

key component of the U.S. Security Strategy, and the U.S. Government expends a

significant amount of funds and resources towards those efforts (The White House,

2013). The elements of SFA programs consists of organizing, training, equipping,

rebuilding or building, and advising assistance for partner nation security forces to

develop the capabilities and capacities of those forces (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, 2017). A program can consist of all the elements or any combination required to

address shortfalls in capability or capacity. In this study, I concentrated solely on the

training component of SFA.

The topic of SFA garnered increased attention in the past few decades because of

changes to the global security environment, including increases in intrastate conflict and

terrorism. Developing countries are often the recipients of SFA because of their relatively

underdeveloped security forces and higher risks for intrastate conflicts (Matisek, 2018).

The United States prioritizes SFA efforts for developing countries that experience

intrastate conflicts that create instability and opportunities for terrorist organization safe

havens (Mattis, 2018; The White House, 2013). The primary objective of SFA programs

is to develop partner nation security forces so they can maintain security within their

nations and prevent terrorists from establishing safe havens from which they can strike

the United States or allied nations (Mattis, 2018; The White House; 2013, U.S. Army,

2009).

Since the end of World War II, the world experienced a shift from primarily

interstate to intrastate conflict. At the conclusion of World War II, there were 10 ongoing

intrastate conflicts in contrast to the 46 in 2017 (Pettersson & Eck, 2018). Since the end

of the Cold War in 1991, the proportion of intrastate conflict continued to increase

compared to interstate conflict. From 1991 through 2017, there were 9 years in which

there were no interstate conflicts, while the number of intrastate conflicts never fell below

33 (Pettersson & Eck, 2018). Increased occurrences of ethnic conflict, increased

occurrences and lethality of terror tactics, and the expansion of regional conflicts across

national borders in the past 30 years aggravated and contributed to the increase in

intrastate conflicts and created threats to regional and global security (Gat, 2012;

Pettersson & Eck, 2018). In addition to contributing to international insecurity, the

expansion of intrastate conflicts created areas of instability that disrupted economies,

hindered human development, and created environments of human suffering (Gates,

Hegre, Nygard, & Strand, 2012).

The 9/11 attacks on the United States highlighted the importance of assistance for

foreign security forces to maintain internal security and deny safe havens for terrorists.

The current National Security Policy recognized instability and weak governance in

foreign countries as a threat to the security of the United States and allied nations (The

White House, 2017). The National Defense Strategy, which was a derivative of the

National Security Policy, further recognized that securing U.S. interests partially

depended on the military capabilities and capacities of foreign allies and partners (Mattis,

2018).

The importance of foreign partner nation military capabilities and capacities was

not a new component of U.S. security strategies that began with the current National

Security Strategy. A significant element of the Obama Administration’s security strategy

as articulated in Presidential Directive 23 was to train and equip foreign security forces so

that they could defeat domestic threats and create peace and stability within their nations

(The White House, 2013). The current National Military Strategy is the document that

directs how the Military Services are to achieve the objectives of the National Defense

Strategy (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2015b). A key component of the strategy

outlined in the National Military Strategy is to defeat violent extremist organizations by

conducting “training in support of local partners that provide the majority of forces

necessary to restore and secure their homelands” (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

2015b, p. 5). The strategy to reduce conflict and create secure environments relies heavily

on the development of foreign security forces to manage their internal conflicts.

The United States adopted the strategy of depending on foreign security forces to

maintain security and assisting those forces with SFA despite a general recognition

within academia and the government that previous efforts to develop foreign security

forces often failed to achieve the desired outcomes (Biddle, McDonald, & Baker, 2018).

Failed efforts by the United States to improve foreign security forces were particularly

serious when those forces engaged in counterinsurgency operations (Biddle et al., 2018).

Past efforts to assist foreign nations to respond to insurgencies focused on training and

equipping foreign armies to defeat insurgents militarily (Corum, 2017; Kapstein, 2017).

The list of failures since the end of World War II is long and includes the recent inability

of the U.S.-trained Iraqi Army to resist insurgent forces without external support in 2014

(Biddle et al., 2018; Hammes, 2016; Kapstein, 2017).

The United States undertook the strategy of relying upon the development of

foreign security forces to defeat insurgencies and create secure environments while

recognizing the failure of similar past efforts but without fully understanding why many

past efforts failed (U.S. Department of Defense [DOD] Inspector General, 2017; U.S.

Government Accountability Office, 2018). Because the government does not fully

identify the causes of past failures, it may unknowingly repeat the same actions that

produced failure in the past during the ongoing and future SFA programs. The ongoing

programs to develop partner nation security force capability and capacity to defeat

insurgents may be a waste of resources that will not create security or defeat insurgents.

In addition to potentially wasting resources, the efforts by the United States to develop

partner nation security forces could create false understandings of those forces’

capabilities that result in overestimating their ability to provide for their national security.

The failure of partner nations security forces to win against insurgents and create

secure environments caused civilian populations and nations to suffer. Armed conflict

within nations caused human suffering due to violence and the accompanying limitations

on economic development and human services, such as education, health care, food

security, and a sense of wellbeing (Gates et al., 2012). The policy of the United States to

develop partner nation security forces to establish and maintain secure environments

should not waste resources on doomed programs that do not enhance the security of the

United States and its allies but should contribute to creating stable and secure

environments in which human development can thrive.

Preview of this Chapter

In this chapter, I explain the background of the problem as a government policy

that has not been fully researched and may repeat the actions of past failed policies. I

further describe how my research addressed the problem by exploring the training

provided by the United States to an army in a Sub-Sahara African developing nation

confronted with an ongoing insurgency. In my description of the problem, I provide

evidence from multiple sources to show how the problem is current, relevant, and that

there is a broad consensus of its existence.

Background

Summary of Research Literature Related to the Scope of the Study Topic

Previous literature on the topic of U.S. SFA to foreign governments were mostly

studies intended to identify lessons and causes of success or failure. The measurement of

success differed between studies as either defeating an enemy or achieving specific goals

of an SFA program. Some relevant studies about combating insurgencies used statistical

analysis to identify how much of a factor the United States’ assistance was in influencing

the outcomes of conflicts.

Historically, U.S. support to nations conducting counterinsurgencies usually

resulted in the U.S. partners losing militarily despite the support. Past research found that

assistance to foreign security forces by the United States often failed to create secure

environments because the United States and the partner’s political objectives were

dissimilar ((Biddle et al., 2018; Matisek, 2018). Failing to develop foreign security forces

was not a unique problem to the United States. Researchers on international reform

efforts for security forces of developing nations found similar problems of different

objectives hindering development (Abrahamsen, 2016; Ansorg, 2017; Baaz & Stern,

2017; Detzner, 2017; Donais, 2018; Jowell, 2018; Kammel, 2018; Robinson, 2018;

Schroeder & Chappuis, 2014; Westerman, 2017). Many researchers explaining the

phenomenon of partners failing despite security force development assistance used the

agency theory and assigned the role of principal to the nation providing assistance and

relegated the role of agent to the assisted nation (Biddle et al., 2018; Coletta, 2013;

Rittinger, 2017; Schroeder & Chappuis, 2014). The researchers that used the agency

theory to explain how SFA or other forms of security force development assistance

blamed the failures on the assisted nation’s unwillingness to assume the assisting nation’s

objectives or the assisting nation’s failure to account for local dynamics of the assisted

nation.

The U.S failure to account for the partner nation’s goals and objectives may be an

indicator that the United States also failed to account for other environmental factors that

impacted SFA programs. In studies about successful SFA programs, researchers found

that success required managers and planners to adapt programs to the local environment

including its culture (Berrios, 2017; Neads, 2019; Varisco, 2014). Researchers on

successful SFA programs also found that the programs required commitments that were

longer than initially planned and often lasted over a decade to achieve desired objectives

(Berrios, 2017; Varisco, 2014). Failing to plan or modifying plans to account for local

dynamics of an SFA program can result in an allocation of too few resources to properly

build the capabilities and capacities required to defeat an insurgency and maintain

security (Detzner, 2017).

Studies on the contemporary efforts by the United States to improve the Iraqi

Army and Afghan National Army to combat insurgencies mainly attempted to explain

why those efforts did not fully succeed by examining variables involving the United

States or the recipients of assistance. In some of the literature, variables that impacted the

recipient armies’ ability to absorb the capabilities and capacities the United States

attempted to transfer were examined. The literature described how a deficit of education

and motivation of partner soldiers (Olden, 2014), differing cultural values of partner

leaders to the U.S. military’s ethical norms (Felicetti, 2006), and the attrition of partner

nation soldiers (Ates, 2014) negatively impacted the development of skills to employ

military capabilities as intended by the SFA programs. Researchers that examined

variables found that lack of resources (Chandra, 2008; Hammes, 2016) and inadequate

preparation (Chandra, 2018; Corum, 2017; Davis, 2014; Hammes, 2016; O’Connor Roan,

Cushner, & Metcalf, 2009) hindered the United States’ execution of SFA programs. The

research of SFA programs in Iraq and Afghanistan indicated that the training of armies

from developing nations required considerably more resources and preparation than

planned plus a more thoughtful selection of the skills to train along with significant

modifications of existing instructional material used by the U.S. Army.

The Gap in Knowledge in the Discipline

There is a consensus among the studies on SFA provided by the United States to

partner nation security forces that the programs often failed to achieve their objectives.

Some researchers defined success as the development of capability and capacity, while

others defined success as contributing to a military victory. The researchers explained

past failures as either the partner nation’s failure to adopt U.S. objectives and values, the

United States’ failure to allocate enough resources and prepare properly, or the partner

nation’s lack of ability to absorb the capability and capacity the United States tried to

develop. The lack of consensus about the cause of SFA past program failures is

representative of the uniqueness of each program’s environment and variables to include

unique human and organizational interactions between the United States and the partner

nations.

Despite the diversity of views and research subjects regarding SFA and similar

programs, there is little research from the viewpoint of the recipient nations. Almost all of

the previous research used statistical data or data from the viewpoint of the providers of

SFA. Research on U.S. SFA lacks any data or analysis about the partner nation’s

perceptions of the effectiveness of SFA programs to develop capability and capacity that

assists them to provide security and defeat insurgents.

Why the Study is Needed

The findings of this study contribute to filling the gap in research on U.S.

assistance to partner nation security forces by providing perspectives on SFA training

programs from the viewpoint of the recipient nation’s soldiers and senior leaders. The

recipient’s perspectives provide insights into the effectiveness of SFA to develop

capabilities and capacities or if the partner nation and its army had objectives that did not

allow for military development as the United States intended. The recipient’s

perspectives also reveal other elements of the environment in which the training of

foreign armies occurs and provide further insights on how to improve SFA. Practitioners,

planners, and decision makers of the U.S. SFA programs, especially the training of

foreign armies, may use these insights to change policy or procedures to improve the

development of capabilities and capacities for the achievement of mutual security

objectives between the United States and the partner nations.

The training the United States provides to foreign armies can help create security

for the foreign nation’s citizens and assist with managing their domestic conflicts.

Improving the training the United States provides can contribute to managing conflicts,

which is a prerequisite for creating secure environments that foster all forms of human

development (Adefisoye & Bamidele, 2018; Ani, 2016). The lack of secure environments

is a reason many developing nations are not able to achieve the development objectives

of the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations (Ani, 2016;

Gates et al., 2012). The results of my study adds to the body of knowledge on the training

of foreign armies by the United States with the hope that the knowledge will contribute to

making the training more effective at developing the capabilities and capacities of partner

nation security forces to create secure environments.

Problem Statement

The Problem Statement

The problem is that SFA provided by the United States to partner nation security

forces often fails to achieve the desired impact of developing the capacity and capability

of the partner nation to defeat an insurgency and maintain security. Numerous defeats of

U.S. allies by insurgents provides strong evidence of this problem. The inability of the

Iraqi and Afghanistan security forces to establish security despite the assistance provided

by the United States provides recent evidence of this problem.

Consensus That the Problem is Current, Relevant, and Significant

The problem with SFA effectiveness decreases its potential to contribute to a

reduction of human suffering. The inability of governments to manage intrastate conflicts

has resulted in human suffering and the stagnation of human development. The number

of people killed or displaced by intrastate conflicts was indicative of the magnitude of

human suffering caused by the conflicts. From 2013 to 2017, 70,000 to 100,000 people

died in intrastate conflicts each year (Pettersson & Eck, 2018), and the number of

displaced persons due to conflicts in the world during the same period averaged almost

62 million per year (United Nations [UN] High Commissioner for Refugees, 2018). As

the number and duration of intrastate conflicts increased since World War II, so did the

negative impacts on the affected populations. O’Brien (2017) stated that “more than 20

million people across four countries face starvation and famine” and claimed “we are

facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations” during a

report to the UN Security Council on the humanitarian crises caused by intrastate

conflicts in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, and Nigeria (p. 5). At the time of O’Brien’s

statement, the United States had SFA programs in Nigeria and Somalia and concluded an

unsuccessful program in South Sudan. If the U.S. efforts to assist foreign nations could

become more effective at maintaining internal security, then partner nations could

potentially reduce much of the ongoing human suffering.

There is a significant amount of quantitative evidence that many U.S. SFA

programs were not effective at contributing to the outcome of conflicts (Biddle et al.,

2018; Kapstein, 2017; Mezzell, 2019; Paul, Clarke, Grill, & Dunigan, 2013; Watts et al.,

2018). Analysis of multiple data sets on conflict shows that support from the United

States did not improve the odds of defeating an insurgency (Mezzell, 2019; Paul et al.,

2013; Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2018). U.S. efforts to assist foreign nations defeat

insurgencies does not fare well when compared to global averages. In multiple studies,

researchers used different data sets to determine that wars, including insurgencies, since

World War II lasted an average of about 10 years (Connable & Libicki, 2010; Lyall,

2010). A comparison of U.S. expenditures on Foreign Security Assistance (Security

Assistance Monitor, 2018) with the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (2018) revealed that

recent and ongoing counterinsurgencies supported by the United States last longer than

typical insurgencies. Since 2009, the top 15 recipient countries of U.S. assistance

received almost 80% of all the assistance (Security Assistance Monitor, 2018). Of the 15

top recipients of U.S. assistance that had insurgencies ongoing during the same 10-year

period, only 12.5% of the insurgencies concluded as compared to a global average of

48% (Security Assistance Monitor, 2018; Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2018). Data

from the Security Assistance Monitor (2018) and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program

(2018) further revealed that counterinsurgencies not supported by the United States not

only ended quicker but had a higher rate of success. Since 2009, only 1 of 8

counterinsurgencies receiving significant United States’ assistance achieved military

victory, as compared to 21% of governments without significant support from the United

States (Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2018).

The poor performance of United States allies against insurgencies is not a new

phenomenon. In a study of counterinsurgencies from 1947 to 2009, researchers

concluded that the majority of governments that received significant U.S. support lost

against the insurgents (Paul et al., 2013). Qualitative research on U.S. support to allies

conducting counterinsurgencies showed that the allies usually lost and that the conflicts

lasted longer than those without significant U.S. involvement (Grespin, 2013; Paul et al.,

2013; Watts et al., 2018).

Undoubtedly, there is a selection bias when measuring counterinsurgencies

supported by the United States with those that did not receive the same support. The

United States provided greater assistance to partner nations facing the greatest threat and

had the most likelihood of losing. Jones (2017) observed that international “interventions

on behalf of a government only occur in the most challenging cases, making the baseline

probability of government victory much lower when such interventions occur” (p. 53).

However, if the degree to which supported nations fail to win counterinsurgencies

continues at the same rate, the U.S. strategy that depends on partner nations maintaining

security is in threat of failure due to partner nation defeats. Improvements to SFA

programs’ ability to successfully develop the capability and capacity of partner nation

security forces could shorten the duration of insurgencies while improving the success

rate of partner nations conducting counterinsurgencies.

Academic, professional, think tank, and government reports on SFA subjects

document a consensus in many forums that there is a problem with U.S. SFA programs.

The U.S. DOD and Government Accountability Office published reports in 2017 and

2018 that were critical of assistance provided by the United States to foreign militaries.

The U.S.DOD Inspector General (2017) reported that “the DoD did not develop the

metrics and processes necessary to effectively evaluate performance and assess the

individual and collective impacts of Section 1206 projects” (p. 51). Section 1206 projects

are components of SFA programs that “build the capacity of foreign military forces to

conduct counterterrorism or stability (or both) operations” (U.S. DOD Inspector General,

2017, p. 4). The U.S. DOD Inspector General report included evidence of some success

building foreign nation’s military capacity but concluded that the DOD did not collect the

necessary data to know the extent of success.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office (2018) report on the DOD’s train and

equip projects reported that DOD only verified that 8 of the 262 train and equip projects

from 2006 to 2015 improved the foreign militaries capabilities and that 13 had not

measurably improved. The remaining 92% of projects either were not assessed or the

assessments did not have enough detail to determine if any capability improved. U.S.

Government reports reflect a general understanding within the U.S. Government that past

training of foreign armies was not as successful as desired and that a lack of data exists to

determine the full extent of the shortfall (U.S. DOD Inspector General, 2017; U.S.

Government Accountability Office, 2018).

As described previously, numerous academic studies concluded that past SFA

programs provided by the United States did not always develop foreign security forces

that were able to defeat insurgents or maintain internal security. Authors of professional

and think tank articles were generally critical of past efforts by the United States to train

foreign armies. In a report published by the U.S. Army War College, Walsh (2015)

chronicled the multiple army programs intended to advise and train the Iraqi Army and

concluded that most of these programs failed to develop the capability for the Iraqi Army

to defend Iraq because the programs were “ad hoc, disjointed, inefficient, and lacking

proper attention and resources” (p. 8).

Recent studies on the U.S. SFA by the respected and relatively centrists think

tanks of RAND and Center for Strategic and International Studies determined that the

programs did not achieve their objectives. A Center for Strategic and International

Studies report concluded that

despite billions of dollars’ worth of grant-based security assistance to its allies and

partners - with another $3.4 billion approved for FY 2019 - the United States has

yet to see the proportionate returns from its investment in foreign countries’

security capabilities. (Shah & Dalton, 2018, para. 6)

In a RAND study on security sector assistance (SSA) in Africa, Watts et al. (2018) stated

that despite a shortage of data “most SSA in most countries in the Post–Cold War era

appears to have had little net impact” (p. xv) and “that U.S. efforts are often inefficient

and wasteful” (p. xvi). The lack of data collected by the United States on the impact of its

SFA programs hindered research on the topic, but the information available indicated that

the training provided by the United States did not meet expectations and in some cases

had no impact.

Reports about the difficulties developing the capacities and capabilities of the

Iraqi Army and Afghan National Army were not just created by academia, think tanks,

and government investigations but also by the news media, especially after dramatic

setbacks to both armies in 2014 and 2015 despite over a decade of U.S. assistance. The

defeats incurred on the Iraqi Army by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) after

receiving more than $20 billion in military aid from the United States particularly

garnered attention by the press. In The Washington Post Morris (2016) reported that

“senior commanders were incensed when it [the Iraqi Army] collapsed on the battlefield

less than three years after the U.S. withdrawal in 2011” (para. 10). In an article titled,

“Iraqi Army Still Ineffective Despite U.S. Training,” Parker and Landay (2016) reported

that the general that led U.S. efforts to train the Iraqi Army from 2013 to 2015 stated,

“the Iraqi military’s capacity hasn't improved that much” (para. 6). The media coverage

of the battlefield defeat of the Iraqi Army by ISIS helped increase awareness and

consensus about the United States’ deficiencies in developing the capabilities and

capacities of foreign security forces.

The ramifications of the Iraqi Army’s failure to defeat ISIS without external

support were horrific and global. As ISIS gained control of territory, it also gained the

resources and safe haven to expand its terror. The fighting in Iraq killed at least 85,000

civilians and displaced over 2.5 million in 4 years (UN Assistance Mission for Iraq,

2018). ISIS was blamed for most of the casualties and many human rights violations,

including torture, extrajudicial killings, and slavery (Human Rights Watch, 2018; UN

Assistance Mission for Iraq, 2018; U.S. Department of State, 2018). ISIS’s success

allowed them to motivate and resource like-minded individuals and groups outside of

Syria and Iraq to commit terrorist attacks on their behalf. From June 2014 to February

2018, ISIS-inspired individuals and groups conducted 143 attacks that killed at least

2,043 people in 29 countries (Lister et al., 2018). The reports of the Iraqi Army’s failure

together with media coverage of ISIS’s human rights abuses and international-inspired

terrorist attacks showed the significance of the inadequate preparation of Iraqi security

forces and increased the consensus that U.S. SFA must improve.

Relationship to Previous Research Findings

I developed the problem statement of this study to build upon the previous

research by framing the problem with SFA in an open-ended fashion that did not judge

any of the previous researchers’ explanations. In general, the government reports

provided evidence that the problem existed, academic research attempted to describe and

explain the problem, and think tank articles described the challenges of developing

capabilities and capacities of foreign security forces and promoted solutions. The

literature indicated several reasons for the failure of foreign security forces to

successfully use military capabilities that the U.S. SFA programs intended to provide. A

small amount of the literature addressed successful SFA programs or positive attributes

of programs, but the theme of the body of literature related to the topic was that SFA was

not successful at making the United States or its allies secure.

Some of the literature addressed how effectively partner nation security forces

acquired new military skills, while some examined how well partner nations employed

new military skills. My research problem statement was open to any explanation as to the

causes of SFA program failures to achieve the objectives of the United States. Although

there was a consensus within the literature that the problem existed, there was not a

consensus of why U.S. assistance to foreign security forces often failed to achieve its

objectives.

The questions that some of the researchers tried to answer in the literature

concerning whether SFA programs succeeded at transferring skills to partner nation

security forces or how successfully the partner employed those skills were questions

about capability and capacity. The inability to acquire the skills that SFA programs

intended to develop was a deficiency of capability. In the context of U.S. SFA, the term

“capability refers to the PN’s [partner nation’s] ability to execute a given task”

(Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017, p. I-2). The U.S. military measures

capability by using the following elements: doctrine, organization, training, materiel,

leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff, 2015a). A deficit in any element can diminish a capability.

An example of a personnel deficit that inhibited capability development was the

large number of desertions and casualties sustained by the Afghan National Army. Ates

(2014) found that from 2003 to 2011, the training of Afghan soldiers could not keep pace

with the attrition of trained soldiers and caused the Afghan National Army to employ

untrained soldiers in counterinsurgency operations. The literature provided several

examples of capability development failures due to shortcomings in a single element of

capability. However, the U.S. Government reports stated that there was a lack of data to

measure the development of foreign security forces capabilities, which made it

impossible to holistically and accurately define what caused foreign security forces not to

develop capabilities as a result of SFA programs (U.S. DOD Inspector General, 2017;

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2018).

The lack of willingness or ability to maintain proficiency or to employ the new

military skills and capabilities that SFA programs provided to foreign security forces was

a matter of capacity. The U.S. military defined capacity as “the PN’s ability to self-

sustain and self-replicate a given capability” (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017,

p. I-2). In my study, I used the U.S. military’s definition of capacity liberally to include

both deliberate or unintentional failure of the partner nation to replicate and sustain

capabilities. An example of deliberately not using military capabilities as intended by the

United States includes misusing capabilities to conduct acts that violate human rights.

Omelicheva, Carter, and Campbell (2017) found the relationship between SFA training

and the recipients adherence to the principles of human rights was not uniform and

concluded that the determining factors in transferring values of human rights during SFA

training were “the number of students trained and the duration and nature of their

training” (p. 143).

