U.S. military assistance often has a bad reputation, but it isn’t doomed to failure. This episode examines why security assistance succeeds with some partners and falls short with others, and what it takes to turn weapons and training into lasting military capability. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Charles Hooper, Dr. Richard Bennet, and Dr. Alexander Noyes are the guests.
Today’s episode explores how the United States can build effective military partners, drawing on Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes’s book, War at Arm’s Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance (Yale University Press, 2026).
Our guests begin by asking what effectiveness means, when security assistance advances U.S. interests, and how Washington should assess the results. Bennet and Noyes explain the book’s central argument that shared security interests and capable defense institutions make assistance more likely to succeed. The discussion then examines how far sustained assistance and personal relationships can bring partners’ interests closer together, and how much alignment is needed at the outset. Drawing on cases including Ukraine and Colombia, the guests explore the importance of partners’ willingness to reform and the limits of externally imposed change. The episode closes with recommendations for choosing partners, coordinating U.S. assistance, and sequencing support so that institutions can sustain the capabilities Washington helps provide.
Lieutenant General (Ret.) Charles W. Hooper is Senior Counselor at The Cohen Group and a former director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. In this role, he led the agency responsible for the sale of all US weapons, military equipment, support services, and training packages to foreign governments, which included oversight of 20,000 people globally and over $50 billion in annual sales. During his 41-year military career, he served as the Senior U.S. Defense Official in Egypt, U.S. Defense Attaché to China, and Director of Strategy, Plans, and Programs at US Africa Command and Deputy Director for Strategic Planning and Policy at US Indo-Pacific Command. He speaks fluent Mandarin and is a graduate of West Point and Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Dr. Richard Bennet is a senior research associate at the Center for International and Security Studies in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. His work examines strategic competition and the effectiveness of defense activities, drawing on experience coordinating assessments and program evaluation at multiple U.S. combatant commands. He earned his doctorate in war studies at King’s College London and is coauthor of War at Arm’s Length.
Dr. Alexander Noyes is a fellow in the Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution and coauthor of War at Arm’s Length. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a senior advisor and then deputy director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, leading efforts to evaluate security cooperation and providing policy oversight for institutional capacity building programs. He earned his doctorate at the University of Oxford.
Alexandra Chinchilla is the host for this episode. Please reach out to her with any questions about the episode or IWI.
The Irregular Warfare Podcast is a production of the Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI). We are a team of volunteers dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. IWI generates written and audio content, coordinates events for the IW community, and hosts critical thinkers in the field of irregular warfare as IWI fellows. You can follow and engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.
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All views expressed in this episode are the personal views of the participants and do not represent those of any government agency or of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.
Intro music: “Unsilenced” by Ketsa
Outro music: “Launch” by Ketsa
