Submitting Campus
Worldwide
Department
Emergency, Disaster, and Global Security Studies
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication/Presentation Date
3-2026
Abstract/Description
This chapter explores how the U.S. Department of Defense plans and executes Building Partner Capacity projects in lower-middle and low-income partners. U.S. planners and practitioners rarely understand the effective pre-conditions that influence partner security apparatus and infrastructure. Consequently, security capabilities provided to the partner are rarely sustained and provide questionable security to the affected population. The U.S. Department of Defense uses a three-part approach to building security with partners: training and equipping, building institutional capacity, and monitoring and evaluating. U.S. security planners should manage all three parts concurrently to produce a security capability that the partner uses and sustains and lessens pressure on the U.S. This chapter will take the reader through a brief background on U.S. security exports, current U.S. DOD program planning and management principles, with particular attention given to security assessments and how getting those assessments right or wrong contribute to success or failure in the implantation of the security project.
Publication Title
Handbook of Defense Project Mangement: Foundations of Defense Project Management
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2174/97988988117781260101
Publisher
Bentham Science
Scholarly Commons Citation
Reynolds, P. W. (2026). Program Management and Building Partner Capacity: A Tangled Thicket. In Foundations of Defense Project Management (pp. 210-227). Bentham Science Publishers.