Other researchers have documented human rights atrocities by foreign security

forces that received SFA training and described failures to transfer the U.S. military

ethos, which included respect for human rights, the rule of law, and civilian authority

(Burchard & Burgess, 2018, Ladwig, 2016; Regilme, 2018). Following several events in

which the Malian Army was defeated by insurgents in 2013 and responded with arbitrary

killings, the commander of U.S. forces in Africa acknowledged that prior training by the

United States had failed and stated that “we didn’t spend probably the requisite time

focusing on values, ethics, and a military ethos” (British Broadcasting Corporation,

2013). Differing values and lack of training were two factors that caused the inability of

some partner nations to replicate or sustain military capabilities (Burchard & Burgess,

2018, Ladwig, 2016; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Regilme, 2018). Anticipating capacity

deficiencies and planning for countermeasures within any SFA program potentially could

correct deficiencies of capacity.

Many of the recent studies on SFA and related programs were focused on the

willingness of foreign governments or their security forces to employ capacities gained

through the U.S. SFA or international security assistance programs. Some researchers

concluded that different objectives between the United States and the partner nation

explained why capabilities were employed differently than the United States desired

(Biddle et al., 2018; Coletta, 2013; Regilme, 2018; Rittinger, 2017; Schroeder &

Chappuis, 2014). The researchers that described how partner nations used newly acquired

military capabilities in ways different than the United States intended explained the

behavior was rational, whether it was intentional or intuitive, to achieve the partner

nation’s objectives (Biddle et al., 2018; Coletta, 2013; Regilme, 2018; Rittinger, 2017;

Schroeder & Chappuis, 2014).

SFA programs usually occurred for security forces that had some preexisting

capabilities and capacities. The Joint publication (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

2017) and the U.S. Army manual (U.S. Army, 2009) on SFA operations provided

instructions on planning SFA and both had extensive guidance on assessing partner

nation requirements to ensure the programs filled gaps in either capability or capacity.

The failure of planners to assess the partner nation’s capability and capacity gaps could

explain some failed SFA programs.

The literature generally described different problems with SFA and attempted to

explain the problems. In developing the problem statement for this study, I accepted each

explanation and built upon the previous research by exploring causes to the problems

with SFA. I did not presume that any explanation of the problem was more worthy than

any of the causes previous researchers described.

A Meaningful Gap in the Current Research Literature

Much of the literature documented the failure of many SFA programs to achieve

U.S. objectives and military success by the partner nation. The professional community

that plans and conducts SFA knew that programs often did not achieve the desired

development of capabilities and capacities within foreign security forces. The Assistant

Secretary of Defense for Security Cooperation assessed that “investments to develop

partner military capabilities have achieved mixed results” and stated that “the security

cooperation community is rife with anecdotes about U.S.-provided helicopters rusting

away in hangars after only a few years of use or of armored Humvees sitting on blocks in

perpetual disrepair” (Ross, 2016, p. 26). Government studies reported that a lack of data

existed to fully know the degree and causes of SFA failures U.S. DOD Inspector General,

2017; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2018.

Previous researchers did not describe how well SFA transferred skills to the

individual soldiers and units that received training. The perspectives of recipients of

training as part of SFA programs was a significant gap in the research literature. In this

study, I attempted to fill this gap by exploring the perspectives of recipients of U.S.

training provided to a Sub-Sahara African army. I concentrated on the training aspect of

capability development, but the perspectives of the recipients of the training provide

information about the partner nation’s capacity to develop, employ, and sustain new

military capabilities. The perspectives also provide insights into the effectiveness of the

United States-provided training to transfer skills. The results of this study contribute to a

better understanding of the environment in which SFA occurs so that decision-makers

can formulate policies to more effectively train foreign armies.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of my study was to explore and understand the perspectives of

recipients of training as part of U.S. SFA programs from a Sub-Sahara African army that

was engaged in counterinsurgency operations. The research paradigm for my study was

constructivism “which views knowledge as socially constructed and may change

depending on the circumstances” (Golafshani, 2003, p. 603). The topic of SFA has many

factors impacting its effects and several perspectives. Every SFA program is unique with

variations of participants, capability and capacity development objectives, the recipient

partner nation, and a multitude of other environmental factors. People construct SFA

programs that involve human interactions that require examination of environments and

perspectives to understand the factors that impact the success of the programs.

In this study, I explored the perspectives of the recipients of training from a U.S.

SFA training program to expand knowledge about what makes such programs succeed or

fail. The success of SFA programs traditionally was measured by researchers as the

recipient partner nation’s ability to achieve the goals and objectives of the United States

(Livingston, 2011; U.S. Army, 2009; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2018). In

this study, I only examined the training component of SFA programs to explore how the

recipients perceived the utility and effectiveness of the training to develop capability and

capacity that could benefit their ongoing counterinsurgency operation. I concentrated on

the phenomenon of training provided to an army conducting a counterinsurgency because

that is the phenomenon that appears to have the least amount of success developing

capabilities and capacities to establish security.

Research Questions

RQ1: What are the perspectives of Sub-Sahara African soldiers on training

received from the United States?

RQ2: What are the perspectives of leaders of a Sub-Sahara African army on

training their soldiers received from the United States?

Theoretical Foundation

The theoretical basis for my study was agency theory. Within the literature on

agency theory, there is disagreement about who developed the foundational research.

According to Eisenhardt (1989), Ross’s (1973) study on the principal’s problem of

minimizing risk when working with an agent and Jensen and Meckling’s (1976) study

about how to manage agents are both the foundation of the agency theory. The concepts

of the agency theory were developed in both studies to explain how business

relationships can fail between a principal that uses an agent to execute an activity

(Eisenhardt, 1989). Although the founding researchers developed the agency theory to

explain business management phenomena, the theory is widely applicable and used by

many disciplines to include international relations. Researchers have often used the

agency theory to explain why bilateral or multilateral arrangements failed in business or

international relations (Eisenhardt, 1989).

Agency theory explains how relationships created for action were sometimes

dysfunctional and doomed due to the different objectives of the participants (Eisenhardt,

1989; Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Ross, 1973). Eisenhardt (1989) described the agency

theory as “directed at the ubiquitous agency relationship, in which one party (the

principal) delegates work to another (the agent), who performs that work” (p. 58). The

theory contends that differing goals or levels of aversion to risk sometimes cause the

agent to act in ways that were not in the best interest of the principal (Eisenhardt, 1989;

Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Ross, 1973). In Chapter 2, I explain the agency theory in more

detail as well as how it relates to the topic of my study.

Some previous researchers on the failure of SFA programs have explained the

failure using the agency theory, assigning the role of principal to the United States

(Biddle et al., 2018; Hammes, 2016; Kapstein, 2017; Ladwig III, 2016; Regilme, 2018).

In this study, I tested the application of the agency theory by examining the perceptions

of the recipients of SFA training about their nation’s objectives for the training and the

recipient army’s actions to employ and institutionalize capabilities the training intended

to develop. The research questions were developed for this study aimed to discover if the

partner nation had objectives that differed from the United States’ objectives for the SFA

programs.

Nature of the Study

In this qualitative study, I used the phenomenological design to explore the

experiences of SFA training recipients and create an in-depth understanding of their

perspectives. The experiences of the SFA training recipients varied based on several

factors including time, place, instructors, and training subjects but all experiences were

within the phenomenon of SFA training programs. Phenomenological research that

analyzes multiple perspectives is useful to understand the meaning of complex and

potentially contested meanings of events and processes (Larkin, Shaw, & Flowers, 2018).

In this study, I used a purposeful sampling technique, which is a technique of

focusing on information-rich cases that provide details related to research questions (see

Patton, 2014). Because I intended to inform decision-makers with the results of this

study, I also employed utilization-focused sampling, which uses enough cases related to a

problem to provide a thorough understanding of key factors that may help with future

policy decisions (see Patton, 2014). Numerous factors can influence the perspectives of

the recipients of training provided by the United States to include the type of training.

The U.S. Army classification of training types includes individual soldier training or unit

collective training (U.S. Army, 2019). A major form of delivering individual training is

leader education conducted at military educational institutions (U.S. Army, 2019). The

research strategy employed in this study allowed for research methods that could examine

the impact of variations of training duration, task complexity, size of the training

audience, and type of training.

The phenomenon of my research was training programs conducted by the United

States as part of SFA to a Sub-Sahara African army conducting counterinsurgency

operations. To gain the benefits of multiple perspectives, my data collection consisted of

interviews with the soldiers that participated in the training and senior leaders of the Sub-

Sahara African army that received the training. I analyzed the data to identify patterns

from their observations to reveal the essence and major themes of the participants’

perceptions. The sampling for the research comprised three, information-rich cases that

possessed significant differences to provide a thorough understanding of key variables

that influenced the effectiveness of SFA training programs.

Definitions

This study requires the reader to have an understanding of terms that define

elements and programs that support and assist recipient governments in the area of

security. Several of the researchers cited in this study used different terms to describe

programs that were similar to each other and intended to develop the security capabilities

of another government. All of the terms and programs that involve the development of

foreign or recipient security forces are relevant to this study because the programs

involve similar environmental factors and face similar challenges.

Foreign assistance: The U.S. Government’s term for all programs that intend to

build stability for a foreign nation or region (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017).

Foreign internal defense: Programs with the objective of developing foreign

security forces’ ability to maintain domestic security (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, 2017, p. II-7). In this study, I used the term SFA for any program by the U.S.

military intended to develop capacity or capability of foreign security forces to include

equipping, training, advising, and the provision of services.

Security assistance: A subcomponent of Foreign Assistance programs, which

includes the transfer of defense-related articles, training, and services provided by the

U.S.Government (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017).

Security force assistance (SFA): The main topic of this study, which consists of

the activities that are Security Assistance programs administered by the U.S. DOD “to

support the development of the capacity and capabilities of FSF [Foreign Security

Forces] and their supporting institutions” (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017, p.

II-7).

Security sector assistance (SSA): A term not commonly used within U.S. military

documents (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017) but that is used in some of the

research and government documents referenced in my study. The U.S. Government

documents that included this term used it to refer to SFA programs plus the development

of relationships with partner nations or support provided to international organizations

(Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017). Some of the literature used the term to

describe SFA activities (McInnis & Lucas, 2015; The White House, 2017; Watts et al.,

2018).

Security sector reform: Activities and programs intended to help a nation develop

its ability to provide “safety, security, and justice from ministerial level down to tactical

units” (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017, p. I-6). This was a more commonly

used term internationally. The literature contained more research on security sector

reform than on the topic of SFA. Because of similarities with SFA, I included the

research on security sector reform in this study.

Assumptions

An important assumption related to the problem of this study was that the U.S.

Government is taking steps to improve how it conducts SFA without understanding past

problems or the environmental factors that may determine success. The fact that there is

insufficient data available to determine the impact of SFA programs supports this

assumption (U.S. DOD Inspector General, 2017; U.S. Government Accountability

Office, 2018). As a result of the recent military failures of the Iraqi Army and the Afghan

National Army despite past SFA, the U.S. Government initiated actions to improve SFA

efforts. The U.S. Army (2018) created regionally aligned units dedicated to SFA missions

with the intent that those units will develop improve practitioner knowledge of regional

environments and instructional skills relevant to training security forces within their

assigned regions (Feickert, 2018).

Other policy changes to improve SFA efforts were included in the legislation that

authorized SFA programs. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

expanded the authority of the U.S. DOD to conduct SFA programs intended to develop

partner nation military capacity and required the DOD to collect data and report on the

partner nation’s ability to absorb and sustain the capabilities SFA programs intended to

transfer. The U.S. Government’s initiatives were reasonable actions to address known

shortcomings of SFA, including inadequate instructor proficiency and the lack of data on

the impact of programs; however, without a full understanding of why past programs

failed, the implementation of the initiatives may not address the root causes of SFA

problems.

Another assumption that helped shape my research design was that recipients of

SFA might be reluctant to acknowledge or be unaware of different objectives with the

United States for the SFA programs. Given the intercultural environment in which SFA

programs were planned and executed, it is possible that miscommunications occurred in

which planners and participants did not realize the different objectives. It is also

reasonable to assume that the recipients of SFA may be reticent to acknowledge different

objectives and risk losing future support. One of the objectives of SFA programs is to

engage partner nations to gain cooperation, but in this study, I assumed that capability

and capacity development were the primary objective of SFA programs, especially for a

partner nation that needed assistance to defeat an insurgency.

In this study, I also assumed that successful execution of SFA programs benefits

the receiving nation’s population and promotes human development. This assumption

depends on the partner nation government’s employment of new military capabilities in a

fashion that benefits its citizens. U.S. policies to ensure SFA programs benefits the

citizens of a foreign country are established by several laws, including the annual

National Defense Authorization Acts that authorize the programs (National Defense

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, 2016). The National Defense Authorization Act

for Fiscal Year 2017 (2016) stated that all SFA programs “include elements that promote

the following: (A) Observance of and respect for the law of armed conflict, human rights

and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law. (B) Respect for civilian control of the

military” (p. 2502). The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 also

prohibited the training of suspected human rights violators (p. 2499). The Arms Export

Control Act (2018) limited the sale of military equipment or technology to ensure any

sales advanced the objectives of SFA programs, promoted respect for human rights, and

enforced the nonproliferation of weapons. My assumption that SFA programs benefit the

partner nation citizens is important given the evidence of past instances of partner nation

security forces misusing the military capabilities developed by SFA programs (see

Burchard & Burgess, 2018).

Scope and Delimitations

Specific Aspects of the Research Problem

The focus of my research problem was on SFA provided to partner nations

combatting an insurgency. Although there was evidence in related literature that SFA did

not achieve its desired goals in general, the problem was most severe and impactful when

SFA programs supported a partner nation conducting a counterinsurgency. SFA programs

included all or any of the following components: organizing, training, equipping,

rebuilding or building, and advising assistance (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

2017). In this study, I examined the training component of SFA programs. Practice is

required to acquire new skills and training is a process of conducting practice (Salas &

Cannon-Bowers, 2001). One objective of SFA programs was to develop capabilities,

which required developing new skills; therefore, training was a critical component for

most SFA programs to achieve their objective of developing capabilities. I explored the

perceptions of members of an army that received training from the United States because

of the criticality of training to capability development.

Boundaries of the Study

The population for my study resided in the army that received training from the

United States. The population had the potential to provide insights into the recipient

army’s goals for the training and address the questions of its capacity to turn the training

into a new or improved military capability. This study did not include the perceptions of

the U.S. citizens that provided the training because they did not likely possess an in-depth

knowledge of the partner nation’s motives, goals, capacities, and subsequent use of the

skills developed during SFA programs. The inability of the DOD to create baseline

assessments of partner nation security forces was an indicator that the trainers and those

that coordinated the training lacked a clear understanding of the situation before

beginning the training (U.S. DOD Inspector General, 2017; U.S. Government

Accountability Office, 2018).

In this study, I aimed to explore if different objectives between the United States

and the recipient partner nation were the root cause of failures to develop military

capacities and capabilities during SFA training programs or if other factors caused any

failures. The interviews with recipients of the United States-provided training disclosed

the level of perceived skills transfer as a result of the training. The concepts of education

and cross-cultural communications provide descriptions and explanations of possible

barriers to the skills transfer; however, the primary theory that guided the design of this

study was the agency theory because I intended to build on the previous research that

most commonly used the concepts of the agency theory as an explanation of why past

SFA and similar programs failed.

Potential Transferability

Developing capabilities and capacities in developing nations is a topic of many

disciplines. The results of this study may not be universally transferable but are relevant

to many disciplines involving capability and capacity development. The uniqueness of

each SFA program’s environment, culture, and abilities of the recipients and providers of

training limit the degree of the transferability of the findings of this study. The results of

this study have the most transferability with other SFA programs with Sub-Sahara

African armies engaged in a counterinsurgency because of the similarities of

environment, culture, participants, and program objectives. However, the study results

have some level of transferability with all development programs that include participants

from different nations or cultures.

Limitations

Limitations of the Study Related to Design Weaknesses

The design of this study was intentionally limited in terms of time and scope to

gain an in-depth understanding of a select phenomenon. In this study, I investigated

programs within a single country to gain a deep understanding of factors impacting the

phenomenon. The data collection consisted of individual interviews to gain multiple

perspectives for comparison and synthesis. Limiting the research to individual interviews

within a single country limits the potential dependability and transferability because all

individual experiences are unique and all countries operate within unique environments,

cultures, and capacities.

Because the phenomenon of this study consisted of training programs that the

partner nation agreed to participate in, it was reasonable to assume that the partner nation

desired continued SFA training and the recipients of the training may have not wanted to

divulge any issues that may jeopardize future programs. The recipients of the training

may also have not known the reasons their government and army agreed to the training or

the objectives of the training. Through the interview design, I attempted to discover the

partner nation’s objectives, but the research participants may not have known or wanted

to divulge any objectives that were contrary to the United States’ objectives. The

participants’ potential lack of knowledge or possible desire not to disclose their true

perceptions could limit the reliability of the participants’ observations and the

trustworthiness of the findings.

Biases That Could Influence Study Outcomes

In addition to potentially not wanting to disclose national objectives or say

anything that could jeopardize future SFA programs with the United States, the research

participants may also have been reticent to disclose any shortcomings of their army. If the

participants disclosed information that showed that their army could not replicate or

sustain the new capabilities developed as a result of SFA, they could fear retaliation from

their government or superiors. To alleviate the fears of the participants, I informed them

that their identity or the identity of their nation would not be disclosed in this study. To

gain their confidence and willingness to disclose their true observations, the participants

were also informed that the intent of the research was to improve the U.S. SFA programs

in general and would not become evidence for any specific program between the United

States and their nation.

There could be a potential bias from me as the researcher. My cultural

background and experiences differ significantly from the recipients of SFA training

programs. I come from a developed Western country and lack the experiential viewpoint

of Sub-Saharan Africa. My previous experiences of living and working in Sub-Saharan

Africa provide me with some perspective of the challenges and limitations of my

knowledge and viewpoint that could have biased this study. To further address my

potential biases, I conducted reflexivity, triangulation, and peer reviews that I describe in

more detail in Chapter 3.

Reasonable Measures to Address Limitations

To improve the dependability and transferability of my research, it consisted of

multiple cases of SFA training programs that I selected based on their variation of key

variables. Looking at multiple cases allowed for the identification of themes instead of

single events. Ensuring the multiple cases varied in key variables increased the

transferability of the identified themes across similar phenomena with similar key

variables. I also increased the dependability and transferability of this study and its results

by including perspectives of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives that were

synthesized to further identify major themes. The combined impact of developing major

themes based on multiple cases with variations of key variables and from the perspectives

of multiple viewpoints improves the dependability and transferability of this study.

Significance

The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge about training

foreign security forces by the United States. Exploring the perceptions of recipients of

training from a Sub-Sahara African army helped to identify if differing objectives of the

partner nation and the United States existed and inhibited the development of military

capability and capacity. The perceptions of recipients of training also helped identify if

other factors inhibited the success of SFA training programs.

With this study, I intended to help fill the gap in knowledge about the

effectiveness of training foreign security forces to develop military capacities and

capabilities to defeat an insurgent and maintain domestic security. The U.S. Congress and

the U.S. Army recently undertook policy and program changes to improve the

effectiveness of SFA programs without fully understanding the cause of the problems

(Feickert, 2018; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, 2016). The

results of this study could provide information to assist with making better-informed

policy changes to SFA program structure and policy.

Assuming the United States uses SFA to help governments that have the best

interest of their citizens as a primary consideration, the findings of this study could

contribute to more successful SFA programs that help build secure environments in

which human development can occur. In addition to potentially helping the citizens of

partner nations, effective SFA can help the United States achieve its National Security

Policy while reducing the waste of government resources on programs that do not

contribute to improved security. The conclusions of my study do not provide a holistic

and completely transferable answer to why SFA does not develop capability and capacity

or contribute to victory over insurgents. However, the findings of this study help to start

answering why SFA did not work as well as intended and provide a better understanding

of how to improve future SFA programs.

Summary

Past researchers have concluded that assistance by the United States to partner

nations engaged in a counterinsurgency did not result in victory at a reasonable rate

(Biddle et al., 2018; Matisek, 2018). Other researchers described the failure of SFA to

achieve its objectives in recent and current programs (Ates, 2014; Chandra, 2008; Corum,

2007; Davis, 2014; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Morris, 2016; O’Connor et al., 2009;

Olden, 2014; Parker & Landay, 2016; Robinson, 2018; Watts et al., 2018). Previous U.S.

Government reports identified that data did not exist to properly identify the root causes

of past failures of SFA programs (U.S. DOD Inspector General, 2017; U.S. Government

Accountability Office, 2018). In additional studies, researchers described many key

variables that contributed to past SFA or similar programs failures (Abrahamsen, 2016;

Ates, 2014; Bruneau, 2015; Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Detzner, 2017;

Donais, 2018; Felicetti, 2006; Grespin, 2013; Hammes, 2016; Jowell, 2018; Kammel,

2018; Kapstein, 2017; Ladwig III, 2016; Livingston, 2011; McInnis & Lucas, 2015;

Mezzell, 2019; Morris, 2016; O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014; Parker & Landay,

2016; Paul et al., 2013; Regilme, 2018; Robinson, 2018; Ross, 2016; U.S. Government

Accountability Office, 2013; Walsh, 2015; Watts et al., 2018; Westerman, 2017).

In Chapter 1, I provided the background to the U.S. SFA and provided evidence

showing that it did not achieve desired outcomes. I also provided information about the

current situation and why SFA is important to U.S. National Security Policy, partner

nation governments, and their citizens. The information I provided included research that

concluded there is a lack of data to determine the effectiveness of SFA and the causes of

any failures. Chapter 1 included an introduction to the application of the agency theory to

explain past failures of SFA programs to achieve a military victory over insurgents by an

assisted partner nation. I also explained the method I used to explore the motivation of

partner nations from the perspective of soldiers and leaders of a Sub-Sahara African army

engaged in a counterinsurgency to determine how well the agency theory may explain the

impacts of training conducted as part of SFA programs. Through this study, I intended to

explore the reasons SFA programs do or do not develop military capabilities and

capacities. In Chapter 2, I expand on the brief introduction of agency theory and explain

how it applies to SFA as well as provide a review of the extant literature related to the

topic of this study.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Introduction

Restated Problem and Purpose

The problem under study was that SFA programs provided by the United States to

partner nation security forces often failed to achieve the desired impact of developing the

capacity and capability of the partner nation to maintain security and defeat an

insurgency. The failure of partner nations to defeat insurgents within their nations can

provide terrorist organizations the opportunity to establish safe havens from which they

can threaten the United States and other allied nations. A partner nation’s inability to

defeat an insurgency also limits its ability to establish security and stability for its

citizens.

The purpose of my study was to explore and understand the perspectives of

recipients of training as part of the U.S. SFA programs from a Sub-Saharan African army

that is engaged in counterinsurgency operations. Despite a widespread understanding that

SFA has a mixed record with numerous failed efforts, there is a lack of available data,

research, and evidence-based understanding of why SFA fails to achieve its goals.

Exploring the perceptions of recipients of SFA from a Sub-Sahara African army expands

the knowledge about what makes such programs succeed or fail.

Synopsis of the Current Literature That Establishes Relevance

There were two topics within the literature related to SFA that established the

relevance of the problem. The first topic was the evidence that showed that SFA often

failed to meet its objectives. The evidence on the subject of past SFA failures were

primarily historical reviews in which the outcomes of insurgencies against U.S. partner

nations were analyzed. A few academic studies, reinforced by U.S. Government studies,

international nongovernment organization reports, and news media reports provide

evidence that SFA did not meet its objectives for the ongoing efforts in Iraq and

Afghanistan (Ates, 2014; Chandra, 2008; Davis, 2014; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016;

Morris, 2016; O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014; Parker & Landay, 2016; Robinson,

2018; Watts et al., 2018). The importance of SFA as a vital component of the U.S.

National Security Policy was another topic that illustrated the relevance of the problem.

U.S. Government documents recognized and academic research validated the importance

of SFA to the U.S. security policy, counter-terrorism operations, and human

development. The problem with SFA was relevant because of the potential ability of SFA

programs to improve current and future security for the United States, partner nations,

and the international community.

Preview of this Chapter

In this chapter, I describe the literature reviewed for and used in my study. The

literature review is organized by major concepts of this study, including the topic of SFA,

related phenomenon, and the chosen methodology. I also describe the literature search

strategy and the theoretical foundation for this study. My description of the theoretical

foundation includes my rationale for selecting agency theory as well as a review of the

literature on the related theories and concepts of cross-cultural communications,

education, and counterinsurgencies. I conclude this chapter by describing how this study

fills a gap in knowledge and improves the understanding of SFA program effectiveness.

Literature Search Strategy

Accessed Library Databases and Search Engines

I started my search of existing literature with a specific topic and expanded to

more generalized and related subjects because of the lack of previous research on the

initial topic. The initial topic of research was the training of foreign armies by the United

States, which was expanded to SFA and related assistance activities. The Walden

University Library and its Public Policy & Administration search engine were the

primary sources for obtaining literature for this study. The Public Policy &

Administration search engine simultaneously used the Taylor & Francis Online,

EBSCOhost, and SAGE Journals search engines while accessing Political Science

Complete & Business Source Complete Combined Search, Public Administration

Abstracts, SAGE Journals, SocINDEX with Full Text, and Taylor and Francis Online

databases. Google Scholar and Google Search were also of assistance, especially to find

related U.S. Government documents and studies.

Key Search Terms and Combinations of Search Terms

Security Force Assistance and its related terms were the primary search terms I

used to locate evidence for this study. Because the primary search term did not produce a

significant amount of research, search terms of similar and related activities were used to

expand my literature review, including security cooperation, foreign internal defense,

Foreign Assistance, Security Assistance, defense institution building, security sector

reform, train and equip, military advising, security sector assistance, capacity

development, and capability development. Because I focused on the execution of SFA by

the United States in this study, the search term of the United States was combined with

all the previous terms to find studies on the U.S. experience in each of the SFA-related

terms.

Because of my focus on the training component of SFA to a Sub-Sahara African

army engaged in counterinsurgency, the search terms of training, education, Africa,

insurgency, counterinsurgency, and intrastate conflict were combined with the SFA-

related search terms to find research directly related to this focus. Search terms related to

the theoretical foundation and possible variables impacting the topic were searched

independently, then combined with all the previous search terms to find studies that

provided information relevant to my topic and theoretical foundation. The theoretical

foundation and key variables search terms were: agency theory, principal-agent theory,

agent-principal, cross-cultural communications, intercultural communications, didactic

triangle, skill transfer, and knowledge transfer. Finally, to find recent literature to assist

with the design of my research, I used the following search terms separately and in

combination with the term qualitative research: phenomenological design,

trustworthiness, dependability, transferability, generalizability, reliability, and validity.

The Iterative Search Process

I did not narrow my literature search to particular databases but continuously used

all the databases accessed by the Walden University Public Policy & Administration

search engine. The lack of current research on the topic of SFA required me to expand

my literature search to relevant topics. As I expanded my search to include similar cross-

cultural training and intragroup cooperation activities, all the databases searched by the

Walden University Public Policy & Administration search engine were relevant to my

research.

Cases Where There is Little Current Research

Some of the current literature stated that a lack of data existed on SFA (i.e.,

Luminati, 2011; Mujkic, Asencio, & Byrne, 2019; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Ross, 2016),

which partially explained the lack of previous research. To overcome the lack of

academic research on the topic, I expanded my literature search to U.S. Government

reports and sponsored studies on the topic. The U.S. Government reports, conducted by

agencies such as the U.S. Government Accountability Agency, and sponsored studies,

conducted by research institutions such as the RAND Corporation or the Army War

College, were found using either the Walden University Public Policy & Administration,

Google Scholar, or Google search engines.

Theoretical Foundation

The Agency Theory

The theoretical basis for my study was the agency theory, which is sometimes

called principal-agency, principal-agent theory, or the principal-agent dilemma. There is

not a universally acknowledged originator of agency theory (Eisenhardt, 1989). Seminal

works on the subject include Eisenhardt (1985), Jensen and Meckling (1976), and Ross

(1973). Ross described the phenomenon that agency theory explains as occurring when

“an agency relationship has arisen between two (or more) parties when one, designated as

the agent, acts for, on behalf of, or as representative for the other, designated the

principal” (p. 134). Jensen and Meckling expanded the literature on agency theory by

developing a “theory which explains how the conflicting objectives of the individual

participants are brought into equilibrium” within the phenomenon described by Ross (p.

307).

Researchers originally developed the agency theory to explain business

management phenomena, but it is widely used to explain interactions in other disciplines

(Eisenhardt, 1989). Ross (1973) claimed that “examples of agency are universal” (p.

134). Researchers have used the agency theory to explain public policy and public

administration phenomena from local to international levels. Connolly (2017) and de

Oliveira and Filho (2016) explained the relationship between elected municipal officials

and appointed city administrators with the agency theory. Ozymy and Jarrel (2016)

proposed that the agency theory explains the actions of federal regulatory agencies

toward those they regulate. The behavior of international organizations, such as the

European Union (Sobol, 2016) and international nongovernment organizations (Abbott,

Genschel, Snidel, & Zangl, 2016), have also been explained by researchers using the

agency theory. Lane (2013) proposed that the agency theory explains the relationship

between government and the governed at all levels of “policy implementation and public

policy-making” (p. 463). According to the agency theory, differing goals and levels of

acceptable risk by the principal and agent can cause failed partnerships and the failure to

achieve desired public policy objectives (Eisenhardt, 1989).

The agency theory proposes that agents act within their self-perceived best

interest (Eisenhardt, 1989; Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Ross, 1973). Other key proposals

of agency theory are that agents are generally more risk-averse because they are usually

less diversified than principals and that agents have greater information than principals

about the program of interest because they are closer to the program than principals

(Eisenhardt, 1989; Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Ross, 1973). Principals typically have

multiple agents executing several programs (Eisenhardt, 1989; Jensen & Meckling, 1976;

Ross, 1973). If a program fails, it may be catastrophic to the agent but less of an issue for

the principal because the principal has other programs (Eisenhardt, 1989; Jensen &

Meckling, 1976; Ross, 1973). Much of the original literature on agency theory described

ways for the principal to ensure the agent executed the program as desired by the

principal with incentives for the agent, contract specifications, or risk sharing techniques

(Eisenhardt, 1989).

Analysis of How the Theory has been Applied Previously in Similar Ways

Some studies of international relations to include several of the studies used for

my research, applied the agency theory to explain phenomenon of international relations.

In international relations, the relationship of principal and agent occurs when one country

acting as an agent agrees to do something for another country acting as principal. The

principal needs to provide something in exchange for the action but is not able to fully

control the agent. The principal and agent relationship between countries often occurs

during development programs to include military development. During development

programs, the principal country acts as a sponsor or donor that provides resources for the

agent country as the recipient or benefactor to execute a program.

Previous literature used the theory to explain why recipients of aid sometimes did

not act to achieve program objectives even when the programs were developmental for

the professed purpose of benefiting the recipient, or agent (de Mesquita & Smith, 2012;

Downes & O’Rourke, 2016; McKoy & Miller, 2012). The agent country and the actors

within the agent country have the ability to divert the resources for other purposes and

hinder the achievement of the principle's objectives. Brown (2009) researched the

relationship of Western development aid donors with African recipients and concluded

that commitments of liberal reforms as a conditionality of receiving the aid only had a

chance of marginal success if the environment of the African nation supported the

reforms. Domestic factors had more of an impact on the success of reforms attached to

aid than rhetoric between the donor and recipient (Brown, 2009). Brown’s research

supported the concepts of the agency theory and further highlighted that an aid recipient

or SFA partner nation’s actions represented their true goals better than any rhetoric

communicated to the donor.

Recent studies by Jowell (2018), Needs (2019), and Robinson (2018) that

research three different cases of military assistance programs found that the diversion or

misuse of resources for neopatrimonialism motives challenged the program sponsor’s

objectives. Jowell researched the Western funded International Peace Support Training

Centre in Kenya and found that assignments as instructor or student were parceled out by

leaders as rewards. Needs researched the British assistance to the Army of Sierra Leone

which is widely considered a success but found that neopatrimonialism uses of

assignments hindered the sustainment of capabilities the Army of Sierra Leone

developed. In research about why the U.S. Army’s reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan

failed, Robinson found that “powerful figures and groups” used jobs and assignments to

disperse patronage and employ followers which was their custom of neopatrimonialism

(p. 258). Although Jowell, Needs, and Robinson did not use the term agency theory or

any of its related terms, the examples of neopatrimonialism provided in their research

illustrate how an agents objectives can divert resources away from obtaining the

objectives of the principle.

SFA is an activity within international relations, and agency theory is especially

applicable to the relationship between the United States and the partner nations that

receive SFA. Biddle et al. (2018), Hammes (2016), Regilme (2018), Rittinger (2017), and

Ladwig (2016) used the agency theory to explain why partner nations often failed to

achieve military success despite the assistance of the United States. These recent studies

proposed that partner nations did not use military capabilities that U.S. assistance

provided in a fashion that would win wars. The partner nations were either motivated to

divert the new military capabilities or lacked the capacity to properly use the capability as

envisioned by the United States. All the authors referenced in my research that applied

agency theory to explain why partner nations lost wars despite U.S. assistance proposed

that the United States failed to understand the partner nation government's environment

and motives (Biddle et al., 2018; Hammes, 2016; Ladwig, 2016; Regilme, 2018;

Rittinger, 2017).

The Rationale for Choosing Agency Theory

The previous studies on SFA (cited above) that used the agency theory to explain

past failures applied the test of success against the outcomes of armed conflicts. Winning

or losing a war is the ultimate measure of success for SFA. However, this metric does not

provide information about why or to what degree past SFA programs failed to achieve

their program objectives. My research intended to explore the effectiveness of SFA

programs to develop a military capability and capacity in a manner that helped defeat an

insurgency. Therefore, my study did not use winning a counterinsurgency as the

measurement of success, but the degree to which the partner nation army gained new

skills and capabilities plus its ability to replicate and sustain the new skills and

capabilities. The principal and agent relationship existed between the United States and

the partner nation during the planning and conduct of SFA programs. Therefore, since the

phenomenon that agency theory attempts to explain exists for my study, I applied the

concepts of agency theory to understand their applicability to explain the outcomes of

SFA programs.

Agency Theory Relationship to the Present Study and the Research Questions

The research questions of my study intended to gain the perspectives of soldiers

from a Sub-Sahara African army that received training from the United States as part of

SFA programs and the perspectives of that army’s leaders. The interviews with the

soldiers and leaders of the partner nation army provided information about the

employment and institutionalization of the new military capabilities that SFA programs

intended to develop. The degree of employment and institutionalization of the new

military capabilities provided insights into the partner nation's objectives for participating

in the SFA program. The exploratory nature of the interviews provided additional

opportunities for insights into the partner nation's motives and identified differences with

the U.S. objectives. Employment and institutionalization of new military capabilities

were a measure of an SFA program’s success for my study. The research questions

intended to provide an understanding of the partner nation’s objectives by examining its

actions as opposed to its rhetoric or assumptions by the United States. The agency theory

can explain why conflicting, or like-minded objectives between the United States and a

partner nation about an SFA program resulted in failure or success respectively.

My study used the posture statements of the U.S. Africa Command to define the

objectives of the United States. The U.S. Africa Command is responsible for SFA

programs within Africa. From 2016 to 2019, the Commanders of the U.S. Africa

Command announced in their annual posture statements that building partner nation

capacity to create domestic stability was a key objective for their commands (U.S. Africa

Command, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). In the 2016 posture statement, General Rodriquez

stated that “our approach employs security force assistance and exercises as decisive

efforts to build partner capacity” (U.S. Africa Command, 2016, p. 2). Therefore, for my

study the United States’ objective for the SFA training programs was the development of

capacity for the subject of the training program.

Literature Review Related to Key Variables and Concepts

Studies Related to the Constructs, Methodology, and Methods

My study’s construct and methodology relied heavily on Patton’s Qualitative

Research & Evaluation Methods (4th ed.; 2014). Patton’s descriptions of qualitative

research, research purposes, research questions, and data collection methods are the

foundation of my study’s methodology and methods. Most importantly, Patton provided

the logic and procedures to ensure the problem was relevant, the research questions

addressed the problem, and the research design provided data to answer the research

questions. Ravitch and Carl (2016) provided insights about the importance of rigor

throughout the design using the terms validity and trustworthiness. To achieve rigor, I

looked for multiple opportunities within the design of my research to triangulate the

findings. Many qualitative researchers associated the term credibility with quantitative

research and instead used the term trustworthiness to communicate “the ways that

researchers can affirm that their findings are faithful to participants’ experiences”

(Ravitch & Carl, 2016, p. 186). Other qualitative researchers (Golafshani, 2003; Noble &

Smith, 2015) rejected the notion of not using terms rooted in quantitative research and

their work provided helpful information to ensure the credibility and validity of my

research. Golafshani (2003), and Noble and Smith (2015) influenced the main feature I

adopted in my research design to increase the credibility and validity of my research

which is the inclusion of multiple perspectives of multiple phenomenological cases

related to the topic. Larkin, Shaw, and Flowers (2018) provided additional information

about how to compare multiple group perspectives in phenomenological research that

provide the advantages of comparative analysis and synthesis.

Previous Research Approaches to the Problem

Several recent studies on SFA and the broader subject of military assistance to

foreign nations were studies that reviewed success based on the outcomes of armed

conflict. Jones’s (2017) qualitative analysis of the key variables of timing and level of

intervention in civil wars found that military assistance efforts to the government side

generally did not alter the length or outcome except when the sponsor provided the

assistance at the beginning of the civil war. In a review of United States involvement in

wars since the Vietnam War, Biddle et al. (2018) concluded that “SFA has a checkered

record in recent experience” based upon the number of conflicts that United States

partner nations lost (p. 92). SFA should improve the ability of security forces to maintain

domestic stability and prevent the initiation of internal armed conflicts. However, Watts

et al.’s (2018) research on security sector assistance found that “partner states are more

likely to experience a civil war in the years following the provision of SSA [security

sector assistance], and this risk increases further as greater levels of aid are provided" (p.

65). Research on SFA based upon the outcomes or prevention of armed conflicts was a

common approach of previous research.

Other recent studies analyzed the success of SFA based on whether it developed

military capability and capacity. Shah and Dalton (2018) assessed that “the United States

has yet to see the proportionate returns from its investment in foreign countries’ security

capabilities” despite the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars to SFA (para. 6).

Matisek’s (2018) research found that most U.S. Military Assistance programs during the

Cold War achieved their objectives but due to the failure of recent SFA programs to

develop capacity and not just capabilities, the “Cold War assistance model to weak states

in a post-9/11 world have encountered abject failure” (p. 269). In research on the El

Salvador civil war of 1979–92, Ladwig (2016) concluded that U.S. SFA developed

military capabilities, but those capabilities did not help to win the war until the United

States focused on also developing the capacity to employ the new capabilities effectively.

In research on U.S. assistance to Columbia, Regilme (2018) also found that when SFA

programs failed to include capacity development, any shortfall in the partner nations

capacity nullified the benefits of developed capabilities. Partner nations that did not

respect human rights often misused the capabilities developed by SFA programs. Several

researchers assessed the effectiveness of SFA programs based on their success to develop

the capacity to respect human rights when security forces employed the capabilities that

SFA programs developed. The literature illustrated how failure to address capacity

shortfalls while developing military capabilities contributed to SFA program failures to

develop security forces that provided security and defeated insurgents.

Most of the recent literature related to SFA consisted of descriptions and analysis

of issues developing military capability and capacity in Afghanistan and Iraq since the

United States led invasions of those countries in 2001 and 2003. Some of the literature

attributed the problems with SFA in Afghanistan and Iraq to variables dealing with the

partner nation’s lack of capacity to employ military capabilities or inability to absorb the

capabilities. Ates (2014) researched attrition in the Afghan National Army and found that

training programs did not keep up with attrition and that losses due to casualties and

desertion impeded “efforts to create a sustainable and effective army” (p. 169). Felicetti

(2006) identified that early in the efforts to develop the Iraqi security forces, SFA efforts

failed to develop capacity which contributed to the inability of the Iraqi security forces to

assume responsibility for their internal security. Almost 10 years after Felicetti’s

insightful warning about lack of capacity development to enable the proper employment

of security capabilities, Bruneau’s (2015) research on civilian control of the military in

Afghanistan and Iraq found a lack of institutional capacity that created a misalignment

between the civilian leadership security strategy and the employment of capabilities by

military leaders. Olden (2014) attributed the inability to absorb the English language

based training and technical manuals as a significant factor in Iraq’s inability to sustain

military capabilities following the United States’ military departure in 2011 and observed

that “Iraq lacks a skilled English-proficient workforce required to sustain and operate

advanced aircraft and other sophisticated military hardware” (p. 29). Examining factors

that involved the partner nation was a common approach of research about the

effectiveness of SFA in Iraq and Afghanistan, but more common was the examination of

U.S. preparation and execution.

Most of the literature on U.S. SFA in Iraq and Afghanistan assessed the efforts as

unsatisfactory to meet program or strategic objectives. An early analysis of the

counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq by Corum (2007) concluded that

the U.S. Army was unprepared and lacked the ability to train the security forces of

Afghanistan and Iraq. Chandra’s (2008) study on early counterinsurgency operations in

Afghanistan had similar findings as Corum but additionally found that the United States

and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies resorted to short term solutions

to provide security and train the Afghanistan National Army that had long term negative

impacts. Chandra assessed that providing security had the priority of resources over

training and as a result the Afghan National Army was poorly trained and did not possess

the capabilities to fully assume responsibility of their nation’s security. Hammes’s (2016)

authoritative study on SFA in Afghanistan and Iraq assessed that "for some years, the

effort was ad hoc, under-resourced, and complicated by internal bureaucratic struggles in

Washington” (p. 52). Davis’s (2014) study on the NATO campaign in Afghanistan

concluded that the allies efforts to develop the Afghanistan security forces suffered from

a lack of resources and failed to prioritize capacity development because of a

foundational failure to understand “the country, its culture, politics, and the key societal

differences; and recognition of the paramount importance of local ownership, [and]

leadership” (p. 145). The literature that approached the problem with SFA programs by

researching the U.S. planning and execution in Iraq and Afghanistan added to the body of

lessons learned on how to effectively develop the capability and capacity of a partner

nation's security forces.

Much of the literature on SFA programs noted that there was a lack of available

data and research on the topic. As a result of their literature review of topics related to

SFA, such as military intervention or foreign assistance, Biddle et al. (2018) concluded

that “for all its importance, both to scholars and to policy makers, the actual military

effectiveness of SFA [SFA] has thus been surprisingly little studied” (p. 93). Luminati

(2011) claimed that the U.S. Government did not maintain detailed data on its training

and equipping of foreign militaries nor did it have procedures to assess program

effectiveness. Omelicheva et al. (2017) studied the impacts of attending a military

education school in the United States on foreign soldiers and found a lack of data about

the results and no system to assess the impact of the programs. U.S. Government reports

and studies validated the conclusion by academic literature that there was a lack of data

on SFA to assess its impact. A U.S. DOD Inspector General (2017) report found that the

DOD agencies responsible for managing SFA did not collect measurable data to make

objective assessments about the effectiveness of individual programs. The U.S.

Government Accountability Office (2018) reported that until 2016, the vast majority of

the train and equip projects as a component of SFA programs lacked any effort to assess

effectiveness. The same U.S. Government Accountability Office report stated that in

2016 and 2017 improvements were made by the DOD but that “less than three-quarters

included complete sustainment plans” which included plans to collect data about program

impacts (p. 13). The lack of data on SFA programs may explain why previous studies on

the topic primarily based their research on the outcomes of armed conflicts or the partner

nation security forces’ ability to maintain security.

Because of the lack of data and research on SFA, my literature review included

studies on any form of training provided by a sponsor nation to a partner nation’s security

forces. The British Security Sector Reform program in Sierra Leone during and after the

civil war in the 1990s was widely considered one of the most successful security force

development programs (Neads, 2019; Varisco, 2014). Varisco (2014) concluded that the

keys to the success of the British Security Sector Reform program in Sierra Leone were

the British militaries’ extensive research on security sector reform lessons learned and the

development of local knowledge which they applied to develop legitimate security forces

capable of maintaining internal security. As a result of research about the Security Sector

Reform program in Sierra Leone, Neads, (2019) concluded that the British developed

some capability and capacity that positively impacted operations by adapting and limiting

their efforts at improving what the Sierra Leone Army already did instead of attempting a

wholesale change of the army’s way of operating.

Contrary to the British example in Sierra Leone, several researchers found that

Western assumptions and bias toward recipient nations of security sector reform were a

significant cause of unsuccessful programs. Westerman (2017) identified that security

sector reform programs generally applied Western perceptions of liberal democratic

institutions and failed to explore local alternatives that recipient nations would more

readily accept. Robinson (2018) researched the U.S. effort to reconstruct the Afghan

National Army and concluded that more effort was necessary to create “local ownership

of the army’s nature, rather than a total remake of the nature of the army” in the image of

a liberal democratic army (p. 262). From their literature reviews of security sector reform,

Abrahamsen (2016) and Donais (2018) found that the literature was centered on the

concept of the recipient's government as central to security and ignored non state actors

that were sometimes more capable than the governments of developing countries. Studies

on security sector reform were similar to the studies on SFA in that they approached the

research based on outcomes defined by the donor nations and found similar problems that

many of the studies explained using concepts of the agency theory.

Current literature that provided holistic assessments of the U.S. SFA programs

described the cause of failures to issues that emanated from principal and agent

relationship or the United States’ failure to assess and understand the environment. The

researchers that used an overarching theory to explain why U.S. assistance often did not

translate into victory for the partner nation utilized agency theory (Biddle et al., 2018;

Ladwig, 2016; Rittinger, 2017). Some of the studies that proposed causes for SFA

success or failure did not specifically mention agency theory by name but used

descriptions of problems with the principal and agent relationship to explain their

conclusions. Ansorg (2017) and Detzner (2017) both concluded that security sector

reform in Africa often failed because Western sponsors tried to impose their will upon

African nations. Recipient nations often did not respond to external pressure to reform

because they prioritized local needs over the sponsor’s objectives (Ansorg, 2017;

Detzner, 2017). Schroeder and Chappuis (2014) also found that local demands trumped

sponsor expectation in their global survey of security sector reform. Research by

Sullivan, Tessman, and Li (2011) found an inverse relationship between the level of U.S.

aid and cooperation by partner nations and attributed this outcome to different objectives

of the United States and the partner nations. In a study on the outcomes of

counterinsurgencies, Regilme (2018) claimed that a government’s ability to reform was a

major factor impacting the outcomes of counterinsurgencies and that those governments

that did not reform did so primarily because their main objective was the protection of the

elite. Hammes’s (2016) research about U.S. assistance to Afghanistan and Iraq also found

that near term self-preservation and gain motivated the partner governments more than

establishing peace and security. Many researchers explained why SFA and similar

programs failed using the agency theory by name or framed the problem with the agency

theory's concepts without referring to the theory by name.

