The United States has different methods by which it leverages its influence on allies throughout the world. Military-to-military partnerships constitute one of the most effective methods, particularly when the U.S. seeks to influence developing nations or ones that are in the midst of difficult political transitions. However, recent events demonstrate that these mil-to-mil partnerships are not as effective as they should be. This paper seeks to examine one aspect of the mil-to-mil partnership, namely sales of U.S. military equipment through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program and the complementary Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, through which the United States provides the funding to finance said purchases. This paper argues that the United States has continually "moved the goalposts" in justifying its FMF outlays and FMS authorizations, to the effect that the United States is dependent on the continuation of the very programs that are designed to be little more than tools that allow the foreign policy establishment to influence its partners. This "strategic drift" in the mil-to-mil relationship as evidenced through the FMS/FMF program is examined in detail in Egypt, with a focus on events that have transpired since longtime President Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February 2011. The paper seeks to demonstrate that when FMS/FMF is tied to external agreements upon which the United States is dependent - whether diplomatic or military - it creates an incentive for planners in both the Departments of Defense and State to resort to self-justifying analyses bearing little resemblance to the original purpose of the FMS/FMF agreements or to the United States' legitimate national interest in a given region. Large scale reforms of the architecture of security assistance, both political and administrative, are unlikely to occur for a variety of reasons that are touched upon in the paper. By looking at the historical, political, and military aspects of security assistance more broadly, the paper argues that if the United States wants to achieve clarity on whether its security assistance programs truly serve the United States' best interests, it will need to do so at lower levels in the relative implementing agencies. / text

This research project studies the military exchanges between the United States and People's Republic of China. US-PRC relations have experienced uneven developments over the last decadeas the two major powers have grappled with the evolving post-Cold War international security Environment as well as shifting domestic agendas and foreign policy priorities. While the October 2002 Crawford summit between Presidents Bush and Jiang, and the resumption of the Defense Consultation Talks in December 2002 offer the prospect for restoring bilateral military exchanges. For a more stable bilateral military relationship to develop and be sustained, longer-term strategies must be formulated that emphasize engagement, exchanges, and better understanding of each other's common interests, priorities, and policy options. Among the key features of this relationship are high-level exchange visits of defense ministers and military leaders; confidence-building measures, including the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, annual Defense Consultation Talks, and port visits; and regular contacts at the functional level between the two countries' national defense universities and military academies. The EP-3 incident raised the importance of China in the Bush Administration's immediate policy agenda. The resolution of the incident has pointed to the need for dialogue. The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks provided additional impetuses for rebuilding the bilateral relationship, including efforts to restore military-to-military exchanges.

Orientador: Sebastião Carlos Velasco e Cruz / Resumo: O tema abordado nessa tese corresponde às relações entre os Estados Unidos e América Latina no início do século XXI, tendo como foco os casos de Brasil e Argentina e os temas atinentes à área de Segurança Internacional. As relações interamericanas são marcadas por intensa assimetria de poder, portanto, podem ser enquadradas no âmbito mais geral das dinâmicas entre grandes potências e países periféricos. Todavia, possuem importantes particularidades e entender o desenvolvimento histórico torna-se essencial para explicar as dinâmicas hemisféricas. Embora as relações Estados Unidos-América Latina tenham se desenvolvido com base em um paradigma de clientelismo – de cooperação assimétrica no campo militar – e de dependência econômica – de produção nacional condicionada por decisões externas – esses dois fatores foram questionados em alguns períodos, quando houve busca de autonomia por parte de governos latino-americanos. Considerando-se esse contexto, questiona-se: por que houve, no Brasil e na Argentina, uma retomada dos projetos de autonomia com relação aos Estados Unidos no início do século XXI e como ela expressou-se no campo da segurança internacional? Como hipótese, entende-se que a retomada dos projetos de autonomia foi provocada pelas mudanças nas coalizões politicamente predominantes na Argentina e no Brasil e pelas mudanças no cenário internacional, com o aumento da atuação chinesa na América Latina. Não houve negligência dos EUA em relação à região e, apesar dos desafio... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The thesis’ main subject is the relationship between the United States and Latin America, at the beginning of the 21st century, focusing on the Brazilian and Argentinean cases and security issues. Intense asymmetry of power is the main feature of the Inter-American relations and, therefore, they denote relations between great powers and peripheral countries. Nevertheless, they are also specific, and it is essential to analyze the historical developments to understand the Western Hemisphere international dynamics. The inter-American relations are marked by clientelism – meaning asymmetrical military cooperation - and economic dependency – meaning that the national economies’ dynamics are influenced by external factors. However, this reality was disputed by Latin American governments in different historical conjunctures. Guided by these assumptions, the main question is: why there was, in the Brazilian and Argentina cases, an autonomy project resumption at the beginning of the 21st century and how was it expressed on security issues? As a hypothesis, I argue that the sources of the autonomy projects were the changes in domestic politics and the China inroads in the Western Hemisphere. There was no U.S. negligence towards the region, but the challenges imposed by China were growing, and the United States maintained its capacity to impose costs and incentives to the Latin American governments. Moreover, security cooperation was a source of U.S. influence. The thesis has five chap... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor