McNair Paper Number 44, Chapter 3, October 1995

The IMET program is not the only funding source for U.S. professional military education and technical training. Others include a recently introduced grant program in the State Department's counternarcotics account, as well as the traditional option to purchase instruction through Foreign Military Sales (FMS). In essence, the United States implements a dual track strategy of selling foreign military training to wealthier states and providing grant aid to those unable to afford such training.

For the first group, countries use FMS, often at lower rates, to purchase technical training relating to the operation, maintenance, and management of equipment purchased from the Army, Air Force, and Navy (including Marine Corps and Coast Guard programs). Interest in proficiency training is less prevalent today; many states now have their own technical schools or have purchased military systems and material from countries other than the United States and use their training programs. The purchase of U.S. professional military education for junior and middle-grade officers with leadership potential has increased significantly, however. Courses on defense resource management are heavily enrolled. Over the last 7 years, the Foreign Military Sales alternative has been the more heavily traveled path in strengthening bilateral military relations with friends and allies. Table 1, for example, indicates that over 50 percent of visiting Army students receive instruction funded by FMS. (The percentage of Navy and Air Force students is even higher--over 80 percent.)

The second track, grant International Military Education and Training, with annual guidelines developed by authorizing and appropriating committees, provides direction for the management of all foreign training through the Defense Security Assistance Agency's (DSAA) Security Assistance Management Manual.(Note 8) As a result, the term IMET has become both the acronym for an important formal grant program and a commonly misapplied designator for the entire foreign training program (e.g., as a designator for the FMS component). For purposes of evaluation, it is difficult to isolate IMET-funded experiences from other programs. The only identifier is the limited financial resources of countries chosen by the State Department to receive IMET assistance. This standard is unreliable, however, because, for reasons of policy, some states receive a small allocation of funds in order to purchase reduced-cost training. The principal programs--IMET and FMS--accomplish comparable objectives, sometimes for the same country. Students attend the same courses, experience U.S. culture together, have comparable opportunities to apply their training, and rise to positions of prominence later in life. As this study suggests, U.S. policy successes stemming from access to U.S. military education are the results of the entire U.S. foreign military education and training system. To avoid confusion, this report uses "foreign military education and training," "security assistance training," and "foreign military education" as terms for the larger system of which IMET is a part.

TABLE 1. International military student training spaces annual total, FY 1988-1994: U.S. Army

Fiscal Year 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

Foreign Military Sales $5051 (50%) 5297 (54%) 4488 (51%) 4812 (54%) 3815 (57%) 3875 (58%) 5825 (75%)

IMET Funding $4998 4594 4350 4172 2889 2776 1971

*The drop between FY 1991 and 1992 reflects a reduction in the IMET appropriation and a temporary reduction in the number of foreign training spaces and U.S. military courses offered during and immediately after Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Along the spectrum of bilateral foreign policy instruments, IMET, and only IMET, fills a specific, narrow, multifaceted niche. There are five aspects unique to this program:

Currently, IMET funding provides Professional Military Education (PME) and Technical Training in English for foreign officers, enlisted and selected civilian personnel at U.S. military schools (other than service academies), and various training facilities. Foreign students normally attend the same courses and work side-by-side with U.S. students. (Programs in some countries, such as France and Taiwan, segregate foreign students.) There are a small number of special programs offered at civilian schools and institutions and some technical training conducted for all-international military student classes, usually for a particular weapons system.

Congressional appropriations for IMET since 1976 have fluctuated, reflecting trends in U.S. foreign policy and the climate of executive-legislative relations. Table 2 and figures 1 and 2 show the annual IMET appropriation between 1976 and 1996, the number of participating countries in the same time frame, as well as the number of IMET students each year. During the first 5 years of enactment under economy-influenced legislative controls, a median IMET budget of $27.3 million covered an average of 44 countries. The student population decreased during this period by roughly 50 percent (7,000 to 3,600). In succeeding years, both dollar levels and foreign participation increased dramatically, averaging $48.5 million and 92 countries between 1982 and 1993. The IMET student population reached a peak of 6,700 in 1985, and then declined steadily until 1994, when it bottomed out at 2,100. Over the last 2 years, reflecting renewed budget cuts in all security assistance programs, the median appropriation level fell significantly to $24 million.(Note 9) However, the number of established and newly democratic countries receiving small amounts of IMET funding jumped to a record 2-year average of 108 states. Since FY 1991, over 26 new country programs were initiated, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and Africa.

TABLE 2. IMET annual appropriations and country programs, FY 1976-FY 1996 (dollars in thousands; students in hundreds)

Fiscal Year 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 (planned)

Appropriated 28,750 25,000 30,000 27,900 25,000 28,400 42,000 46,000 51,532 56,221 54,490 56,000 47,400 47,400 47,196 47,196 44,573 42,500 22,250 26,350 39,781

Number of Countries* 42 46 41 40 52 62 72 80 86 91 96 96 98 95 94 97 99 105 103 114 113

Number of Students 70 48 44 38 36 50 62 66 60 66 62 63 56 53 45 49 44 45 21 28 (estimate)

* This column identifies the number of countries that funded IMET programs during a particular fiscal year. The 1996 figure represents those countries programmed to be funded, subject to legislative and policy considerations that might restrict planned programs from being funded.

The Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA) estimates that, between FY 1976 and FY 1994, over 98,000 students from 105 countries have received instruction at more than 150 military schools and installations throughout the United States and abroad, including U.S. Coast Guard facilities, under the IMET grant program.(Note 10) They have received formal instruction selected from over 2,000 courses, on-the-job training, observer training (such as for foreign medical personnel), and orientation tours (e.g., for senior defense officials). On occasion, specialized instruction by a Service "mobile training team" (MTT) has been conducted outside the United States.

In reviewing these data for U.S. foreign military education and training, it is easy to miss the singularity of the highly successful FMS and IMET programs. There is no comparable historical example of so many diverse sovereign states augmenting the professional development of their armed forces by entrusting so many potential national leaders to the education and training of another state. While other countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Taiwan and Canada have offered similar forms of security assistance, and still do, the global scale undertaken by the United States continues to be unprecedented. The U.S. approach also is exceptional for a second reason. Both programs, IMET and FMS, facilitate the only educational opportunities available through the U.S. Government in which military and civilian students share confidence-building experiences, which lead to greater mutual understanding.