Past research on SFA and similar programs assessed and attempted to describe

program effectiveness by comparing the outcomes against the provider’s objectives. In

my literature review, I only found one study that approached the problem from the

viewpoint of the recipients of assistance (Baaz & Stern, 2017). Past research approaches

were also limited to outcomes because of the lack of program-specific data that could

provide evidence about the effectiveness of SFA to transfer skills needed to develop

capabilities and capacity. Research on capability and capacity development did not

analyze what programs accomplished but assessed what components of programs were

missing to develop capability and capacity. SFA is a cross-cultural endeavor with

numerous human actions that create multiple viewpoints. The perceptions of the

recipients of assistant have the potential to provide insights into the effectiveness of SFA

to achieve the partner nation’s objectives and the level of program success at transferring

skills. A weakness of the previous literature was the lack of research from the partner

nation's viewpoint that could add an important viewpoint about the effectiveness of SFA

programs.

The Rationale for Selection of the Variables and Concepts

My research examined the key variables related to training as part of an SFA

program. Training was the topic of my research because it is a critical element of many

SFA programs and because examining training provided insights about the factors that

cause programs to fail. Therefore, my research accounted for the key variables identified

by previous literature that impacted SFA training programs. The literature that researched

SFA found that failures occurred because the United States failed to understand the

environment and did not plan accordingly (Bruneau, 2015; Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007;

Davis, 2014; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Matisek, 2018; O’Connor et al., 2009;

Olden, 2014; Robinson, 2018; Walsh, 2015). From the literature, the potential key

variables of the environment that the United States failed to understand were different

partner nation objectives, gaps in the partner nation's capacity, or challenges of the

partner nation's ability to absorb the skills and capabilities. The failure to understand the

environment led to the shortcomings of planning found in the literature. According to the

literature, SFA plans often did not address existing gaps of skills or knowledge or

procedures necessary to develop capability and capacity (Bruneau, 2015; Chandra, 2008;

Corum, 2007; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Matisek, 2018; O’Connor et al., 2009;

Olden, 2014; Walsh, 2015). Other fundamental planning errors the literature uncovered

included failures to allocate enough time and trainers for SFA programs (Chandra, 2008;

Davis, 2014; Hammes, 2016). The major preparation shortfalls identified by the literature

related to the identification of training subjects, and the training of instructors (Bruneau,

2015; Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Felicetti, 2006; O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014).

Subject matter and instructors of training constitute two elements of the educational

concept of the didactic triangle. The third element of the didactic triangle is the students

or for military training the trainees. My research used the three components of the

didactic triangle as key variables that impact the effectiveness of SFA training to transfer

skills. The observations of the trainees and leaders from a Sub-Sahara African army about

the instructors, subject matter, and the trainees provided insights about how well the SFA

programs transferred skills.

Training is just one of the elements of capability, and my research accounted for

the variables associated with the other seven elements that impacted the development of

capabilities. The other elements are doctrine, organization, materiel, leadership and

education, personnel, facilities, and policy (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2015a).

Training soldiers on a skill that their army does not have a doctrine to use, or an

organization to implement, or leaders that do not know how to employ will not build

capacity. Materiel shortages of equipment or supplies can nullify successful training

intended to develop capabilities. Shortages or misalignment of personnel can hinder

capability development because skills will also be short or not assigned to the right

organizations or equipment. Policies must support capabilities such as personnel policies

that ensure soldiers with the proper skills are assigned to the correct positions to use those

skills. Some capabilities require particular facilities such as buildings to perform a staff

activity or store equipment. Shortcomings with any of the elements may prohibit the

partner nation's ability to absorb new capabilities that SFA programs intend to develop.

Issues with the capacity of the partner nation to replicate or sustain a capability

was a major subject of past literature (Bruneau, 2015; Felicetti, 2006; Matisek, 2018). My

study addressed the variable of replication by examining the partner nations employment

of the skills and capabilities that SFA programs developed. I considered the variable of

sustainment in my research by examining how the partner nation army institutionalized

new skills and capabilities into their military education system.

I analyzed the results of my research to assess the impact of the principal and

agent relationship between the United States and the partner nation as a potential root

cause of the problem. Some of the literature attributed SFA problems to different

objectives between the United States and the partner nation (Biddle et al., 2018; Hammes,

2016; Kapstein, 2017; Ladwig III, 2016; Regilme, 2018; Rittinger, 2017). To address the

variable of different objectives my research collected data and analyzed the participant

perceptions of their unit, army and nation's motivation and objectives for participating in

SFA programs. My research examined if issues with the principal and agent relationship

can explain the problem with SFA or if other factors provide an explanation.

Review and Synthesis of Studies Related to the Key Concepts and Phenomena

The phenomenon of SFA. The literature I reviewed contained information about

SFA training programs and research on similar phenomenon such as security sector

reform. Historically, the U.S. and Western military assistance often did not achieve their

strategic objectives (Abrahamsen, 2016; Ates, 2014; Biddle et al., 2018; Bruneau, 2015;

Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Detzner, 2017; Donais, 2018; Felicetti, 2006;

Grespin, 2013; Hammes, 2016; Jowell, 2018; Kammel, 2018; Kapstein, 2017; Ladwig

III, 2016; Livingston, 2011; Luminati, 2011; Matisek, 2018; McInnis & Lucas, 2015;

O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Regilme, 2018; Robinson,

2018; Ross, 2016; Westerman, 2017). U.S. SFA programs often did not achieve the

program objectives in terms of developing military capability and capacity (Chandra,

2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Grespin, 2013; Hammes, 2016; Ladwig III, 2016;

Matisek, 2018; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Regilme, 2018). The literature also identified

that SFA provided by the United States often failed to prevent the defeat of a partner

nation to an insurgency (Biddle et al., 2018). By every form of measurement used to

assess SFA programs, the researchers concluded that the programs usually failed to

achieve positive results.

Events in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrated the importance of SFA and the

ramifications of failed SFA programs. SFA programs in Afghanistan and Iraq started

shortly after the United States led invasions in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Both efforts

are ongoing. Therefore the research about these phenomena is not complete. There is

general agreement within the literature that the results of SFA programs in Afghanistan

and Iraq were sub-optimal or unsatisfactory to date (Ates, 2014; Bruneau, 2015; Chandra,

2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Felicetti, 2006; Grespin, 2013; Hammes, 2016;

Kapstein, 2017; Olden, 2014; Robinson, 2018). Some of the research assessed the SFA

programs as failures because Iraq and Afghanistan security forces were unable to

successfully assume their nation’s security missions after large scale assistance by the

United States (Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Hammes, 2016). However,

there is disagreement about the cause. Some studies researched the issues with

developing capability while others addressed capacity. Many researchers attributed the

failures in Iraq and Afghanistan to the principal and agent relationship between the

United States and the partner nations which had different objectives than the United

States (Biddle et al., 2018; Coletta, 2013; Hammes, 2016; Kapstein, 2017). Other

researchers found factors not related to the principal and agent issues that included

problems with the lack of capacity of the partner nation to either absorb the new

capabilities or apply them in an appropriate manner (Ates, 2014; Bruneau, 2015;

Felicetti, 2006; Olden, 2014).

A third focus of the research on SFA programs in Afghanistan and Iraq was the

United States’ initial preparation and resourcing to conduct the SFA programs. The

research concluded that the United States’ preparation and resourcing were inadequate

and was the major cause of both partner nation’s security forces slow development

(Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Hammes, 2016). However, the problem with

SFA to Afghanistan and Iraq persisted for almost two decades and efforts to overcome

initial shortcomings also did not succeed. There was agreement within the literature that

SFA programs in Afghanistan and Iraq had problems but disagreement about the root

causes of those problems.

The concept of capacity. Factors impacting capacity development were key

variables of my research and were a major topic of the literature I reviewed. The

multitude of military skills that SFA programs intended to transfer to the trainees were

designed to develop military capability and capacity for a partner nation's Army. The

definition of capacity is worth repeating to put into the context of the literature. Joint

Publication 3-20: Security Cooperation (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017)

defined capacity as the partner nation’s ability to replicate and sustain a military

capability without external assistance. Replication is the ability to execute the capabilities

that the SFA program developed and to do so especially during combat. Sustain is the

ability to maintain the same or similar level of capability that SFA programs developed to

include maintaining the proficiency of soldier, unit, and leader skills that the SFA

training developed.

According to the literature, failures to recognize and address partner nation

government capacity shortfalls were major causes for past SFA and international military

assistance program failures (Abrahamsen, 2016; Ansorg, 2017; Baaz & Stern, 2017;

Detzner, 2017; Donais, 2018; Schroeder & Chappuis, 2014; Varisco, 2014; Westerman,

2017). The research identified numerous instances of training conducted to develop

capability without consideration or effort to also develop the capacity required to

replicate and sustain the capability by the partner nation (Ates, 2014, Chandra, 2008,

Felicetti, 2006; Ross, 2016). Developing capacity could be as simple as creating a

recruitment program or as complicated as reforming government and military institutions.

Kapstein (2017) researched four cases of U.S. assistance to counterinsurgencies during

the Cold War and concluded that the successful assistance “emphasized a mix of political

and economic reform along with technical assistance to local militaries” (p. 157). The

reforms Kapstein referred to intended to win popular support by developing the capacity

to use military capabilities in a manner perceived as legitimate by a partner nation’s

citizens to foster support against an insurgency and for the government. Developing a

professional military ethos that respects human rights, democratic principles, and the

protection of civilians was a capacity shortfall often not addressed by SFA programs

(Kapstein, 2017; Ladwig III, 2016; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Regilme, 2018). Atkinson

(2014) found a correlation between increased attendance at U.S. military schools by

foreign officers and increased democratization of their countries. Research by Mujkic et

al. (2019) on the perspectives of U.S. democracy by foreign officers at military schools in

the United States found that the foreign officers had an increased knowledge of U.S.

democracy. However, the claims of Atkinson and Mujkic et al. that attendance at U.S.

military schools caused an increase in democracy or the potential for increased

democracy were not supported by a causal relationship or evidence.

To create reform that establishes institutional legitimacy, or develop a military

ethos where it did not previously exist requires a significant amount of long term and

persistent effort. In a study about U.S. security assistance in Africa, Grespin (2013)

proposed that the United States has a reputation as a "fair weather friend" (p. 1) and its

programs often failed due to a lack of persistent engagement. According to the literature,

too many programs developed military capability but left it to the partner nation

government to apply the new capability in any fashion the partner nation desired.

To explore how partner nations replicate capabilities, I examined how a Sub-

Sahara African army employed the capabilities in counterinsurgency operations. I also

explored how they sustained capabilities by examining how the Sub-Sahara African army

institutionalized the relevant skills by including them in the curriculum of their military

schools. According to Lis (2014), military organizations institutionalize knowledge

through the socialization, externalization, combination and internalization (SECI)

processes. For military organizations, socialization and externalization are the informal

and formal processes of deciding on how to accomplish a task. The combination process

of the SECI model is the codifying of knowledge but more specifically for military

organizations knowledge combination produces “military doctrines, manuals and other

publications which standardize the way of conducting operations and doing business by

military organizations” (Lis, p. 69). Military organizations institutionalize knowledge

through training and military education. For my study, I analyzed institutionalization

based on how the partner nation army incorporated the military skills gained through

SFA programs by teaching the skills in their schools. The data I collected about the

variables of employment and institutionalization of newly acquired military skills

intended to shed light on whether the partner nation army created knowledge as defined

by Lis and capacity as defined by Joint Publication 3-20: Security Cooperation

(Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017).

The phenomenon and concepts of counterinsurgency. My study concentrated

on SFA programs to a partner nation engaged in counterinsurgency operations.

Counterinsurgency is a component of my research because of the recurring failures of

SFA programs to prevent the defeat of partner nations and the important ramifications to

the partner nation and U.S. Security Policy when partner nations cannot defeat insurgents

and establish security. Therefore, my literature review included studies on variables that

contributed to the outcomes of counterinsurgency operations. Every insurgency is

different, but my study attempted to account for the key variables that impact the

outcomes of counterinsurgencies. According to U.S. military doctrine, counterinsurgency

is “the blend of comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously

defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes” (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff, 2018, p. III-1). Lyall (2010) stated that a common assumption about

counterinsurgencies was that autocratic governments succeeded more than democracies

which could account for why the U.S. SFA was ineffective at preventing the defeat of

partner nations. However, Lyall’s research found that autocratic and democratic regimes

succeeded at the same rate. Lyall and Wilson III (2009) found a correlation between

government losses to insurgents and increased levels of mechanization of security forces

which means that developing countries were not at a disadvantage when conducting

counterinsurgencies due to a lack of modern military armored equipment. Merz’s (2012)

research on the persistency of conflicts found that the key variables that caused conflicts

to persist were government weakness and the quality and legitimacy of its institutions.

Kapstein (2017) concluded that a government’s willingness and ability to reform its

institutions to gain legitimacy and popular support were key determinates in winning

against an insurgency. Merz and Kapstein’s studies highlighted the importance of

capacity development that ensured partner nations employed military capabilities in a

fashion perceived as legitimate.

The concepts of cross-cultural communications. Barriers to communications

during cross-cultural exchanges had the potential to impact every part of SFA program

planning, coordinating, and executing. Agency theory assumes that different objectives

between the principal and agent grow from differing motivations based on self-interests.

My research was open to the possibility that principals and agents may not know they

have different objectives because of miscommunications. Concepts of intercultural

communication can explain how individuals from different cultures may believe they are

working together towards a common goal when in actuality they do not understand each

other's objectives. Galbreath (2019) asserted that organizational cultural differences and

barriers to communications increased between military professionals during SFA

programs as a result of the expanding technology gap between the technically advanced

United States military and the militaries of developing countries. Theories and concepts

on intercultural communications recognize that communication is a reflection of culture

and that differences in communication norms create potential barriers to intercultural

communications that can cause misunderstandings (Jandt, 2017). Barna (as cited by

Jandt, 2017) identified barriers to communication that can occur due to culture consisting

of factors involving different worldviews and accentuated by a lack of intercultural

awareness. According to Taras, Rowney, and Steel (2009), there were at least 121

instruments for measuring culture of which Hofstede’s Culture Survey Module was the

most influential. Hofstede’s instrument included six factors to measure cultural

differences (Hofstede & Minkov, 2013). The results of Hofstede’s most recent survey

showed a difference between the cultures of the United States and East/West Africa with

significant differences between two of the factors of culture (Hofstede, 2015). Hofstede

and Minkov’s instrument scale was 100, and in the data set the United States and

East/West Africa had a difference of greater than 30 for acceptance of power distribution

in society and perceptions about the level of individualism or collectivism in their

societies. O’Connor (2010) described how a lack of cultural awareness contributed to

training failures and fatal interactions between United States trainers and their trainees.

Taras, Steel, and Kirkman (2016) found that culture and worldviews do not match

national borders, but there are significant cultural differences between Americans and

recipients of SFA that typically are from developing countries. Miscommunications that

stemmed from cross-cultural communication barriers possibly impacted the effectiveness

of SFA programs especially the planning of program objectives and the transfer of skills

during training.

The didactic triangle concepts. As explained previously, training is a major

component of my research topic, and my research used the didactic triangle to analyze

the effectiveness of training conducted as part of SFA programs. Riquarts and Hopmann

(1995) developed the didactic triangle as an educational concept that consists of the

elements of the teacher, student, and subject matter. The didactic triangle provides a

model that explains how teachers and students impact the achievement of objectives

created by curriculum designers (Friesen, 2018). The didactic triangle concept is

applicable to analyzing SFA training programs because the authorities that selected the

training subjects and program objectives did not participate in the training. Militaries

generally used the didactic form of education to conduct training with a knowledgeable

trainer that attempted to transfer knowledge to trainees. The authorities that selected the

military tasks for training during SFA programs had to rely on a curriculum or similar

document that translated their intent and objectives through the trainers to the trainees.

Shortcomings with any of the elements of the didactic triangle possibly impacted the

successful transfer of skills during SFA training programs. Much of the literature

assessed the instructional ability of SFA trainers as lacking cultural awareness, especially

at the beginning of SFA efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan (Ates, 2014; Corum, 2007;

Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Livingston, 2011; O’Connor, 2010; O’Connor et al.,

2009; Olden, 2014; Westerman, 2017; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2013).

Trainers were sometimes not prepared or equipped for their responsibilities because of a

lack of preparation, inappropriate training material, or shortages of resources (Corum,

2007; Hammes, 2016; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2013). Hammes (2016)

and Olden (2014) addressed literacy and education shortcomings among the recipients of

SFA training that impacted the trainee’s ability to absorb the training material. As

mentioned previously, the failure of SFA training to address gaps in capacity was the

most researched SFA training variable in the literature. My research explored the degree

to which any shortcomings of the didactic triangle impacted the effectiveness of SFA

training programs for a Sub-Sahara African army.

Review and Synthesis of Studies Related to the Research Questions

My literature search found few researchers that conducted original data collection.

The researchers relied on existing data sources and literature reviews, supplemented with

first-hand experiences or expert statements. Baaz and Sern’s (2017) research on the

Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was the only study that utilized

original data collection. Since there was a lack of data about SFA programs and almost

no assessment of their training effectiveness, there was a shortage of information in the

literature about the success of individual SFA training programs to transfer military

skills.

Much of the literature acknowledged that variables dealing with the partner nation

were critical to the success of SFA or other forms of military assistance. However, only

Baaz and Sern’s (2017) research included the perspective of recipients of military

assistance. The literature identified problems of language, cultural differences, different

objectives, and capacity shortcomings from data and the U.S. perspective from existing

literature or government reports. My research was not an attempt to satisfy a complete

constructivist perspective but intended to add to the creation of the overall construction of

knowledge about SFA by adding a new perspective. Constructivist should welcome

adding the perspectives of recipients of training to the discussion on SFA because

constructivists “offer perspective and encourage dialogue among perspectives rather than

aiming at singular truths and linear predictions” (Patton, 2014, p. 684). The relatively

large gap in information about the results of SFA programs because of the lack of

existing data meant that the perspectives of the training recipients had the potential to be

diverse and some were different than I anticipated. The potential for developing

unforeseen responses and data justified the use of exploratory interviews.

Summary and Conclusion

In this summary and conclusion, I provide the main themes of the literature. I also

include what is known and what we don’t know on the topic. I conclude by showing how

my study fills a gap in the literature.

Major Themes in the Literature

The literature on military and security force assistance to allied countries was

teeming with examples of failed efforts. Efforts by the United States were not immune to

failure. Most military and security force assistance by the international community and

the United States failed by every form of measurement used in the literature. The

literature revealed that military and security force assistance usually did not help win

wars or develop capabilities and capacities as intended. Military assistance also did not

guarantee increased cooperation from the recipient nations. Another theme from the

literature was that recipients of assistance and aid were motivated by, and responded to

local more than external factors. SFA and similar programs that failed to achieve their

objectives usually did not account for factors of the local environment. As a result of

failing to account for the local environments, the failed programs did not recognize and

address recipient objectives, gaps in recipient capability and capacity, or allocate the

necessary resources and time required to meet program objectives.

The literature described how the U.S. SFA programs often did not achieve their

objective of developing partner nation security forces capable of creating and maintaining

security for their nations. SFA program failures were particularly impactful when partner

nations were engaged in counterinsurgency operations because the conflicts usually

lasted longer and the partner nation often lost the war resulting in human suffering and

threats to the United States and international security. The recent events in Afghanistan

and Iraq were examples of SFA programs that did not fully achieve their objectives and

the failures contributed to persistent human suffering and threats to international security.

Examples of successful counterinsurgencies included local governments that addressed

the root causes of the conflicts. Addressing the root causes often meant the government

and security forces had to develop capacities and reform to gain legitimacy and popular

support. The development of capacities and reform processes often took longer than

planned, and SFA programs had to be persistent to impact significant changes in the

security forces. Successful SFA training programs relied on factors related to the trainers,

trainees, training subject matter, and their interactions. The interaction between U.S.

officials and trainers with the recipient officials and trainees required overcoming barriers

to communication that occurred due to cross-cultural communication challenges. The

literature provided descriptions and examples of many variables that challenged the

effectiveness of SFA programs.

What is Unknown

What is not known is the level to which past SFA programs succeeded at

transferring skills, and developing capabilities and capacities that individual programs

intended to develop. The degree that factors involving the trainers, trainees, and the

training subject matter impacted failures to develop skills and capabilities is also not

known. Past research on SFA training lacked the perspectives of the recipients of the

programs. The literature on SFA programs included some evidence that the programs

transferred to the recipients the ideals of respect for human rights and democratic

principles. However, the research on the transfer of ideals embodied in a military ethos

was not uniform, and there was some disagreement about the impact of SFA programs

success at promoting human rights and democratic principles.

The literature identified numerous variables that impacted the outcomes of

counterinsurgency operations, and the effectiveness of SFA and similar programs. The

dynamics of every insurgency, each SFA program, and the bilateral relationship between

the United States and each partner nation are unique resulting in too many variables to

measure. The literature lacked perspectives from partner nations but identified several

key variables that impacted SFA program’s ability to develop capability and capacity.

There was a lack of information and research in the literature about if and how SFA

training contributed to the failure of SFA and similar programs to achieve program or

strategic objectives. The lack of information comes from a shortage of data and

perspectives of the recipients of SFA training.

This Study Fills a Gap

My study examined SFA training using the observations of recipients of the

training in a qualitative phenomenological study consisting of multiple cases from

different viewpoints. My research method and design developed perspectives that will

enrich the understanding and add to the knowledge about the phenomenon of SFA

training programs. It also helped fill a gap in knowledge about the effectiveness of SFA

training programs to transfer skills that contribute to the development of capability and

capacity from the viewpoint of the recipients of training. The number of variables that

impacted the success of SFA were too numerous and defied a singular truth or model that

can explain the outcomes. The perceptions of the recipients helped provide information

about how well the training succeeded in transferring skills and if the partner nation army

had the capacity or motivation to translate those skills into capabilities and capacities. In

the next chapter, I describe my research method and provide detailed information about

how my research design collected data to answer the research questions while ensuring

trustworthiness and maximizing transferability.

Chapter 3: Research Method

Introduction

The purpose of my study was to explore and understand the perspectives of

recipients of training as part of a U.S. SFA programs from a Sub-Sahara African army

that was engaged in counterinsurgency operations. Training was a critical initial

component of any U.S. military interactions with foreign security forces such as SFA

programs that intended to develop partner nation military capability and capacity to

establish and maintain security (U.S. DOD, 2010). Previously, I explained how security

for a partner nation was important for the United States’ national security, international

security, and the citizens of the partner nation.

In this chapter, I explain how the methodology of my research facilitated the

achievement of the objective of this study. My explanation includes the rationale for

conducting phenomenological research and addresses my role as the researcher and any

issues of bias due to my relationship with the participants. I discuss the participant

selection and recruitment process and describe the sampling strategy that dictated the

participant selection criteria. The data collection and data analysis processes are also

explained. In the final sections in this chapter, I address how I planned to manage

potential ethical problems and trustworthiness issues.

