I do think the basic idea for partnering with these fragile state militaries is pretty simple.

It's that there's increased state fragility.

This fragility affects the United States, particularly given the nature of transnational threats,

but especially post 9-11, the U.S. doesn't want to have the military deal with it.

Then Secretary of Defense Gates was pretty clear that this was going to be the future.

It was going to be about

working with partner militaries and fragile states. So when I left to do my doctorate,

this idea was sort of gnawing at me. If this was going to be the future, probably make sense

for us to look at the past and figure out when have we done it well and how.

Hey, welcome to another episode of the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Ambo, editorial director at MWI.

And in this episode, MWI's major Jake Moraldi sits down for a conversation with Dr. Mara

Carlin.

Dr. Carlin has served in national security roles for five U.S. Secretaries of Defense and is the

author of a book called Building Militaries in Fragile States.

In this conversation, she explains how that imperative to build military forces in some

pretty unstable countries has become a central part of U.S. strategy.

Why does not just our military, but our entire

defense enterprise, prioritize this undertaking? And perhaps more importantly, why is it so hard?

It's a really interesting discussion. One I think our listeners will enjoy, but before we get to it,

just a couple quick notes. First, if you aren't yet following MWI and social media,

find us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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