In this report, the authors use 11 case studies to create a typology of the barriers that impede U.S. security cooperation with highly capable allies and partners; identify some of the more specific barriers in the air, space, and cyber domains; suggest mitigation strategies for each of these barriers; and propose a preliminary approach for implementing some of these mitigation strategies.

Overcoming Barriers to Working with Highly Capable Allies and Partners in the Air, Space, and Cyber Domains

An Exploratory Analysis

Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Stephanie Pezard, David E. Thaler, Gene Germanovich, Beth Grill, Bruce McClintock, Karen Schwindt, Mary Kate Adgie, Anika Binnendijk, Kevin J. Connolly, et al.

ResearchPublished Jul 5, 2023

Cover: Overcoming Barriers to Working with Highly Capable Allies and Partners in the Air, Space, and Cyber Domains
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The Department of the Air Force (DAF), like the entire U.S. Department of Defense, has been directed to support the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which prioritizes defending the homeland and deterring attacks against the United States and its allies and partners. The National Defense Strategy emphasizes that mutually beneficial alliances and partnerships are an enduring strength for the United States and are critical to achieving U.S. objectives. Highly capable U.S. allies and partners have much to offer in these efforts. Highly capable allies and partners have regional and country expertise, deployment experience, logistics understanding, and intelligence from relationships that complement U.S. knowledge. In short, they can play a central role by providing forces, access, intelligence, technology, and legitimacy to U.S.-led operations. They also have innovative capabilities and approaches to working with additional partners.

In this report, the authors use 11 case studies to create a typology of the barriers that impede U.S. security cooperation (SC) with highly capable allies and partners; identify some of the more specific barriers in the air, space, and cyber domains; suggest mitigation strategies for each of these barriers; and propose a preliminary approach for implementing some of these mitigation strategies.

Key Takeaways

  • One of the air case studies suggests that differences in strategic priorities between the United States and its ally or partner can lead to unrealized expectations and diminished cooperation.
  • The space case studies suggest that (1) the large size and complexity of space programs and the lack of a single voice across the U.S. space SC enterprise challenge the scale and pace of collaboration and (2) the DAF and other U.S. organizations appear to have insufficient human resources to enable the level of space SC envisioned by strategy.
  • The cyber case studies suggest that (1) the United States and its allies and partners often have differing views over what they consider to be “sensitive” information and (2) similar to the space community, the cyber community suffers from the lack of a single voice within the cybersecurity cooperation enterprise.
  • Across domains, the case studies suggest that (1) allies and partners are rarely included in concept and system development phases, (2) the extent and speed of communication between the United States and its allies and partners are limited, and (3) there are technical collaborative infrastructure constraints that inhibit the ability of the United States and its allies and partners to share information.
  • In addition, (4) slow bureaucratic execution can impede SC, (5) some U.S. regulations impede rather than support SC, particularly with fast-evolving technologies, (6) failure to account for a partner's political constraints can slow cooperation activities, and (7) there is an overall lack of incentive, tasking, and understanding of priorities for combined SC partnering in third countries.

Recommendations

  • The DAF and allies and partners would benefit from a review of the legal authorities for the roles and the placement of exchanges, nonreciprocal exchanges, and liaison officers, many of which are legacy positions.
  • Given the increase in demand for technical expertise in new and growing SC domains (space, cyber), it would be helpful for the DAF to ensure that the foreign disclosure community is enabled with sufficient technical or domain-specific expertise (and embedded in the relevant organizations) to make rapid decisions.
  • It would be useful to look for ways for the DAF to improve its advocacy for the inclusion of international equities throughout a program's life cycle. This could include the identification of a DAF "champion" for each major U.S. capability development initiative to improve transparency and accountability internally and streamline communications with highly capable allies and partners.
  • The DAF would benefit from supporting additional allied and partner access to collaborative platforms to facilitate cooperation and information-sharing. Cyber cooperation, in particular, could benefit from such efforts.

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Moroney, Jennifer D. P., Stephanie Pezard, David E. Thaler, Gene Germanovich, Beth Grill, Bruce McClintock, Karen Schwindt, Mary Kate Adgie, Anika Binnendijk, Kevin J. Connolly, Katie Feistel, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Alison K. Hottes, Moon Kim, Isabelle Nazha, Gabrielle Tarini, Mark Toukan, and Jalen Zeman, Overcoming Barriers to Working with Highly Capable Allies and Partners in the Air, Space, and Cyber Domains: An Exploratory Analysis. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA968-1.html.
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The research reported here was commissioned by the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs and conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.

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