Research Design and Rationale

Restated Research Questions

RQ1: What are the perspectives of Sub-Sahara African soldiers on training

received from the United States?

RQ2: What are the perspectives of leaders of a Sub-Sahara African army on

training their soldiers received from the United States?

Central Concepts and Phenomena

I based my study of the phenomena of SFA programs on four major concepts that

were researched and described in the literature. The first was that international military

assistance programs often failed and U.S. SFA programs often did not achieve their

desired objectives in terms of developing military capabilities and capacities. The second

concept was that issues of the principal and agent relationship between the United States

and the partner nation possibly contributed to different objectives that caused the failure

for some SFA programs. Another potential cause of program failure was the inability of

the partner nation to absorb the new skills because of issues with the trainer, the trainees,

or the training subject matter. The final concept consisted of potential problems with the

partner nation’s lack of ability to replicate and sustain new capabilities. The first concept

was problem under study, and the other three concepts were the potential causes of the

problem.

In this study, I intended to explore and describe the impact of the partner nation’s

objectives, ability to absorb the new skills, and/or ability to replicate and sustain the new

capabilities that an SFA program intended to develop. SFA can consist of one or a

combination of equipping, training, and advising activities. I focused on training in this

study because it was the one activity that involved the concepts of partner nation

objectives, ability to absorb new skills, and the ability to replicate and sustain military

capabilities. Military assistance to partner nations usually consisted of several SFA

programs that trained either individuals, units, or leaders (U.S. Army, 2009). My study

included three unique phenomena consisting of three SFA programs with different

participants, objectives, and training formats.

The Research Tradition

This study of SFA programs was grounded in the tradition of the qualitative

phenomenological approach to research that uses human experiences to examine a

phenomenon. When a program is the phenomenon of study, Patton (2014) stated that

“phenomenology aims to capture the essence of program participants’ experiences” (p.

116). Essence is a description that makes meaning of the participant’s experiences

(Patton, 2014). Patton stated that “the various phenomenological approaches share in

common is a focus on exploring how human beings make sense of experience and

transform experience into consciousness, both individually and as shared meaning” (p.

115).

The Rationale for the Chosen Tradition

SFA training programs consist of human experiences. Fully understanding the

problem with SFA programs required a qualitative study that could explore the human

dimensions in detail. Phenomenological research proposes that researchers can synthesize

individual observations and establish common themes or essences (Patton, 2014). In this

study, I planned to reveal the overall essence of the recipients’ experiences with SFA

training to answer the research questions. Phenomenological research was the most

appropriate design for this study because it could provide rich details about human

experiences during a phenomenon that can provide themes that reveal larger insights

(Patton, 2014). In this study, the phenomenological approach provided the essence of the

participants’ experiences related to the SFA training and revealed insights about the

partner nation’s objectives, ability to absorb the new skills, and efforts to replicate and

sustain the capabilities that an SFA program intended to develop.

Role of the Researcher

Role as Observer

My role as the researcher was as an observer, but I have been a participant of

similar phenomena in the past as well. During the data collection for this study, I was an

observer while conducting the interviews of the participants. I participated in military

training during a 22-year U.S. Army career. I also experienced SFA and similar programs

as a participant during 10 years of contract work for the U.S. Government.

My experiences provided me with a perspective from the viewpoint of a trainer

and trainee of military training and education. All but 3 years of my Army career

involved a relationship with military education or training either as a trainer or trainee. I

also gained an understanding of U.S. Army principles and doctrine of education and

training that trainers try to use during SFA training.

Since retiring from the Army, I had 2 years of experience coordinating the

training programs between the United States and NATO partner nations and 8 years of

experience as a trainer and facilitator to six Sub-Sahara African armies. Most of my

African experience was with Department of State-funded programs that were not SFA.

The Department of State programs were military assistance programs that trained

peacekeepers for UN missions and included similar dynamics and issues as SFA training

programs. For the last 2 years, I was the coordinator and facilitator of a Defense

Institution Building program in Africa that did not include training but was a program

within SFA. During my experiences with partner nations, I had the opportunity to discuss

the development of military capabilities and capacity with partner nation and U.S.

Government officials as well as the trainers and trainees of military assistance provided

by the United States. My experience working with partner nations coordinating or

conducting training provide me with some knowledge about the development of military

capabilities and capacities for partner nations of the United States.

Researcher Personal and Professional Relationships with Participants

During my time working in Africa, I was fortunate to develop many professional

and personal relationships that have lasted for years. I have several relationships with

members of the Sub-Sahara African army from which participants were drawn for this

study. My past relationships, as either a trainer or program facilitator, with members of

that Army had the potential to create a power relationship that could have impacted the

trustworthiness of the data collection. Additionally, as a person associated with the

United States, the potential existed for participants to perceive a power relationship

because they may think that I represent the United States, which, as a donor and sponsor

of many development programs, has a power relationship with the Sub-Sahara African

nation.

Management of Researcher Biases and Potential Power Relationships Perceptions

Awareness of the potential perceptions of power relationships was the first step in

managing any problems, but there were several other actions I took to mitigate any

potential issues. First, I ensured that none of the participants in this study had a current

working relationship with me. Although I had no official capacity to influence the

participant’s well-being, they may have perceived otherwise. It was critical that I

informed the participants of my position as a researcher and that their participation would

remain confidential.

My past experiences and Western outlook influenced and developed some my

perceptions about why SFA programs often did not work as planned. Awareness of my

biases combined with my desire to understand the participants’ viewpoints were my most

important assets in overcoming potential bias in this study. Patton (2014) stated that

“understanding comes from trying to put oneself in the other person's shoes, from trying

to discern how others think, act, and feel” (p. 55). To understand the perceptions of the

participants required that I recognize my biases and try to overcome them.

Addressing Potential Ethical Issues

This study was susceptible to potential ethical issues due to the vulnerability of

the participants and my current work that is part of an SFA program. The participants

were mostly active duty Army soldiers, and their superiors could punish them if the

superiors perceived the soldiers’ participation and input to this study as damaging to their

army or the superiors. Keeping the country and the subject of training events unidentified

and the identity of the participants confidential protected and will continue to protect the

participants from retribution. Later in this chapter, I address the procedures I used to

protect the participants in more detail.

My work involves an SFA program but does not include training and is a

nontraditional form of SFA that is not comparable to the training programs involved in

this study. Additionally, my employer is a nonprofit research organization that does not

incentivize me to report its activities positively or to conduct business development. My

current work with an SFA program did not create any ethical issues for this study.

Methodology

Participant Selection Logic

The population and the sampling strategy. This study on SFA training had

potential issues of trustworthiness and transferability because the phenomenon involved

hundreds of cases with innumerable variables, hundreds of thousands of participants, and

many stakeholders with different views. To increase the trustworthiness and

transferability of the findings, I examined multiple cases from multiple population

viewpoints using a maximum variation of participants. The population of this study was

soldiers from the Sub-Sahara African army that received training. The population

included the subpopulations of the trainees and the leaders to obtain multiple viewpoints.

The criteria of participant selection and verification of participants meeting

the criteria. Larkin et al. (2018) referred to the sampling of multiple population

perspectives as “multiperspectival design” that provides researchers with different

viewpoints of the same phenomenon and the opportunity to expand and validate themes.

According to Larkin et al. multiperspectival research “extends the potential reach and

impact of experiential research” (p. 2). My sampling was multiperspectival in nature by

having populations of soldiers from a Sub-Sahara African army that had different

viewpoints on training provided by the United States as part of an SFA program. The first

population was the soldiers that received training, referred to as trainees in my study. The

second population was the leaders of that Army. Sampling multiple cases using a

multiperspectival design reduces concerns about trustworthiness and representativeness

of my phenomenal research.

The sampling strategy for the population of trainees was the maximum variation

sampling strategy. According to Patton (2014), the advantage of the maximum variation

sampling strategy is that “any common patterns that emerge from great variation are of

particular interest and value in capturing the core experiences and central, shared

dimensions of a setting or phenomenon” (p. 283). My sampling of trainees achieved

maximum attempted to achieve variation by sampling trainees from multiple cases with

different ranks as much as possible. The unit training case population consisted of a large

variation of rank. The rank variation for the unit training case included sampling from the

officers and enlisted soldiers. Variation of rank for trainees that participated in the

individual training case consisted of sergeants and officers. The final case of leader

education varied the rank of participants from junior officers with the ranks of captain

and major to the more senior officers with the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel.

The sampling included participants of different ranks as much as possible to represent the

diversity of the population.

I selected the population of trainees using representative random sampling as

much as possible. The benefits of representative random sampling are that it increases the

confidence that the sample represents the larger population and helps control for selection

bias (Patton, 2014, p. 264). As previously explained, I subdivided each case population

by rank which provided a greater representation of each case’s total population. For each

case and rank population, I selected the participants randomly from the eligible

population. The verification that the trainee participants met the selection criteria

occurred by verifying the Army training records at the Army Headquarters. Each trainee

from the three types of training had unique observations about the effectiveness of the

training to transfer skills to them. Most of the trainees also had observations about how

the skills were employed and institutionalized by their army or if any capacity shortfalls

prevented their newly acquired skills from developing into a military capability. Most of

the trainees had observations about their army’s motivation to participate in the SFA

program and the partner nation’s objectives. However, the leaders of the army had a

better viewpoint about their army’s capacity and motivation, and their nation’s objectives

for participating in the SFA programs.

I purposefully selected the participants from the population of leaders of the Sub-

Sahara African army using the key knowledgeables sampling strategy. Patton (2014)

described the key knowledgeables strategy as sampling individuals that can “provide

valuable expertise on and insights into the root of problems” (p. 284). The leaders that

participated in my research served in positions that could influence the employment or

institutionalization of the new skills developed during the SFA training. Army leaders

that can employ units with the intent to use their available capabilities consist of high

ranking commanders or operations officers. High ranking staff officers with training and

doctrine responsibilities or school commandants have the ability to institutionalize newly

acquired capabilities. The high ranking Sub-Sahara African army leaders were well

known within their army, and the verification of their identity and position occurred

through second party sources and internet sources. The selected army leaders had

observations about the SFA training cases, their army's ability to replicate and sustain

new capabilities, and their army and nation’s objectives for the SFA programs.

The number of cases. According to Patton (2014) sampling multiple cases of a

phenomenon creates an understanding of the phenomenon that can produce

“generalizable findings that can be used to inform changes in practices, programs, and

policies” (p. 295). Stakes (as cited in Patton, 2014) prescribed three main criteria for

selecting the cases of multiple case studies as relevance to the main phenomenon,

diversity of the cases, and providing “good opportunities to learn about complexity and

contexts” (p. 295). My sampling was from three types of SFA training that comprise the

three cases. Three cases allowed for researching SFA training programs that included

each of the three types of training that were the main variables of SFA training and

inherently had differences in other significant variables. The U.S. Army classifies

training types as individual skills training or unit collective training with leader education

as a major component of individual skills training.

The first case was training programs for units consisting of several hundred

soldiers with the training objective of developing both individual soldier and collective

unit skills. The second case was training programs for 20 to 50 soldiers from different

units to develop technical individual skills. The final case was the Individual Military

Education Training program which trained individuals at military technical and leader

development schools in the United States. My research on the Individual Military

Education Training program only examined the observations of individuals that attended

the leader courses that included training on leadership and staff functions from the

tactical to the strategic levels of military operations. I selected SFA training programs

that occurred over a year ago but not more than 4 years past. The time criteria for the

selection of SFA training cases ensured that the Sub-Sahara African army had enough

time to employ and institutionalize the skills and capabilities the training developed, but

not too much time that the participant observations became hazy and less reliable. The

three cases had variations of subject matter, training audience size, duration of training,

ranks of the trainees, and training venue (see Table 1).

Table 1

Variables of SFA Cases

Variables

Case 1: unit

training

Case 2: individual

training

Case 3: leader

education

Subject matter

Individual and

unit skills

Technical

individual skills

Leader skills

Size of training audience

200

Duration of training

7 months

2 weeks

5-10 months

Ranks of trainees

Private to

colonel

Sergeant to

colonel

Captain to

colonel

Training venue

Austere field

conditions

Partner nation

classroom

U.S. classroom

Note. Case 3: Individual Military Education Training (IMET) program participants

attended training as individuals to courses with approximately 100 to 1000 students.

The number of participants. I intended my research to describe the essence and

major themes of three types of SFA training programs using a maximum variation of

participant observations from multiple viewpoints. My research had eight population

groups to achieve maximum variation. A relatively small number of participants from

each population can establish the essence and major themes of phenomenological cases

(Patton, 2014). The previously described participant selection criteria described the

members of each population group. The first case of unit training had two population

groups consisting of officers and enlisted soldiers. The second case of individual training

also had two population groups comprised of officers and enlisted soldiers. The third case

of leader education had two groups consisting of junior officers and senior officers. The

final two population groups consisted of army leaders that can employ capabilities and

army leaders that can institutionalize capabilities. My goal was for each of the eight

population groups to have three participants for a total of 24 participants. Analysis of

participant observations developed themes from each population group that I synthesized

with the entire population to describe the essence and major themes.

The procedures to identify, contact, and recruit participants. The Sub-Sahara

African army’s chief of training identified the participants based upon the SFA training

programs I selected for the cases and the participant criteria. A trusted interlocuter

contacted and recruited the potential participants in person or by phone and provided

consent forms for each participant to sign. I conducted the final selection and recruitment

of the participants among the eligible populations.

The relationship between saturation and sample size. The goal of my study

was not to reach saturation among all populations but to identify themes that could be

compared with other populations to create major themes of the phenomenon. Based on

demographics and experiences, the participants of this study consisted of eight

populations. Three participants from each of the eight populations was likely to be

sufficient to reveal the major themes and validate them through triangulation between the

populations, cases, and viewpoints.

Instrumentation

The data collection instrument and source. I collected data for my research

using semistructured interviews with open-ended questions. I was the source of the data

collection instrument which consisted of different sets of questions for the trainees and

the Sub-Sahara African army leaders. According to Rubin and Rubin (2012), a

semistructured interview is a method to collect rich detailed data that can reveal themes

by focusing on a specific topic with a limited number of questions prepared in advance

and a plan to ask follow-up questions to gain further details. Open-ended questions

increased the detail of data collection by inviting the participants to “respond any way he

or she chooses, elaborating upon answers, disagreeing with the question, or raising new

issues” (Rubin & Rubin, 2012, p. 31).

I discounted the option of conducting group interviews that can also obtain rich

details about participant observations because of the requirement to maintain

confidentiality and increased risks to reliability. According to Krueger and Casey, (as

cited in Patton, 2014, p. 475), focus group interviews should occur in "permissive,

nonthreatening environment" settings. Group interviews with military personnel had the

potential for the senior ranking member to intimidate other participants due to rank and to

dominate the group participation. Group interviews limit the ability to maintain

confidentiality as some participants may know each other and report the contents of the

interviews to senior military authorities.

The basis for instrument development. My interview questions invited the

participants to provide their observations about the three types of SFA training and the

training’s effectiveness at developing capability and capacity. Each question addressed a

key variable of the SFA training program effectiveness or the root causes of any issues. I

derived the key variables of SFA training program effectiveness from the three measures

of SFA training program success (see Appendix A). The first measurement of success of

SFA training programs was the transfer of skills to the trainees. The key variables of

transferring skills came from the didactic triangle model and consisted of the teacher,

student, and subject matter. Capability development was the second measurement of

success. The key variables of capability development came from the United States

military definition of capability and were doctrine, organization, materiel, leadership and

education, personnel, facilities, and policy (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2015a).

The final measurement of success was capacity development. The key variables of

capacity development were from the U.S. military definition of capacity and consisted of

replication and sustainment of new capabilities by the partner nation (Chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017). The last interview questions invited observations about the

root causes of any problems with the effectiveness of the SFA training programs. One

question about the root causes of problems asked about the motivation and objectives of

the partner nation for participating in the SFA programs that were meant to provide

insights into any principal agent relationship issues. The other question about the root

causes inquired about any other problems that inhibited the partner nation’s ability to

absorb the new skills and capability, or ability to replicate and sustain the new

capabilities.

Because my data collection was from two viewpoints, I created two interview

protocols. The two interview protocols with the questions are at Appendices B and C.

The two interview protocols of my study were for the two main populations that have a

different viewpoint as trainees and army leaders. The questions of the two protocols had

the same aim of gathering observations about the key variables of SFA training cases, but

the wording of the questions was modified to address the different viewpoints.

Establishment of the content validity. I worked to ensure the validity of the

content of the data collected through triangulation. By comparing the individual

observations with other participants and viewpoints along with my personal experiences

comprised a robust triangulation process. Finding singular observations that contradicted

other participant’s observations and my experiences helped to identify invalid content.

The sufficiency of the data collection instrument to answer the research

questions. The interview protocols helped ensure that I conducted the interviews in a

consistent manner that did not bias the data collection and that the data answered the

research questions. The design of the interview questions ensured that each question

directly related to a key variables of the topic. Therefore, the interview questions invited

the participants to share their perceptions of the phenomenon which helped answer the

research questions.

Procedures for Recruitment, Participation, and Data Collection

An interlocutor in the country of study conducted the initial recruitment of the

participants but I did the final selection and ensured the participants understood their

participation in my research was optional. I collected the data by conducting each of the

interviews and strived to maintain consistency of interview procedures. The interviews

occurred in neutral locations such as my hotel room to help ensure confidentiality. I

recorded the interviews to ensure accuracy during analysis. I anticipated each interview

would last less than an hour. According to Patton (2012), qualitative data collection and

analysis is an iterative process and could cause possible adjustments to my question

protocols that required me to engage the participants more than once to gain clarification

or their observations on unforeseen subjects. I planned to collect data during two trips to

the Sub-Sahara African country and anticipated asking the participants to continue their

participation until the conclusion of the second trip to allow for follow-up interviews if

required. I also planned to offer a debrief to the participants during my second trip.

Data Analysis Plan

I recorded the data from the interviews in my notes and created verbatim

transcripts from the recorded interviews. I planned to manually label and categorize the

elements of the data by inductive, open coding which entailed labeling concepts within

the data into manageable segments. Inductive and open coding is the process of

categorizing the data without trying to fit the codes into any theories or concepts and

without constraining the possible codes in any fashion (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). My

coding approach was open to the ideas, concepts, and terms the participants used to

ensure I captured their perceptions without interference from any preconceived concepts

of mine or of the related literature. I reviewed the codes for similarity to identify patterns

of participant responses from which I further identified themes. Patton (2012) described

patterns as a description of similar responses and themes as a categorical interpretation of

the meaning of similar responses. My plan to deal with any codes that were outliers and

did not fit into any pattern with other codes was to follow up with the participants for

clarification, but my research intended to analyze themes and not individual observations.

Therefore, any data that did not become part of a pattern and theme did not impact the

analysis.

Issues of Trustworthiness

As with any qualitative research, my research had potential issues of

trustworthiness due to credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.

Based on my past experiences with members of the Sub-Sahara African army of this

study, my major concern was the credibility of participant responses. During my previous

interactions with members of the Sub-Sahara African army, they often had a tendency to

portray their army in positive manner and minimize any shortcomings.

Strategies to Establish Credibility

My research had the potential for credibility issues because of my relationship to

the topic and the possibility that participants felt undue pressure to respond in a fashion

that was positive towards their army and superiors. My years of working with Sub-Sahara

African armies was both an asset and a potential liability to establish the credibility of my

research. My previous work with Sub-Sahara African armies helped me identify

participant responses of dubious accuracy but possibly created a bias. Researcher

reflexivity was a key strategy to overcome possible personal bias. Patton (2012)

explained that “reflexivity calls for self-reflection, indeed, critical self-reflection and self-

knowledge, and a willingness to consider how who one is affects what one is able to

observe, hear, and understand in the field as an observer and analyst” (p. 381). A

technique advocated by Noble and Smith (2015), and which I planned to follow, is for

researchers to review their notes and decisions with peers during different stages of data

collection and analysis. I have several colleagues that are peers from Western and African

cultures that were available to review my research from both cultural perspectives. I also

planned to use triangulation to ensure the credibility of my research. According to

Creswell and Miller (as cited in Ravitch & Carl, 2016), triangulations are processes that

seek “convergence among multiple and different sources of information to form themes

or categories in a study” (p. 195). My research design of collecting data on three types of

SFA training programs from multiple viewpoints provided the opportunity to triangulate

data between cases and among individual participants and participant populations. In

addition to checking the convergence of data sources, Mathison (as cited by Golafshani,

2003) proposed that “triangulation has risen an important methodological issue in

naturalistic and qualitative approaches to evaluation [in order to] control bias and

establishing valid propositions” (p. 603). The previously mentioned peer reviews of my

research constituted another form of triangulation that checked for any biases and

improved the credibility of my research.

Strategies to Establish Transferability

Because my research was on specific phenomena and the unique experiences of

the participants, it had the potential of suffering from issues of transferability. My study

does not intend to be universally transferable but to increase knowledge about the

effectiveness of SFA training for a Sub-Sahara African army engaged in

counterinsurgency operations. The level of transferability of my research depends on the

context of its application. The results of my research have more transferability when

applied to other phenomenon with similar characteristics. To maximize the transferability

of my research the study included thick descriptions and the research design included

variations of participant selection and cases as previously described. Thick descriptions

provide enough detail so that readers understand the context and can determine the

transferability of the research to other phenomena (Patton, 2014). Selecting the

participants to gain variations of ranks and viewpoints, plus selecting three types of

training based on variations of key variables increases the transferability of my research

by increasing the potential for similarities to other phenomena.

Strategies to Establish Dependability

The threats to dependability of my study include the potential that my research

design did not address the research questions and that I strayed from consistent data

collection. I intended to maintain the dependability of my study by designing the research

to answer the research questions and obtaining data in a consistent fashion following my

data collection plan. My strategies to ensure the consistency of my data collection

included following the interview protocols and triangulation. Comparing the observations

of the participants within population groups and between population groups could

identify significantly different observations that might disclose instances of inconsistent

data collection.

Strategies to Establish Confirmability

Confirmability “is the concept that the data can be confirmed by someone other

than the researcher” (Toma as cited in Ravitch & Carl, 2014, p. 207) and relies upon

researchers to acknowledge biases and take actions to account for any biases in their

research. My background from a Western culture with experience as an instructor and

program facilitator with Sub-Sahara African armies, along with my role as a researcher

posed potential threats to confirmability. My collection of data had to be consistent and

accurately reflect the participant’s observations for other researchers to confirm the data.

Reflexivity, triangulation, consistent data collection, and peer reviews as previously

described were my strategies to mitigate or identify potential biases to ensure the

confirmability of my research.

Ethical Procedures

My research had two main potential ethical issues. The first potential issue was

that I work with the Sub-Sahara African army that is the subject of my research.

However, the context of the research was different than my past and current work, and

the participants were not individuals that I worked with at the time of the research. The

second potential issue was that the participants of my research were vulnerable to

potential retribution from superiors if their interview responses were perceived negatively

by their military or civilian leaders.

The IRB approval number for this dissertation is 07-03-19-0726032. The

appropriate authority from the Sub-Sahara African army of this study provided a

permission letter authorizing the voluntary participation in this study by members of its

organization. Each participant reviewed and signed a consent agreement.

Treatment of Cooperating Organizations and Human Participants

By not disclosing the name of the country and maintaining the confidentiality of

the participants will help minimize potential harm to both. I took actions to ensure

confidentiality during recruitment, data collection, and publication of the research. The

Sub-Sahara African army chief of training identified the population of eligible

participants based on the cases, participant selection criteria, and available training

records. A trusted interlocutor in the country conducted the initial contact with the

eligible participants to gain consent. However, I selected the actual participants from the

group of eligible participants that consented to participate without informing others about

their identity. The data collection occurred in discreet and private locations that the

participants accepted and found comfortable. Participants had the opportunity to

withdraw from the research at any time.

Treatment of Data

I am treating the data as confidential to maintain the secrecy of the participants’

identities. The only identifying information on the data is in a code that is only known by

myself. After transcribing the recorded interviews, I secured the interview recordings in a

safe and will destroy them at the completion of the dissertation process. I am maintaining

the transcripts and interview notes on a backup stand-alone hard drive at my residence.

Peer reviews did not include the identity of the participants and I destroyed any papers

used in those reviews. I will also destroy the electronic versions of the data 5 years after

the completion of the research.

Summary

In this chapter, I described my study’s research design, my role as the researcher,

my research methodology, potential issues of trustworthiness, and procedures I took and

will take to address potential ethical issues. The concepts of qualitative

phenomenological research guided the design of my research because of the nature of my

topic. The topic of my research, the effectiveness of SFA training programs, is dynamic

and impacted by a multitude of human interactions. The design of my research intended

to provide a rich and detailed account of human interactions that best answer the research

questions. My role was as an observer collecting data about the participants’

observations. I intentionally designed my research to maximize opportunities for

triangulation. My research design included data collection of participant observations

about multiple cases of the phenomenon from multiple viewpoints and with variations in

populations. The interview protocol design invited participant observations that answered

the research questions. The questions in my interview protocols addressed the key

variables of SFA training program effectiveness but were open-ended to allow for the

participants to add unanticipated observations. I concluded this chapter with a description

of my plan to maintain the confidentiality of the participants and mask identifying

information, such as the name the country and the training subjects, to prevent any harm

as a result of their participation and cooperation with my research. In the next chapter, I

describe the results of my research and provide the data collected and analysis of the data.

Chapter 4: Results

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the perspectives of

recipients of training as part of U.S. SFA programs from a Sub-Sahara African army that

is engaged in counterinsurgency operations. In this study, I explored the perspectives of

the recipients of training from a U.S. SFA training program to expand knowledge about

what makes such programs succeed or fail. I focused solely on the training component of

SFA programs to explore how the recipients perceived the utility and effectiveness of the

training to develop capability and capacity that could benefit their ongoing

counterinsurgency operation.

I developed the following research questions to address the purpose by asking for

the perspectives of trainees and their leaders:

RQ1: What are the perspectives of Sub-Sahara African soldiers on training

received from the United States?

RQ2: What are the perspectives of leaders of a Sub-Sahara African army on

training their soldiers received from the United States?

In this chapter, I describe the execution of my research to include the settings of

the interviews, the demographics of the participants, and details about the data collection.

The data collection details include the number and characteristics of the participants; how

the data were collected; and the location, frequency, and duration of interviews. I present

the data analysis process, including the inductive reasoning that moved the analysis from

codes to themes as well as the codes, categories, and themes that emerged from the

analysis. I also describe the evidence of trustworthiness of my research addressing the

elements of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. In the final

section of this chapter, I provide the results of my research and how well the collected

data helped to answer the research questions.

Settings

The interviews took place during July and August of 2019. All but one interview

took place in the African country of this study; one participant was interviewed in the

United States. During the period of the interviews, there were not any national significant

events that might have influenced the participants. Although there may have been events

that impacted individual participants, the period in which the interviews took place was a

relatively quiet news period that lacked major political or military events that might have

impacted the participants and influenced their perceptions or the information they

provided.

Demographics

This study included 20 participants and all of them were male. The participants

represented a diverse group of soldiers with varied assignments at the time of the

interviews. All the participants were active duty soldiers except for one that was retired.

Of the 19 active soldiers, four were assigned to schools as students or instructors, eight

were staff officers in various headquarters, and seven were assigned to operational units.

Eleven of the participants were assigned to the national capital during the interviews,

while nine were assigned outside of the capital.

The participants also had a variety of specialties representing almost all the major

elements of their army. Eleven of the participants had backgrounds in combat arms

consisting of either infantry, armor, or artillery. Ten participants had backgrounds in

support specialties, including maintenance, intelligence, supply, medical, public relations,

and communications.

The makeup of ranks between the participants was diverse but weighted more

towards senior officers. Most of the participants that received training from the United

States were promoted since the training and were at least one rank higher during the

interviews compared to their rank during the training. At the time of the interviews, eight

of the participants were general officers. Nine field grade officers participated in the

interviews, consisting of colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors. One captain and one

noncommissioned officer also participated in the study. Overall, the population was

varied and represented various elements of their army’s locations, positions, specialties,

and ranks. I address the underrepresentation of junior ranks later in my description of the

data collection process.

Data Collection

The population of this study comprised soldiers that received training from the

United States as well as their leaders from a Sub-Sahara African country that could

employ or institutionalize the skills the training intended to provide. The population of

trainees included three groups that participated in either individual skills training, unit

collective training, or leader education. Two of the leaders also participated in training

and were able to provide their perspective as a trainee and as a leader. Therefore,

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although my research had 20 participants, I was able to gain 22 perspectives of the

researched phenomena with 17 viewpoints as trainees and five viewpoints from the

perspective of army leaders.

Table 2 displays the number of participants and perspectives by population and

type of SFA training for the trainees. The table also displays the distribution by rank of

perspectives at the time of training for the trainees and at the time of the interview for the

army leaders. The first row displays the number of participants by population group. The

second through fourth rows display the number of perspectives by rank and population

groups.

Within this perspectives grouping, the first row displays the one enlisted soldier

that participated in unit training. The second row displays the number of officers and the

third row displays the number of generals by population group. The final row displays the

total number of perspectives gathered in my research by population group.

Table 2

Participants and Perspectives for Each Population and Type of SFA Training

Participant and

perspectives

groups

Trainees

Leaders

Unit

training

Individual

training

Leader

education

Army

leaders

Total

Participants

Perspectives

Enlisted soldiers

Officers

General officers

Total

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Four participants of the trainee population participated in unit training. This was

less than my initial plan to interview six participants of unit training and include three

enlisted soldiers. This was due to the army chief of training not identifying enough

individuals that participated in unit training and no enlisted soldiers. The few unit training

participants identified were able to refer additional potential participants, but only a

limited number of enlisted soldiers. Of those referred, only one was available for an

interview; therefore, the participants of unit training included three officers and one

enlisted soldier.

Four participants of the trainee population participated in individual skills

training, and one of the army leaders was able to add his perspective from his experience

as a trainee during an individual skills training program. The army chief of training did

not have a complete database of individuals that received training from the United States

and was unable to identify any enlisted soldiers that participated in individual skill

training. Therefore, all five research participants of individual skills training were

officers.

The trainee population included seven participants that were trainees in leader

education courses. One of the leaders also added his perspective of a leader education

course based on his experiences as a trainee. At the time of their participation in leader

education courses in the United States, four were junior officers of the rank of either

captain or major. Three of the leader education training participants were senior officers

during their training at the rank of colonel. The army leader that added his perspective as

a trainee of U.S. leader education was a colonel at the time of training.

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The army leader population consisted of five participants. The members of the

army leader population were all general officers with multiple past or current assignments

with the opportunity to employ or institutionalize the capabilities that the SFA programs

intended to develop. Three of the army leader participants had experiences in both

employing and institutionalizing capabilities. One army leader was in a position to

employ capabilities, and one was in a position to institutionalize capabilities. Because of

the multiple experiences of the army leader research participants, I was able to collect

data from four perspectives on employing capabilities and four perspectives on

institutionalizing capabilities.

The interviews occurred in private, secluded locations in which the participants

expressed they were comfortable conducting the interview. Twelve of the interviews with

trainees occurred in my hotel room and three occurred in vacant conference rooms.

Interviews with three of the army leaders occurred in their offices and two were in my

hotel room.

Because of the participants’ clear communications and relative uniform

perspectives that achieved the objective of identifying themes for this study, follow-up

interviews were not required to clarify information or perspectives. The singular

exception to the relative uniformity of perspectives was one participant that contradicted

all the other participants on most topics. The lone individual with divergent perspectives

of his peers also provided factually incorrect information when asked verifiable

information about the army included in this study. I assessed the one individual as

insincere and did not use his interview as part of my study.

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The interviews averaged 36 minutes and 13 seconds. The trainee interviews and

leader interviews lasted about the same amount of time. The trainees averaged 36 minutes

and 28 seconds and the leader interviews lasted an average of 35 minutes and 28 seconds.

All the interviews were recorded using a handheld audio recorder. I transcribed

the audio recordings into Microsoft Word documents for analysis. I completed

transcribing each recording within 2 weeks of the interview. I primarily used the

transcripts during my analysis but referred to the recordings occasionally to ensure the

accuracy of the participant’s interview responses.

My data collection was executed as planned. The Sub-Sahara Army chief of

training designated a staff officer to act as the interlocutor to conduct initial contact and

recruitment of participants. The initial list of potential participants provided by a staff

officer from the army’s Training Division was insufficient and only had one trainee from

past unit training provided by the United States and lacked any enlisted soldiers that

received individual skills training.

After I requested the training division staff officer contact the one participant of

unit training, he was able to find more relevant potential participants. Contacting the

Training Division staff officer to obtain more potential participants was not a

modification to my recruitment plan but did result in all the unit training participants

experiencing the same training event. My research plan was to interview unit training

participants from multiple SFA training programs. Only collecting data from participants

of a single unit training program was a shortcoming that I address later in this chapter and

in chapter 5 within my description of this studies limitations. I attempted to partially

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overcome the shortcoming of only interviewing participants from one unit training

program by inquiring of all participants about their perspective of other units that

received United States provided training.

The Training Division staff officer was not able to identify enlisted soldiers that

attended individual skills training provided by the United States. Only obtaining the

perspectives of officers that participated in individual skills training was a shortcoming of

my research. In Chapter 5, I describe the ramifications of this research shortcoming.

Sufficient quantity of potential candidates were contacted and volunteered to

participate from each population and group with the exceptions of enlisted participants.

Due to location and military duties I was not able to achieve the objective of interviewing

six participants from all the major groups consisting of army leaders, participants of unit

training, participants of individual skills training, and participants of leader education

training. Of the 20 participants, I gathered data about perspectives from four participants

of unit training, five army leaders, five participants of individual skills training, and eight

participants of leader education training as illustrated previously in Table 2.

Data Analysis

My initial coding was open to any ideas related to any of the three variables

related to transfer of skills, the seven variables related to capability development, the two

variables for capacity development, and the participant’s perspectives of their army’s

motivation or suggestions about how to improve the U.S. prosecution of SFA programs.

Table 3 displays the complete list of variables organized by the four major topics of

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variables. The column headings list the major topics. Below each column heading are the

related variables.

Table 3

List of SFA Training Key Variables

Transfer of skills

Capability

development

Capacity

development

Motivation for

participating

Instructor

Doctrine

Sustainment

Trainee

Organization

Replication

Subject

Materiel

Leadership

Personnel

Facilities

Policy

Being open to any perspective, my initial coding included any thought the

participants expressed on the topics in their words. The secondary coding of my analysis

was to group similar ideas into codes. My final step of developing codes was to

categorizes the codes based on their relevance to each of the variables. The categories for

each variable that were common within groups or populations, and between groups and

populations were the themes that I identified from my research.

The initial coding resulted in 408 observations from the 20 participants. Thirty-

three of the observations were not relevant to the study and I did not use them in my

analysis. An additional 19 of the observations expressed by the participants were unique

thoughts without similar responses from other participants and were not analyzed after

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initial coding. I analyzed the remaining 356 observations of the participants to group

similar observations and identify codes.

The 356 initial observations had many similarities and I was able to group them

into 33 codes. Some of the observations within codes were contrary to each other. The

major expression of divergent views was between the participants that experienced unit

training and those that experienced either individual skills or leader education training.

The participants expressed their perspective on their unique experiences during different

types of training conducted under different environments and the divergent codes reflect

their unique experiences. However, within each group there was a general uniformity of

responses that I was able to identify themes within groups and many of the themes were

shared across the different groups and the total population.

Tables 4 to 7 depict the identified codes by each of the four major groups. The

initial column on the far left describes the codes. The succeeding columns are the

individual participant’s perspective summarized as a positive or negative. Blank spaces

indicate that the individual did not provide a perspective on the topic or had a unique

perspective that was not replicated by others. Codes that a group did not provide any

observations are not included in that group’s table.

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Table 4

Codes From Unit Training Participants

Codes

Good/excellent instructors

Yes

Accents or acronyms were initial barrier to learning

Yes

Instructors lived with us and learned to adopt the lessons

Yes

My army prepared me for the training

Yes

Were you able to learn the skills

Yes

Basic skills had significant utility and most impact

Yes

The skills had utility

Yes

We used the skills in operations

Yes

We have the same or adopted U.S. skills

Yes

The skills had significant impact on counterinsurgency

Yes

We have the same or adopted the U.S. doctrine

We have organizations to adopt the skills

We have the materiel to adopt the skills

Our leaders know how to employ the skills

Our leaders want to employ the skills

We have sufficient manpower to adopt the skills

We have the trained manpower to adopt the skills

We have the facilities to adopt the skills

Our policies support the adoption of the skills

We know and follow our policies

We took actions to replicate the skills

Little

We took actions to sustain the skills

We participated in training for good relations with the U.S.

Yes

We participated in training to gain skills

Yes

The U.S. should follow up with the training it provides

Yes

The U.S. should better understand our army’s needs

Yes

The U.S. should provide equipment with training

Yes

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Table 5

Codes From Individual Skills Participants

Codes

Good/excellent instructors

Yes

Accents or acronyms were initial barrier to learning

Yes

Our army prepared me for the training

Trainee selected not for capability development

Yes

Were you able to learn the skills

Yes

The skills had utility

Little

We used the skills in operations

Little

We have the same or adopted united states skills

Little

The skills had significant impact on counterinsurgency

Little

Main benefit was other than capability development

Yes

We have the same or adopted the U.S. doctrine

We want to adopt U.S. doctrine

Yes

We have organizations to adopt the skills

We have the materiel to adopt the skills

Our leaders know how to employ the skills

Our leaders want to employ the skills

We have sufficient manpower to adopt the skills

We have the trained manpower to adopt the skills

Our system posts manpower to correct positions

We have the facilities to adopt the skills

Yes

We know and follow our policies

We took actions to replicate the skills

We took actions to sustain the skills

We participated in training for good relations with the U.S.

Yes

We participated in training to gain skills

Yes

The U.S. should follow up with the training it provides

Yes

The U.S. should better understand our army’s needs

Yes

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Table 6

Codes From Leader Education Participants

Codes

Good/excellent instructors

Yes

Accents or acronyms were initial barrier to learning

Yes

Our army prepared me for the training

Trainee selected not for capability development

Yes

Were you able to learn the skills

Yes

Basic skills had significant utility and most impact

Yes

The skills had utility

Yes

Little

We used the skills in operations

Little

We have the same or adopted U.S. skills

The skills had significant impact on counterinsurgency

Little

Main benefit was other than capability development

Yes

We have the same or adopted the US doctrine

Yes

We want to adopt U.S. doctrine

Yes

We have organizations to adopt the skills

We have the materiel to adopt the skills

Our leaders know how to employ the skills

Yes

Our leaders want to employ the skills

We have sufficient manpower to adopt the skills

Yes

We have the trained manpower to adopt the skills

We have the facilities to adopt the skills

Yes

We know and follow our policies

We took actions to replicate the skills

Little

We took actions to sustain the skills

We participated in training for good relations with the U.S.

Yes

We participated in training to gain skills

Yes

We participated in training to compare systems

Yes

The U.S. should follow up with the training it provides

Yes

The U.S. should better understand our army’s needs

Yes

The U.S. should provide equipment with training

Yes

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Table 7

Codes From Army Leader Participants

Codes

We have the same or adopted U.S. skills

Unit training fit our army better than individual training

Yes

The skills had significant impact on counterinsurgency

Little

We have the same or adopted the U.S. doctrine

We want to adopt U.S. doctrine

Yes

We have organizations to adopt the skills

We have the materiel to adopt the skills

Our leaders know how to employ the skills

Our leaders want to employ the skills

We have sufficient manpower to adopt the skills

We have the trained manpower to adopt the skills

Our system posts manpower to correct positions

We have the facilities to adopt the skills

Yes

Our policies support the adoption of the skills

We know and follow our policies

We took actions to replicate the skills

We took actions to sustain the skills

We participated in training for good relations with the U.S.

Yes

We participated in training to gain skills

Yes

We participated in training to compare systems

Yes

The U.S. should follow up with the training it provides

Yes

The U.S. should better understand our army’s needs

Yes

The U.S. should provide equipment with training

Yes

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Some of the participants observations did not align with the intended purpose of

the interview question that was asked. However, all the observations I used for analysis

aligned with a code that related to one of the anticipated variables or the final question

about how the United States could perform SFA better. The first three variables related to

the success of transferring skills were about the effectiveness of the instructors, ability of

the students, and the appropriateness of the subject matter of the training. The second

group of variables related to capability development inquired if the army had the

elements of military capability to turn the skills gained through the training into

capability. The elements of military capability consists of doctrine, organizations,

materiel, proficient leaders, sufficient amount of trained personnel, facilities, and

policies. The third group of variables were the army’s efforts to replicate and sustain the

capability improved or created by the training. The final variable was the nation, army, or

leader’s motivation for participating in the United States provided training. The final

interview question of how could the United States perform SFA better garnered enough

similar responses that I assigned a category to those responses and participant

observations.

All the participants expressed their perspectives based on their vantage point and

different experiences. Given the diversity of SFA training programs that the research

participants experienced and the different viewpoints as trainees and leaders, it was

understandable that there were discrepant responses. As I described previously, one of the

participants provided responses that were almost all contrary to his peers and I eliminated

his data from my analysis. There were several cases of individual perspectives on a topic

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contradicting the rest of the responses from that group and one instance of multiple group

members with contrary perspectives. The contrary perspectives remained part of my

analysis to provide weight to the group’s cumulative perspective and to develop the

overall essence of the population’s experience. I describe these discrepant cases in further

detail in the results section of this chapter.

Evidence of Trustworthiness

Credibility

To ensure the credibility of my research I used researcher reflexivity, peer checks,

and triangulation as planned. Following the interviews, I listened to the recordings

multiple times and reflected on my understanding of what the participants said to try and

identify any misinterpretation that might have occurred due to my bias or perspectives

from my background. Even during the interviews, I paused after the participants

responses to reflect on my understanding and often asked for clarification or rephrased

the question to get a second response for comparison.

Checking my notes with peers also helped to confirm the credibility of the data. I

reviewed major elements of my notes with three peers with experience working

development projects in Africa. Two of the peers had Western backgrounds and one had

a Sub-Saharan Africa background. The review with peers confirmed my interpretation of

responses and the credibility of the data collected.

Triangulation was the most useful action I took to improve credibility. The

collection of data from multiple viewpoints provided for several opportunities to conduct

triangulation. The convergence of perspectives between the leaders and trainees, and the

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three groups of trainees provided significant evidence of the credibility of the data

collected.

Transferability

My plan to maximize transferability through thick descriptions and variations of

participant selection and cases was adjusted from my original intent. I never intended my

study to be universally transferable and the adjustments do not change the fact that every

SFA training program consists of different human interactions and environmental factors

that require analysis to determine the level and appropriateness of transferability of my

research to other SFA phenomena. The participants did not possess the degree of

variation as planned with a shortage of enlisted soldier participation and not obtaining six

participants from the unit training, individual skills and army leader groups. My inability

to interview unit training participants from multiple unit training programs limits the

transferability of my study. However, the data collected were sufficient to establish

themes from multiple perspectives on multiple cases.

Because the army’s country and the training subjects are masked in my study, the

description of the participant’s perspectives are not as rich as possible. Especially the

omission of training topics reduces the ability to determine the transferability of the

study. However, themes did emerge within each group so that readers can assess the

transferability among similar populations that represent the type of training which was

unit training, individual skills and leader education.

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Dependability

To ensure consistency of data collection to address threats to dependability, I

followed my plan without modification. During the interviews, I referred to the interview

protocols prior to asking each question. Following the interviews I compared responses to

ensure I was consistent in data collection.

Confirmability

I executed my plan to ensure other researchers can confirm the data and maintain

confirmability. As stated previously I conducted research reflexivity, triangulation,

consistent data collection, and peer reviews which were my strategies to mitigate any

threats to confirmability of my research. My inability to interview participants from

multiple SFA unit training programs limits the confirmability of my research. Other SFA

unit training programs did occur for the Sub-Sahara African army of my study but with

significant different levels of resources. Similar programs occurred as the one

experienced by the participants of unit training I interviewed except in a shorter amount

of time and with fewer instructors. Another researcher that collects data from SFA unit

training participants that had fewer resources may collect dissimilar data.

Research Results

I analyzed the data of my research within each group and population then

compared between groups and populations to meet the objectives of my study. My

research plan intended to gather information about different types of training by gathering

data from three groups that experienced either unit training, individual skills training, or

leader education. My research included a second population consisting of army leaders

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which provided a population to compare the data from the trainee interviews and to gain

a knowledgeable perspective on the army’s motives and capacities.

I organized the results using the variables previously identified that were grouped

into four major topics. The four major topics of variables were the transfer of skills,

capability development, capacity development, and motivation for participating in the

SFA training. By organizing in this fashion, my results provided a description of each

group’s perspective towards the success of multiple SFA training programs at

transferring skills, capability development, capacity development, and the motivation for

participation in the SFA training plus their suggestions for improving future SFA

programs. The results of the group analysis also identified the participant’s perspective of

which variables inhibited the transferring skills, capability development, and capacity

development.

After developing the themes for each participant group, I compared the results

within each group. The three groups of trainees were based on the type of training they

received and the subgroups were based on the participants ranks. The army leader group

had two subgroups based on their relationship with employing or institutionalizing

capabilities within their army. After comparing results within the groups, I compared the

results between each group of trainees and with each trainee group and the army leaders.

I also compared results between the total population of trainees with the army leaders,

and finally analyzed all the data as a single group.

The group analysis and cumulative analysis of the trainees perspectives provided

answers to RQ1. The analysis of the leaders group provided answers to RQ2. The

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comparison of trainees and leaders perspectives highlighted similarities and differences

that clarified the essence of each group’s perspectives and the total population’s

perspectives.

Transfer of Skills

I used the three components of the didactic triangle as the key variables to explore

the effectiveness of SFA training to transfer skills. The didactic triangle consists of the

teacher, student, and subject matter (Riquarts & Hopmann, 1995). The corresponding

military terms that I used in this study are the instructor, trainee, and training subject.

The participant groups that received SFA training were able to express their

perspectives on all the elements of transferring skills in terms of their experience. The

two senior leaders that also participated in SFA training expressed their perspectives on

the transfer of skills based on their trainee experiences. The group of army leaders when

responding as leaders were only able to respond to inquiries about the appropriateness of

training subject and not the effectiveness of the instructors or the ability of the trainees to

acquire the skills.

