Tweaking the Foreign Approach

The Air Force is embarking on a new global partnership strategy that it says will be a more expansive and improved means of building relationships, interoperable capabilities, and partnership capacity with international friends and allies. The new plan will replace USAF’s current security cooperation strategy, Bruce S. Lemkin, the Air Force’s deputy under secretary for International Affairs, said in a May 13 statement. It will incorporate elements of irregular warfare, security force assistance (formerly train, test, and assist activities), and building partnership capacity portfolios, in addition to the traditional counter-insurgency, foreign internal defense, security cooperation, security assistance, and international military education and training aspects of the former plan, he said. Lemkin’s office will host the first meeting of the global partnership strategy working group May 19 to 22 in Crystal City, Va., to discuss building global partnerships with representatives from across the service.