Building Partner Capacity - Topics Covered Include Special Operations Forces (SOF), Resiliency and the Security Sector, Unraveling Military BPC Enigma, Perspectives for Strategy and Planning

This monograph deals with building partnership capacity (BPC) for U.S. national security. The author of this monograph, Dr. Rich Yarger, clearly sees BPC as a strategic necessity for reasons far beyond the current resource issues. He contends that BPC is an essential strategic concept for any practical U.S. grand strategy going forward based on the U.S. need for a positive competing world order. He addresses the questions of how SOF and others might think strategically about BPC in the 21st century environment and the implications of such thinking. In order to best develop this grand concept, he maintains that decision makers, strategists, and planners need to comprehend and develop a high level of strategic understanding and be able to distinguish between cooperation, partnering, and strategic partnerships among states and other international actors. Once this is realized, he argues, the proper focus of BPC becomes evident, and the lessons in regard to capacity building from the last two decades become much clearer. While recognizing the Joint Force and all the services and agencies play important roles in this larger picture of BPC, he reasons that USSOCOM and SOF are presented with unique opportunities and challenges in pursuit of the grand strategy. How USSOCOM deals with these will determine the SOF contribution to the grand strategy, and perhaps its ultimate success or failure. There are multiple ways of viewing the role of BPC as part of a U.S. grand or defense strategy and the place of SOF in these strategies. A healthy discussion and a great deal of change are ongoing. The ideas presented herein contribute to this discussion and further inform various perspectives and levels of consideration.