The overall theme between the recipients of all forms of SFA training was that

they believed the skills the SFA training programs intended to transfer did so

successfully. The army leaders did not comment on the transfer of skills because they did

not have firsthand knowledge except the two that commented in context of their

individual experiences as trainees. All participants of U.S. SFA provided training

believed they gained new skills.

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Effectiveness of SFA training program instructors to teach the skills. All the

participants that received training expressed that the U.S. instructors were effective. The

expressions of satisfaction with the United States instructors were very effusive

consisting of terms such as “wow,” “fantastic,” “class-a,” and “the world’s top experts.”

Participants commented positively on the instructors’ knowledge, experience,

organization, and training aids.

Some participants of training believed that cultural communication barriers

initially inhibited learning. A majority of each of the trainee groups commented that

acronyms or accents were difficult to understand at the beginning of the training. Three

participants commented on acronyms and eight complained about accents. All believed

these two barriers to communication were overcome within days or a week of beginning

the training because the instructors adjusted by explaining acronyms better or the students

became better at understanding the accents. The participants of unit training expressed

the most concern because their training involved many junior enlisted soldiers that had

previously never heard an accent from the United States or possessed limited English

abilities.

Unit training participants believed that the U.S. instructors adapted their teaching

styles and subjects to the needs of the trainees. This observation was unique to the unit

training participants and was not surprising given the training environment. The unit

training occurred in a remote and austere location in which the instructors lived with the

trainees for a long duration. The unit training instructors had the opportunity to learn

about the unit and army’s training shortcomings and could adjust the training to address

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those challenges. The individual skills training was too short for the instructors to learn of

the trainees requirements and make adjustments. Although the leader education training

was at least as long as the unit training program, the courses were designed primarily for

U.S. trainees and not significantly modified for foreign students.

Effectiveness of SFA training program trainees to acquire skills. The unit

training participants expressed that they received extensive training by their army prior to

the SFA training and that the noncommissioned officers that were part of the unit were

specially selected by their army. The individual skills and leader education groups did not

receive preparatory training from their army and several participants from those groups

felt their leaders selected the students for reasons other than developing capacity. Three

participants of the leader education training believed that student selection was based on

neo-patrimonial reasons and constituted a reward because the SFA training would be

enjoyable or career enhancing. Two participants of the individual skills training thought

the student selection was based on the availability of the individual and minimizing the

impact of losing that individual to their parent organization during the training period.

Despite concerns about the appropriate selection of students, all the research participants

that participated in SFA training thought the trainees were able to understand the training

subjects after overcoming initial barriers to communications.

The impact of training subjects on the transfer of skills. All the research

participants that received training from the United States believed that the training

subjects were understandable and that they mastered the skills. However, the participants

had major concerns about the training subjects applicability and utility. I address the

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perceptions of training subject applicability and utility in my description of the results

involving the variable doctrine.

Table 8 provides a summary of the participants’ responses to inquiries about the

effectiveness of SFA training to transfer skills. The far left column lists the major topics

of inquiry which were the three elements of the didactic triangle and a summary question

about the success of transferring skills. The subsequent columns provide the results as the

number of positive responses from participants of the three groups that received training

in the three different types of training. The column headings depict the type of training

and in parenthesis are the total population for that type of training. The table depicts the

uniform positive perception that SFA training successfully transferred skills.

Table 8

SFA Training Transfer of Skills Effectiveness

Elements of skills transfer

Unit training

(4)

Individual

training (5)

Leader

education (8)

Instructors effective

Trainees effective

Training subjects understandable

Overall, did skills transfer

Capability Development

The variables I used to inquire about the development of a capability as a result of

SFA training was the U.S. military’s measurements of capability that consist of: doctrine,

organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy

(Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2015a). I did not inquire about training as part of

capability development because the topic was addressed during the inquiries about the

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transfer of skills. However, the topic of training did come up in several interviews when

discussing the sufficiency of manpower of the army to establish a capability.

All participants were able to comment on the subject of capability development. I

was careful to clarify the leader responses as either referencing their experience as a

trainee or their perspective as a leader looking at SFA programs as a whole and not just a

specific program. The major theme of the participants’ experiences was that capability

development occurred as a result of unit training but it did not or only a little as a result

of the individual skills or leader education.

A shortcoming of my research that I previously described was the availability for

my research of unit training participants from only one SFA training program. The data I

collected from the interviews was only in regards to that one unit training program. I

inquired of all the participants about their perspective on other SFA unit training. None of

the participants had a perspective about the other unit training because they did not

participate and could not identify the units that received training. The lack of a

perspective is significant, especially among the army leaders that had wider visibility of

the army’s activities. All the army leaders and almost all the trainee participants were

able to identify by name the unit that received the training from which I collected data but

all were unable to name other units that received similar training. The units that received

similar training participated in programs with fewer resources and of shorter duration

than the unit from which I collected data. The lack of a perspective about the units that

received training with fewer resources and duration implies that the SFA unit training

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with fewer resources and shorter duration had less of an impact at developing a capability

that translated into combat effectiveness.

Impact of the recipient army’s doctrine and policy on the development of

capability. Doctrinal differences between the U.S. army and the Sub-Sahara African

army was the major reason cited by participants from every group that hindered the

development of capability. Each group had a majority that believed that their army did

not adopt or modify their army's doctrine to use the skills gained as a result of the

training. All participants of the unit training group stated that their unit adopted the U.S.

doctrine but that they were unique and conducted their small unit operations different

than the rest of their army. Three participants from the leader education group expressed

that the training was too U.S. centric and two of the army leaders thought that most of the

SFA training was too U.S. centric. Fifteen of the 20 research participants believed that

doctrinal differences kept their army from developing capabilities as a result of the SFA

training. Four of the participants did not provide a response about the doctrinal

differences and one disagreed with the majority and believed that doctrinal differences

did not inhibit the development of capabilities.

The unit training participants believed the training subjects were very useful and

used the skills with success during counterinsurgency operations. They all believed their

army should adopt the way of fighting and doctrine they were taught during SFA unit

training. All the unit training participants also observed that their unit’s unique way of

operating caused issues when new soldiers joined the unit that did not have the SFA

training which caused the unit’s capability to degrade. The unit training participants

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particularly appreciated two elements of marksmanship training that involved basic rifle

marksmanship and night firing. One participant expressed his confidence in shooting by

stating that after the training if he could see the enemy then he could kill him. Another

participant expressed his confidence in the entire unit’s ability to shoot at night by stating

that other units were afraid of the enemy at night, but he welcomed them knowing that

the unit would kill them.

The individual skills group and leader education group participants mostly

thought the training subjects were not helpful for developing a capability or conducting a

counterinsurgency and few used any of the skills because they did not fit how their army

operated. Only one of the leader education participants thought the skills gained from the

SFA training had application for his army. The other leader education participants and the

individual skills participants felt that the way their army operated was too different from

skills provided by their training. None of the participants that received individual skills or

leader education training used the skills they were taught very much. Two participants

stated that they used the skills “not much” and the remaining 11 stated they did not use

them at all. The majority of participants of individual skills and leader education training

believed they gained information and experience that made them better officers although

they could not specify a skill that improved them as officers. Three of the 5 army leaders

also had the opinion that United States-provided training usually did not apply to their

army because of the way they operate and due to their lack of resources. One of the

leaders expressed his dissatisfaction with SFA programs applicability to their army’s

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needs by stating in frustration that the United States needs to stop cramming things down

their army’s throat that don’t help.

Several of the participants had the perspective that their army does not desire to

adopt U.S. doctrine. Two individual skills and three leader education participants stated

that they were told by peers or seniors to not talk about their experiences during the SFA

training and to concentrate on doing their tasks as they had always been done. Some of

the participants believed that their army had no equivalent doctrine to compare what they

learned during the SFA training. Two individual skills and one army leader participant

stated that their army does not conduct or have the ability to conduct the tasks the SFA

programs trained; therefore, the training subject was irrelevant to their army

Impact of the recipient army’s organizations on the development of

capability. Nine of the 20 research participants perceived that their army did not have the

organizations to implement the skills they gained during SFA training. All of the unit

training and a majority of the individual skills participants expressed the perspective that

the lack of organizations or form of organizing inhibited their army’s ability to perform

the tasks the SFA training provided. One participant from the leader education group and

one of the army leaders believed organizations hindered capability development. The

divergent views of the trainee groups could be a result of the subject matter of their

training. Some of the training subjects required specific organizations to perform the

tasks but most of the leader education tasks were more generalized and intended to be

skills that could apply among different organizations.

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Impact of the recipient army’s available materiel on the development of

capability. Some of the research participants believed that their army lacked required

materiel to perform the skills SFA programs trained. All of the unit training and a

majority of the army leader participants believed that shortages of equipment hindered

the development of capabilities as a result of SFA training. Two individual skills and one

leader education participant expressed similar perspectives. The subject matter of the

training was likely a major determinant of the group differences. The unit training skills

required significant equipment to perform the tasks trained on, while the individual skills

and leader education skills were less equipment dependent.

Impact of the recipient army’s leaders on the development of capability. A

majority of research participants had the perspective that an issue with their leadership

hindered the development of capacity as a result of SFA training. Ten of the trainee

population expressed concerns with their leadership and three of the army leaders agreed.

All of the groups had a majority express concern with leaders except the individual skills

group. Most of the individual skills group participants did not express a perception or

opinion about their leader’s ability to employ the skills they gained from SFA training.

Nine of the 13 research participants that believed leaders hindered capability

development, to include two army leaders, believed their leaders lacked the knowledge to

appreciate and employ the newly acquired skills. Eight participants to include two army

leaders thought that leaders were too distracted to employ the skills developed by SFA

training. The distractions cited were self-interest and political reasons that were not

described in detail. One of the army leaders was referring to civilian leaders, while one

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was referring to his peers, and the third leader’s concerns were about both military and

civilian leaders.

Impact of the recipient army’s personnel availability and personnel system

on the development of capability. Most of the participants thought their army had a

problem with personnel that inhibited the development of capability. Half the participants

perceived that their army had personnel shortages. Several of the participants expressed

other concerns about the personnel system.

Ten of the research participants thought their army lacked sufficient manpower to

employ the skills they trained on during SFA programs. The majority of participants from

the unit training and leader education perceived that their army had shortages of

manpower that hindered capability development. Two participants from the individual

skills group and two from the army leaders group also thought manpower shortages

impacted capability development negatively.

A number of research participants believed that their army's soldiers did not have

enough training to employ the skills. Although training was not a topic when I inquired

about capability development, it came up in several interviews when discussing

personnel. A majority of the unit training group and two participants from each of the

other groups thought that other than those that received SFA training their army’s

soldiers could not perform the skills which kept those skills from becoming capabilities

within their army.

A small number of the research participants thought their army’s personnel

system did not assign individual commensurate with their skills which inhibited the

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development of capabilities. Three research participants to include two from the

individual skills training and one army leader used the term “ad hoc” to describe their

assignment system.

Impact of the recipient army’s facilities on the development of capability.

Participants from the unit training believed their army lacked the facilities to develop the

skills they gained through SFA training, but the remainder of research participants

thought otherwise. The unit training participant’s concern about facilities was regarding

the facilities required to train on the subject matters they trained on during SFA unit

training. The training subjects for the unit training required large ranges, training areas,

and numerous training aids. In contrast, most of the training topics for the individual

training and leader education did not require significant facilities. None of the

participants expressed any concern with their army’s facilities to perform the skills in

operations.

Impact of the recipient army’s policies on the development of capability.

Only one army leader and one unit training research participant thought their army’s

existing policies inhibited the development of military capabilities the SFA training

supported. A number of participants expressed the failure of their army to know and

follow their policies made the policies irrelevant to capability development. One unit

training participant and two participants from each of the other groups believed their

army lacked or did not follow their policies. Four participants, including two leaders,

used the term “ad hoc” to describe their army’s policies.

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Table 9 is a summary of the research participant responses regarding capability

development. The far left column lists the variables that are the elements of capability

excluding training which was addressed in the previous section on the transfer of skills.

The subsequent columns provide the participant responses organized by the major groups

of trainees by training type and the army leaders with the maximum number of possible

responses in parenthesis. The data in each column depicts the number of affirmative

responses meaning that the participant responded that the corresponding variable did

hinder capability development.

Table 9

Elements That Hindered Capability Development

Elements of

capability

Unit training

(4)

Individual

training (5)

Leader

education (8)

Army leaders

(5)

Doctrine

Organization

Materiel

Leaders

Personnel

Facilities

Policy

Table 10 displays the research participant responses regarding their army’s

capability development as a result of the SFA training. The first column lists the possible

responses. The subsequent columns provide the corresponding participant responses

organized by the major groups of trainees by training type and the army leaders with the

maximum number of possible responses in parenthesis.

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Table 10

Capability Development as a Result of SFA Training

Response

Unit training

(4)

Individual

training (5)

Leader

education (8)

Army leaders

(5)

Yes

Little

Capacity Development

The research participants almost universally believed that their army did not

develop any capacity as a result of the SFA programs. All but two participants perceived

that their army was not able to replicate or sustain the skills or capabilities developed.

None of the participants believed their army developed capacity as a result of SFA

training. Only one trainee of leader education and one army leader did not provide an

opinion based on their experiences.

The research finding that the SFA programs did not develop capacity to such a

universal degree is the most impactful finding of my study. Practitioners, planners, and

policy makers of SFA programs should all take note of this shortcoming and take actions

to ensure capacity development is part of every SFA program and evaluated for success.

Without capacity development the SFA programs only develop temporary capabilities at

best and require the United States to repeat the same programs to sustain a capability in a

foreign military.

Efforts and effectiveness of the recipient army to replicate the capabilities

obtained as a result of SFA training. According to almost all the participants, their

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army was not able to replicate the capabilities that developed as a result of the SFA

training. Sixteen research participants thought that their army did not make an effort to

replicate the capabilities the SFA training attempted to develop. Two participants

believed their army made a little effort and two did not express an opinion. Notably, none

of the participants thought their army made a strong effort to replicate the capabilities.

All four unit training participants responded that their unit replicated the tasks but as

replacements came to the unit without training the capability of the unit degraded. The

unit training participants also thought that other units in their army did not have the same

skills and that their army did not replicate the capabilities for the army. The reasons the

trainee participants provided for the lack of replication were primarily that the skill was

not adopted by their army or a lack of resources.

The four army leaders that stated their army did not replicate the capabilities SFA

training tried to provide also stated that lack of adoption and resources kept them from

trying to replicate the skills. Three of the army leaders explained that their army did not

adopt the new skills because they were too overwhelmed with current operations to

develop new doctrine and training programs required to replicate the capabilities.

Efforts and effectiveness of the recipient army to sustain the capabilities

obtained as a result of SFA training. Almost all the participants thought that their army

did not conduct sustainment activities relevant to the capabilities the SFA training

programs intended to develop. One army leader and one leader education participant did

not have observations about their army’s effort to sustain any capabilities developed from

SFA training. Two participants from the individual skills group and three from the leader

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education group plus one army leader believed that there was not an option for their army

to conduct sustainment activities because the SFA training did not develop any

capability. The remaining 13 participants which included all the unit training participants,

and a majority of army leaders thought their army lacked the ability to sustain the tasks.

The three army leaders cited the lack of resources. The four unit training participants

thought resources, a lack of leadership, and the ad hoc nature of the training system kept

their army from sustaining the capabilities their SFA training created.

Table 11 provides the summary of responses regarding capacity development as a

result of SFA training. The far left column lists the two variables of capacity

development. The subsequent columns show the responses by group as an affirmative for

the variables in terms of hindering capacity development with the maximum number of

possible responses in parenthesis. The table displays the uniform perspective of the

participants that the SFA training did not develop capacity with the exception of two

participants that did not provide a response.

Table 11

Elements That Hindered Capacity Development

Elements of capacity

development

Unit

training (4)

Individual

training (5)

Leader

education (8)

Army

leaders (5)

Capability replication

Capability sustainment

Motivation for Participation in SFA Training

My inquiry about their nation’s and army’s motivation for participating in the

SFA training programs surprised most of the participants and was not something many of

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them had considered, but all except one participant was able to provide their perspective

very quickly. Half of the research participants thought their army or government's

primary reason for participating in the training was to maintain positive relations with the

United States. A majority of the individual skills group and the army leaders, plus one

unit training participant and three participants from the leader education group thought

relations with the United States was the primary motivation for SFA participation. The

primary reason cited for wanting to maintain relations with the United States was respect

for U.S. military’s capabilities and technology. The four army leaders thought that their

nation and army could receive more assistance with their ongoing counterinsurgency

from the United States if they had better relations. One of the leaders stated that the

United States could end their insurgency problems if they wanted and cited how quickly

the U.S. military defeated ISIS once the decision to intervene was made.

Less than half the participants believed their army participated in the training in

order to gain skills. All the unit training participants and two army leaders, plus one

participant from each of the individual skills and leader education groups thought that

part of their army’s motive for participating the SFA training was to gain skills and

develop capabilities. Since the unit training participants did gain capabilities that they

used as a unit, it was logical that they all perceived that capability development was a

motive of their army.

Several of the participants believed their army’s motive for participating in the

training was to develop the ability to compare systems. Three of the leader education

participants and one army leader thought the skills and United States’ systems that the

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leader education courses exposed to the trainees was of benefit and a reason their army

participated in those courses. They thought the experience of being a trainee in the United

States and instruction on U.S. military systems gave their army a comparative example

from which they could access the efficiency of their army’s systems.

Suggestions for Improving Future SFA Programs

Most of the participants provided more than one suggestion to improve the

effectiveness of SFA training programs. An exception was the leader education group

that only had one participant suggest a single action that was similar to any of the other

participant. The other six leader education participants either did not have a perspective

or provided a suggestion that was not shared by any of the other 20 participants.

Over half the participants thought the United States should make greater efforts to

understand their army’s capability and capacity shortcomings to design SFA programs

that could fill the existing gaps. A majority of the army leaders and individual skills

participants believed that the United States needs to understand their army’s situation and

challenges better in order for SFA programs to have an impact. One participant from the

unit training group and three from the leader education group had the same perspective

for a total of eleven participants. One of the army leaders asked in exasperation why the

United States trained their army on equipment they don’t have and conducted programs

that do not help them with their current insurgency.

Half the participants suggested that the United States should follow up the

training to determine future improvements or necessary actions required to fully develop

the desired capability and capacity. The majority of army leaders and all the unit training

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participants along with two participants from both the individual skills training and the

leader education groups thought that SFA training should be followed up by the United

States to assess its effectiveness and provide additional training or resources if needed to

achieve the objectives of SFA programs to develop capabilities and capacities.

Several of the participants thought the United States needs to include equipment

as part of future SFA programs. Two participants from both the unit training and army

leaders groups and one leader education participant believed that SFA training would be

more effective if equipment was provided as part of the SFA training. The lack of

comments on equipment from the individual skills training and the leader education

participants most likely was a reflection of the training subjects for those SFA training

programs which did not significantly involve equipment.

The differences in the SFA training programs subject matter, type of training and

many other variables account for the discrepant responses between groups. The format of

the single SFA unit training program was significantly different from the other types of

training. The different training format and reliance on unique training facilities for the

unit training explains why the unit training group had different perspectives about the

impact of facilities on capability development and the utility of the program.

There were only three variables that had discrepant responses that were contrary

to the majority of the perspectives within a group. The three intergroup discrepant

variables were the impact of doctrine, leaders, and manpower on the development of

capability. The intergroup discrepant responses that did match other participant’s

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responses remained part of my analysis to provide weight to the group’s perspective and

to develop the overall essence of the population’s experience.

The intergroup discrepant cases all occurred within the leader education group.

The population of leader education participants attended five different courses in the

United States. The training subjects at each of the five courses were significantly

different and the unique experiences of the participants accounts for the variations of

perspectives.

One of the leader education participants thought the U.S. doctrine was similar to

his army’s doctrine and did not hinder capability development. The participant with the

single discrepant response regarding doctrine may have an accurate perception of his

experience for the unique skills he learned, but the overall perspective of that group was

that doctrine did hinder capability development.

Three participants from the leader education group felt that their leaders had

adequate knowledge about the skills they learned to employ them properly. Within the

leader education group the perspectives were evenly split with three participants

believing their leaders did not possess the knowledge to employ the skills they gained.

The unique training subjects and skills the participants gained from their SFA leader

education training experiences and could account for the discrepancy of responses about

the variable of leaders hindering the development of capability. I used the data from the

contrary perspectives to compare across groups and populations to determine how they

impacted the overarching themes.

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One leader education training participant disagreed with three participants from

the same group about manpower’s impact on capability. The one discrepant response was

that sufficient manpower existed in their army to develop the capability the SFA training

intended to develop. Again the singular discrepant perspective could be accurate given

the subject matter of that participants training but the overall perspective of the leader

education group matched the other group’s perspectives that manpower shortages

hindered SFA programs achieving the goal of capability development.

Summary

I described my data collection and detailed results of my research organized by

key variables. I further described my analysis of the data. To summarize the research

results I described how the results answer the research questions.

The perspectives of Sub-Sahara African soldiers that participated in my research

on training received from the United States were similar within groups that experienced

similar training but different between the groups that experienced dissimilar training. All

the groups that received SFA training felt they gained new skills as a result of the training

but only the unit training participants thought the skills they gained had application and

were useful during counterinsurgency operations. The unit training participants believed

that their unit developed capabilities from the training but that their army was not able to

replicate the capabilities among other units or sustain them within their unit. The other

trainees perceived that the skills they trained did not develop any or very little capabilities

and that the skills had little or no application on the ongoing counterinsurgency

operations.

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The perspectives of leaders of a Sub-Sahara African army on training their

soldiers received from the United States was similar to the trainees. The army leaders

agreed that the unit training provided capabilities for the unit trained and that the army

was only able to marginally replicate and sustain the capability among other units. They

agreed that the individual skills training and leader education training had little

application to the way their army operates and did not translate to developing capability

or capacity.

In the next chapter, I provide an interpretation of my research results to include

the application of the agency theory to SFA programs. I also describe the limitations of

my study along with recommendations for future research on SFA programs. I conclude

the next chapter by describing my recommendations to improve the efficiency of SFA

training programs and the implications to positive social change.

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Chapter 5: Discussion, Conclusions, and Recommendations

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the perspectives of

recipients of training as part of U.S. SFA programs from a Sub-Sahara African army that

was engaged in counterinsurgency operations. In this qualitative study, I used the

phenomenological design to explore the experiences of SFA training recipients and create

an in-depth understanding of their perspectives. I explored multiple perspectives of

multiple types of SFA training to provide opportunities for confirmation through

triangulation and improve the trustworthiness of this study. I used a purposeful sampling

technique and employed utilization-focused sampling to ensure the data collected

answered the research questions from multiple views. My data collection consisted of

interviews with the soldiers that received training as part of three, information-rich SFA

training programs that possessed significant differences and senior leaders of the Sub-

Sahara African army that received the training. I conducted this study to increase

information and knowledge about the effectiveness of SFA programs to achieve the

United States’ objectives of developing capability and capacity that can help partner

nations defeat an insurgent and provide for domestic security.

As a result of my analysis of the research data, I established key findings

involving the SFA training program objectives of the transfer of skills, capability

development, and capacity development. Participants of SFA training gained new skills

as a result of the training. The SFA program that conducted unit training successfully

developed capabilities for that unit. Individual training and leader education SFA training

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did not develop capability. A major and universal shortcoming of all the SFA training

programs researched in this study was that none developed capacity for the Sub-Sahara

African army. Table 12 displays the key findings by type of SFA training and the main

variable topics of transfer of skills, capability development, and capacity development.

