McNair Paper Number 44, Chapter 5, October 1995

Since its inception during the Cold War, even as the international environment changes, foreign military education and training programs have been guided by two sets of interests:

U.S. security interests--promoting stability within and among allied and friendly states by improving their self-defense capabilitiesU.S. diplomatic interests--strengthening bonds of mutual understanding. These original objectives remain relevant; only U.S. efforts to achieve them have changed. For example, policy engagement today still tries to strengthen self-defense capabilities of other states, but the United States now advocates responsibility sharing, urging regional cooperative defense arrangements, to promote mid- to long-term stability. Washington's aggressive efforts to promote and support democracy since the Cold War ended, furthermore, have given new impetus and life to the 1976 aim in the IMET legislation of strengthening mutual understanding between the United States and its friends and allies.

The INSS team drew no hard and fast distinctions between U.S. enduring security and diplomatic interests. Both have relevance and both are essential. The team also avoided efforts to weigh relative importance to the U.S. among candidate countries using grant and FMS funding. The study group concentrated instead on assessing, from a U.S. national perspective, the effectiveness of the education and training that IMET and other programs make possible in three areas drawn from the above mentioned sets of interests. These include the program's contribution to achieving long-term stability worldwide, improving cooperative military relations with the United States, and supporting U.S. diplomatic interests overseas and economic interests at home.