Exporting Influence: U.S. Military Training as Soft Power

Abstract

The US engages in extensive training and education of foreign militaries, often through exchange programs carried out at the different military services’ staff and war colleges. Researchers have recently explored the way in which military training can affect civil-military relations in the host country, but not much work has studied whether military training actually leads to increased US influence in these states. This paper proposes a soft-power theoretical framework to argue that foreign military training can create affinity for the U.S. that can in turn result in more pro-U.S. voting behavior in the UN General Assembly. It further expands on the military training literature by distinguishing between different military training programs.