The far-left column displays the three main variable topics that are the objectives of SFA

training, and each subsequent column displays the success of achieving those objectives.

‘Yes’ indicates that the objective was met and ‘No’ indicates that the objective was not

met.

Table 12

Key Findings on Transfer of Skills, Capability Development, and Capacity Development

SFA program objectives

Unit training

Individual

training

Leader education

Transfer skills

Yes

Capability development

Yes

Capacity development

I also established key findings about the partner nation’s motivation for

participating in the SFA programs and the partner nation’s perspectives on how to

improve SFA programs. A primary motivation of the Sub-Sahara African army for

participating in the SFA training was to develop positive relations with the United States.

Members of the Sub-Sahara African army recommended that the United States should

take actions to better understand their army’s requirements and challenges to fill

capability and capacity gaps that will assist them to defeat an insurgency.

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Interpretation of the Findings

Foreign Military Development

Findings related to the transfer of skills. In this study, I found that skills were

successfully transferred as a result of SFA training programs for a Sub-Sahara African

army. I explored if differences in culture manifested itself in barriers to communications

or misunderstandings between instructors and trainees during SFA training. According to

Jandt (2017), communication is a reflection of culture that has the potential to create

barriers to intercultural communications. Accents and acronyms were an initial barrier to

communications within SFA training programs that was overcome through efforts by

both instructors and trainees. Acronyms are a common form of communications within

the U.S. military and can be considered an organizational norm of communications.

Depending on the degree and duration of the impact of the communications barrier, the

effectiveness of the first few days or weeks of training was negatively impacted by

barriers to communications stemming from cultural and organizational communication

norms.

A major concern found in previous literature that addressed SFA training was the

lack of cultural awareness of SFA trainers that limited their ability to transfer skills (Ates,

2014; Corum, 2007; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Livingston, 2011; O’Connor, 2010;

O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2013;

Westerman, 2017). I did not find any evidence that the lack of cultural awareness by SFA

instructors inhibited their teaching effectiveness in this study. During my previous work

on SFA training programs, I often observed communication barriers and an instructor’s

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lack of cultural awareness negatively impacting instruction and was somewhat surprised

that the results of this study did not find culture as a major issue.

In this study, I did not find issues with the trainees or training subjects concerning

the successful transfer of skills. This study did not confirm that the skills transferred but

the recipients of the training felt confident that they gained both knowledge and skills

from their SFA training experience. Issues did exist with the development of capability

involving the trainees and subject matter that I describe in the next section of my study.

Findings related to the development of capability. In this study, I found that the

participating Sub-Sahara African army did not develop capabilities that assisted in their

ongoing counterinsurgency with the exception of the one unit training program. Many of

the researchers from my literature review identified that U.S. SFA programs often did not

achieve the program objectives in terms of developing military capability (Chandra,

2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Grespin, 2013; Hammes, 2016; Ladwig III, 2016;

Matisek, 2018; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Regilme, 2018). The findings of this study

confirmed that of previous research, indicating that the participating Sub-Sahara African

army developed limited capability as a result of SFA unit training but an insignificant

amount from the other forms of training. The SFA unit training the participants in this

study received was successful at developing capabilities for their unit, but the participants

were not aware of other units that achieved such success. Despite my years of working

with the participating Sub-Sahara African army, I was not aware of this particular unit’s

level of success in combat and was surprised by the positive reputation it had among all

the research participants.

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Biddle et al. (2018) concluded that SFA provided by the United States often failed

to prevent the defeat of a partner nation to an insurgency. In the current study, I

researched an army that is engaged in an ongoing counterinsurgency, so a final

determination of SFA training on the result of the conflict cannot be determined.

However, I found that SFA training had an insignificant impact on the Sub-Sahara

African army’s conduct of their counterinsurgency operations because most of the skills

imparted during SFA training were not used with the exception of the unit training. An

additional reason the SFA training did not have more of an impact on counterinsurgency

operations was that the unit training only increased the one unit’s capability that received

the training and did not translate to capabilities for other units.

Failing to understand the environment and planning SFA programs within

environmental constraints was a major reason many researchers gave for why SFA

programs failed (Bruneau, 2015; Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Felicetti,

2006; Hammes, 2016; Matisek, 2018; O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014; Robinson,

2018; Walsh, 2015). The results of this study confirmed those of previous studies,

showing that the SFA programs did not take into account the existing elements of

capability within the Sub-Sahara African army to design the SFA programs that

developed capability with the exception of the single unit that conducted unit training.

Existing doctrine, organizational structures, materiel shortages, leaders’ knowledge,

trained personnel availability, and policies inhibited the development of capabilities

within the army. The participants recommendation for the United States to research the

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environment more is a strong indicator that the participants perceived that SFA planning

was inadequate.

According to much of the existing literature, SFA plans often did not address

existing gaps of skills, knowledge, or procedures necessary to develop capability

(Bruneau, 2015; Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Matisek,

2018; O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014; Walsh, 2015). The findings of this study

confirmed that most SFA training did not fill a gap, indicating that the subjects of the

SFA training were not used by the trainees or their army with the exception of the single

unit I researched that conducted unit training. The army leaders that shared their wider-

ranging perspective of SFA across the army and in counterinsurgency operations

particularly thought that SFA training did not address their requirements.

Researchers have uncovered other fundamental planning errors in SFA programs,

including the failure to allocate enough time and trainers for the programs (Chandra,

2008; Davis, 2014; Hammes, 2016). The data in this study did not provide conclusive

findings supporting the concept that SFA programs failed to allocate enough time and

trainers to achieve capability development but did provide strong evidence supporting the

previous claims. All the research participants could name the unit that participated in

extensive training with more resources, including more equipment than other unit training

programs. The unit that received training of longer duration and more resources had a

reputation of effectiveness in counterinsurgency operations that I interpreted as legendary

within the army, whereas the units that participated in less extensive training were

unknown to the research participants. The extent of unfamiliarity about the units that

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received the reduced training was so extensive that the army’s Training Division staff

officer that assisted my research by identifying potential participants could not find

records of the other unit training to identify the units or participants. My findings support

the concept that without enough resources, SFA training was ineffective and that the

United States often did not allocate enough resources.

According to much of the literature on the topic of SFA programs, the failure of

the United States to plan also included failures to analyze the recipient’s ability to sustain

the skills and capability the programs intended to develop as well as inadequate

preparation of instructors (Bruneau, 2015; Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Felicetti, 2006;

O’Connor et al., 2009; Olden, 2014). In this study, I found that the selection of training

subjects and the preparation of the instructors was adequate to transfer skills. However,

the results of this study confirmed that the army was not able to sustain the skills or the

capabilities. Although the one unit that the unit training research participants were

members of did develop capabilities, those capabilities started to degrade immediately

after the training because the army was not able to sustain them.

Findings related to the development of capacity. In addition to issues with

capability development, many of the researchers of U.S. SFA found that the programs

often did not achieve the program objectives of developing military capacity or failed to

include any component of the program that developed the partner nation’s capacity to

sustain a capability (Chandra, 2008; Corum, 2007; Davis, 2014; Grespin, 2013; Hammes,

2016; Ladwig III, 2016; Matisek, 2018; Omelicheva et al., 2017; Regilme, 2018). The

results of this study confirmed that of previous research. This study found no evidence of

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capacity development as a result of the SFA training programs provided to the Sub-

Sahara African army.

Several of the authors that addressed past failures to develop capacity found that

past SFA and international military assistance programs failed to recognize the shortfalls

and, as a result, did not plan to address them (Abrahamsen, 2016; Ansorg, 2017; Baaz &

Stern, 2017; Detzner, 2017; Schroeder & Chappuis, 2014; Varisco, 2014; Westerman,

2017). The findings of my study did not completely confirm that the planners of SFA

training programs did not recognize the capacity issues. My study did not find any

evidence that the SFA training programs for the Sub-Sahara African army took steps to

address the existing capacity shortfalls.

Merz (2012) and Kapstein (2017) found that it was important for capacity

development to include reforms that ensured partner nations employed military

capabilities in a fashion perceived as legitimate. My research did not find conclusive

evidence supporting the need for reforms to develop capacity but did find potential

obstacles to any future attempt at reforms. One participant did address the need to make

changes to their army in order to gain public support by stating that the army needed help

bringing the army closer to the civilian population because the military and civilians were

very detached. The main finding supporting the concept that SFA programs should

include efforts at reform was that decisions made by the partner nation about their SFA

programs and their army’s fashion of doing business or operations were influenced by

self-serving or domestic political reasons. The data supporting my finding that decisions

were influenced by self-serving or political reasons were participant statements that were

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mostly not specific but included statements about trainee selection based on patronage,

creating physical legacies, and corruption. My research found that defeating the

insurgents was a major motivation of the Sub-Sahara African army but that some

decisions were influenced by self-serving or political considerations that could inhibit

efforts at reforms intended to ensure the legitimacy of the army.

Agency Theory Application to SFA

The findings of my study confirm previous research that attributed international

military development efforts such as SFA programs with issues related to the agency

theory. Some of the previous research found SFA problems developed from different

objectives between the United States and the partner nation that can be explained by the

agency theory (Biddle et al., 2018; Hammes, 2016; Kapstein, 2017; Ladwig III, 2016;

Regilme, 2018; Rittinger, 2017). My research also found that the Sub-Sahara African

army had some objectives for the SFA training programs that did not conform with the

United States’ objectives.

Self-serving or political considerations influenced local decisions about the

development of capability and capacity by the Sub-Sahara African army. Additionally,

my research found evidence that a major objective of the Sub-Sahara African army was

to improve relations with the United States which did not translate into the development

of capability and capacity. My research also found that the Sub-Sahara African army

made little effort to replicate or sustain any capability that SFA programs developed. The

overall evidence both in the words of the research participants and the lack of actions to

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replicate or sustain capabilities developed by SFA programs, indicate that the principal-

agent dilemma existed between the United States and the partner nation of my study.

All the researchers that explained why partner nations lost wars despite U.S.

assistance using the agency theory proposed that the United States failed to understand

the partner nation government’s environment and motives (Biddle et al., 2018; Hammes,

2016; Ladwig, 2016; Regilme, 2018; Rittinger, 2017). My study found that local

considerations and motives impacted the outcome of SFA training more than the U.S.

objectives. My study also found that the United States likely did not understand the

environment evidenced by selecting training topics the partner nation did not desire for

its counterinsurgency operation and therefore was unable to replicate and sustain.

My research found a limited amount of evidence supporting the research of Jowell

(2018), Needs (2019), and Robinson (2018) who found that neopatrimonialism hindered

the obtainment of the sponsor achieving their objectives during military assistance

programs. Three participants specifically stated that assignments as trainees or permanent

positions in their army were based on patronage. Several participants also commented on

the ad hoc nature of their army’s policies and manpower systems which provides the

opportunity for neopatrimonialism. Although the evidence was not strong, my research

found that desires for neopatrimonialism opportunities was a potential agent objective

that contradicted the United States’ objectives for the SFA programs.

Limitations of the Study

The trustworthiness of my study is limited due to the focused nature of my

research. I limited my research to a single Sub-Sahara African army conducting an

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insurgency. The relevance of my findings are dependent on the degree of similarities

between the phenomena of my research to other SFA and development programs. The

data I gathered all came from individuals and their perspectives. The potential

dependability and transferability of my study is limited because all individual experiences

are unique and all countries operate within unique environments, cultures, and capacities.

The need to mask the country and training topics also limited the ability of readers to

apply my findings because those key environmental variables are not discussed in my

study.

I was concerned with the participants’ sincerity during the interviews because

they could have been motivated not to disclose anything that others or their leaders may

perceive as negative towards their army. However, I perceived the participants as being

very forthcoming and the data I collected as creditable with one exception. The

participants I used to collect data all disclosed some information that was less than

flattering about their army. The one individual I interviewed but did not use the data

appeared insincere in his responses and contradicted other research participants by

refusing to acknowledge any shortcomings of his army even when asked factual and

verifiable questions.

Two unanticipated limitations affecting the confirmability of my study evolved

during the conduct of my research. I intended to interview unit training participants from

multiple SFA unit training programs but was only able to recruit participants from a

single SFA unit training program. The single event that I was able to recruit participants

may not be representative of other similar events. As I stated previously, the unit training

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participants that I interviewed experienced SFA training that created capabilities and the

unit’s performance in combat was well known by all the research participants. Other units

that received similar training but with fewer trainers, equipment and shorter duration,

were unknown to the research participants. My research found that the single unit training

program, from which I collected data, developed capabilities but the army was not able to

replicate or sustain those capabilities. Therefore, the inability to collect data about more

SFA unit training programs limited the trustworthiness of the findings regarding the

effectiveness of SFA unit training to develop capabilities and capacities.

I was only able to interview one enlisted soldier as opposed to my intended six.

My plan was to interview three enlisted soldiers that participated in unit training and

three that participated in individual skills training. The limited data collection from a

significant demographic of the relevant population to the phenomena of my research

increased the threats to confirmability of my study. Another researcher that replicates my

research but collects data from enlisted soldiers should find similar results but there could

be some significant differences because of the enlisted soldier’s unique viewpoint.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Future Research

My research found that the accents and use of acronyms by instructors created an

initial barrier to communications. Although the barriers to communications were

overcome by the instructors and trainees, the communications issues slowed the process

of developing the group dynamics that facilitate learning during training. The initial

issues with communication also call into question the utility of short courses that last one

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or two weeks because a significant amount of the training could be ineffective as the

students and instructors work to communicate effectively. The form of communication

barriers and their impact were unique to the phenomena I researched and unique to

different language and cultural communication norms of the country of my study.

However, further research to identify the types, degree, and methods to quicken the

process of overcoming communications barriers could assist with planning and executing

effective SFA programs.

My finding that SFA unit training effectively developed capabilities suffered from

trustworthiness because the finding was the result of evidence from a single SFA unit

training program. Confirmation about my finding requires additional research about the

effectiveness of SFA unit training to develop military capabilities. My findings also

confirmed that the effectiveness of unit training was dependent upon the duration of

training and amount of resources allocated to the training. To confirm my findings, I

recommend further research about the duration, number of trainers, and equipment

required to successfully create capability as a result of SFA training could benefit future

programs.

All my findings are limited by only researching SFA training programs in one

country. To increase the trustworthiness, especially the transferability, or disconfirm my

findings requires similar research from other countries. In addition to researching

training, I recommend further research on other forms of SFA programs which include

organizing, equipping, rebuilding or building, and advising assistance.

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Recommendations for Improving SFA Training Effectiveness

In this section, I provide recommendations to improve SFA training intend to

increase the effectiveness of developing capability and capacity of an army to defeat an

insurgency. The recommendations include the observations of most of the research

participants. These recommendations address the problem with U.S. provided SFA

training and not about issues with the army that received the training.

Understanding the partner’s environment and army. Policy makers and

planners of future SFA policy and programs should take into account the principal-agent

dilemma by planning for the potential of misunderstanding the partner’s environment and

divergent objectives. The United States should expend more effort to understanding the

partner’s environment and army to identify training subjects that result in sustainable

capabilities that have utility for defeating an insurgency and maintaining security.

Understanding the partner’s environment and army could also help identify requirements

for developing capacity. I agree with the participants recommendation to study and

understand the partner and to follow up the training with assessments to better understand

the challenges and requirements to developing capabilities and capacities. The National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 required new reporting on programs to

develop partner nation capacity and the collection of data on the effectiveness of

programs because of the consensus that past SFA programs failed to develop capacity.

My research found the lack of capacity development continues to be a problem.

Therefore, I recommend reporting requirements within the National Defense

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 be expanded to conducting multiyear assessments

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with the intent to identify shortfalls and develop programs to address the shortfalls to

allow enough time to transpire to fully understand the partner’s capacity to sustain a

newly developed capability.

Recognizing the limitations of SFA individual skills training and leader

education. Between the 20 research participants, I was able to gather data about five

leader education courses conducted in the United States, four individual skills training

programs conducted in the Sub-Sahara African country and the United States, and one

unit training program conducted in the Sub-Sahara African country. SFA programs intend

to achieve objectives other than the development of capability and capacity, such as

building relationships, which means that programs that fail to build capacity and capacity

should not be eliminated if they achieve other goals. My research found almost no

evidence that individual skills and leaders education SFA training programs developed

any capability or capacity. Planners and policy makers should recognize the limited

ability of SFA individual skills training and leader education to build capability and

capacity.

Plan to resource SFA training appropriately. The evidence of my research

found that only the SFA unit training program which was longer, had more instructors,

and provided more equipment than other similar SFA unit training programs developed

any capability. A major difference between the individual skills and leader education

with the successful unit training SFA program was that the instructors were able to live

with the trainees and adopt the training to their situation. Because of the extensive

amount of resources required for successful SFA training, the United States should

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consider limiting its SFA efforts to developing capabilities that are most essential for its

partners and prioritize the requisite amount of resources for success and development of

partner nation capacity to replicate and sustain the capabilities.

Address all elements of capability. When planning capability development as

part of SFA programs, planners should analyze the existing status of all the elements of

capability to include doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education,

personnel, facilities, and policy (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2015a). To assess

all the elements of a capability requires a significant investment in my first

recommendation which is to understand the partner’s environment and army. SFA

programs must address gaps in any of the elements to positively develop capability.

The goal of my recommendations is to improve SFA training by ensuring the

training subjects are appropriate and sustainable. The training subjects and skills that

SFA training intends to transfer should be subjects and skills the trainees can utilize and

the recipient army can adopt to effectively combat an insurgent and maintain security.

Additionally, SFA training programs must allocate enough resources to ensure the

development of both capability and capacity.

Implications

Positive Social Change Implications

My research findings identified issues with SFA training programs for a Sub-

Sahara African army conducting a counterinsurgency. My recommendations and other

actions taken to remedy these issues could benefit the trainees, their units, their army, and

potentially their nation. Creating more effective SFA programs will also help the United

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States achieve the goals of its National Security Policy which intend to improve security

for the United States and the international community.

The trainees could benefit by receiving training on skills that they can employ to

effectively execute a counterinsurgency. The appropriate skills gained through SFA

training would improve the trainee’s survivability in combat. Additionally, improving the

skills of the soldiers will increase the effectiveness of their units to counter the efforts of

insurgents to create instability.

The trainees’ army and nation would also benefit by the development of military

capabilities that defeat insurgents. The army would suffer fewer casualties and expend

fewer resources on ineffective operations. The establishment or maintenance of security

is a foundational requirement for environments in which human development can thrive

(Adefisoye & Bamidele, 2018; Ani, 2016). The nation would gain from improved

security in which the citizens and the government can concentrate their efforts and

resources on human development programs such as education, the environment, and

health.

By improving SFA programs the United States will be more likely to achieve its

security goals that depend on strong and capable partners. The U.S. National Security

Policy intends to establish secure environments that deny safe havens for terrorists and

defeat insurgencies against U.S. partners. Establishing and maintaining secure

environments has the effect of avoiding humanitarian crises caused by human conflict

and denies terrorists the means to threaten international security (The White House,

2017).

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Methodological and Theoretical Implications

The method of researching SFA programs years after the programs occurred has

implications for future research or assessments of SFA. Three of the participants that

suggested that the United States should follow up SFA training to identify the success

and take actions to correct shortcomings also stated that the follow ups should look

similar to my research. The assessment of capability development as a result of SFA

training could occur immediately following the training but assessing the military’s

capacity or the SFA program’s capacity development requires persistent engagement to

include observations made years after the conduct of SFA programs.

The failure to ensure SFA training programs included training topics that the

recipient army could utilize and that would benefit counterinsurgency operations along

with the divergent goals of the partner’s army are major implications that require changes

to future development of SFA programs. My study confirmed the existence and impact of

the agency theory’s principal-agent dilemma during the SFA training programs of my

research. My study found that the participants believed their nation and army had

objectives of higher priority than the development of capability and capacity which were

the objectives of the United States for SFA programs. The existence of the principal-

agent dilemma will continue to impact future SFA programs.

Conclusion

As domestic conflict became the global norm for conflict (Pettersson & Eck,

2018), the demands on militaries of the developing world also increased. The inability of

third world nations to manage domestic conflict created humanitarian crisis (O’Brien,

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2017) and ungoverned spaces in which international terror organizations thrived (Gat,

2012; Pettersson & Eck, 2018; The White House, 2017). Human suffering and stagnation

of human development occurred in the insecure environments effected by insurgencies.

U.S. National Security Policy during multiple administrations (The White House, 2013,

2017) aimed to reduce the issues of insurgency and the development of international

terror organizations by strengthening the security forces of partners to manage domestic

conflict.

A problem with the U.S. strategy to create secure environments is that the United

States’ efforts to develop foreign militaries has not been very successful. Past efforts to

assist partners conducting counterinsurgencies often did not result in victory (Biddle et

al., 2018; Matisek, 2018). Research from past research on SFA found that recent efforts

not only failed to achieve victory for the partner nation but did not develop capabilities

and capacities as individual programs intended (Ates, 2014; Chandra, 2008; Corum,

2007; Davis, 2014; Felicetti, 2006; Hammes, 2016; Morris, 2016; O’Connor et al., 2009;

Olden, 2014; Parker & Landay, 2016; Robinson, 2018; Watts et al., 2018).

My research of SFA training programs conducted during the past 5 years for a

Sub-Sahara African army, found that the researched programs developed limited

capabilities and no capacities that assisted the partner successfully execute their ongoing

counterinsurgency. The single positive program that developed capabilities that were

successfully used during counterinsurgency operations was a SFA unit training program.

The research participants that were members of the successful unit claimed their unit

defeated the insurgents whenever they came in contact as a result of the skills they gained

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from the SFA training. All the army leaders validated this claim and perceived that the

unit was superior in combat to similar units in their army. The evidence from my research

indicated that this unit succeeded in developing capabilities possibly because of the

duration of time and resources allocated to the training that were superior to other SFA

unit training programs. The singular successful SFA unit training program with sufficient

time, instructors, and equipment could act as a guide to improve future successful SFA

programs.

My study found no SFA training programs that developed capacity and that the

Sub-Sahara African army’s capacity was insufficient to replicate or sustain any

capabilities developed as a result of researched SFA training programs. The findings of

my study confirmed that the directive in the National Defense Authorization Act for

Fiscal Year 2017 for capacity development consideration and planning was needed to

improve SFA programs. However, the extent of the problem of identifying capacity

shortfalls and developing programs to address them will require significant effort from

the planners of future SFA programs. The planning of SFA programs should include an

improved understanding of the partner nation army’s environment in which it operates to

include all elements of capability and capacity.

The United States’ efforts to improve instruction and report on capacity should

enhance SFA programs and help address some of the causes of past SFA failures.

However, these efforts do not address one of the root causes for SFA program failure to

develop capabilities and capacities found in my study. The United States needs to

overcome its past failure of not understanding the partner nations’ environment to select

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training subjects that develop critical capabilities and to modify the instruction to the

partner’s needs. By selecting appropriate training subjects that fill an existing gap in

capability and modifying training, SFA programs to the doctrine and environment of the

recipient nation’s army will improve the effectives of SFA programs to develop partner

capabilities and capacities to defeat an insurgency and maintain security.

A Sub-Sahara African Army's Perspectives of Security Force Assistance Training Effectiveness.

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