Order Code RL32773
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
The Global Peace Operations Initiative:
Background and Issues for Congress
Updated October 3, 2006
Nina M. Serafino
Specialist in International Security Affairs
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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The Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background
and Issues for Congress
Summary
The Administration has requested $102.6 million in FY2007 funds for the
Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), a multilateral, five-year program with
planned U.S. contributions of some $660 million from FY2005 through FY2009. Its
primary purpose is to train and equip 75,000 military troops, a majority of them
African, for peacekeeping operations by 2010. GPOI also supports an Italian training
center for gendarme (constabulary police) forces in Vicenza, Italy. In addition,
GPOI is promoting the development of an international transportation and logistics
support system for peacekeepers, and is encouraging an information exchange to
improve international coordination of peace operations training and exercises in
Africa. In June 2004, G8 leaders pledged to support the goals of the initiative.
GPOI incorporates previous capabilities-building programs for Africa. From
FY1997-FY2005, the United States spent just over $121 million on GPOI’s
predecessor program that was funded through the State Department Peacekeeping
(PKO) account: the Clinton Administration’s African Crisis Response Initiative
(ACRI) and its successor, the Bush Administrations’s African Crisis Operations
Training (ACOTA). (The term ACOTA is now used to refer to GPOI’s training
program in Africa.) Through mid-2005, the United States trained troops from nine
African nations — Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali,
Mozambique, and Senegal. Subsequently, three African nations were added to the
roster: Gabon, South Africa, and Zambia, and a fourth, Nigeria, is scheduled to join
the program in 2006. Some $33 million was provided from FY1998-FY2005 to
support classroom training of 31 foreign militaries through the Foreign Military
Financing account’s Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities program
(EIPC).
In mid-2005, the Administration began expanding the geographical scope of
GPOI to selected countries in Central America and Europe with supplemental
funding in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2005 (H.R. 4818, P.L. 108-
447). It also has established a communications network in Asia.
For FY2007, the Administration requested $102.6 million for GPOI funding.
In its action on the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs
Appropriations Bill for FY2007 (H.R. 5522, passed July 9, 2006), the House
provided $82 million for GPOI. The Senate Appropriations Committee’s (SAC)
version of the bill contains no GPOI earmark. Senate appropriators expressed
discontent with State Department management of the program. They recommended
transfer of GPOI funding from the PKO to the Foreign Military Financing (FMF)
account.
An issue for the second session of the 109th Congress is whether international
training efforts through GPOI and its predecessor programs are having the desired
effect. Another issue at the close of the session is whether a transfer of funding
accounts as proposed by the SAC would be beneficial. This report will be updated
as events warrant.

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Contents
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
GPOI Purposes and Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
GPOI Goals and Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Demand for Peacekeepers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Need for Gendarme/Constabulary Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
U.S. Peacekeeping Training in Africa through FY2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Development of the “Beyond Africa” Program in 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Foreign Response and Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Italian Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units
(CoESPU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Administration Requests and Congressional Action
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
FY2005 GPOI Funding and Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Congressional Action on FY2006 Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
FY2007 Administration Program and Funding Request, and
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
House Appropriations Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Senate Appropriations Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Issues for the 109th Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Are International Training Efforts Through GPOI and its
Predecessor Programs Having the Desired Effect? . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What Are the Practical Implications of Moving GPOI Funding from
the PKO to the FMF Account? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What International Contributions Support CoESPU and Should They
Be Increased? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

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The Global Peace Operations Initiative:
Background and Issues for Congress
Background
The Bush Administration has requested $102.6 million in FY2007 State
Department funding for the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI). The
Administration launched the five-year (FY2005-FY2009) $660 million initiative in
mid-2004 as a means to alleviate the perceived shortage worldwide of trained
peacekeepers and “gendarmes” (police with military skills, a.k.a. constabulary
police), as well as to increase available resources to transport and sustain them.
While the United States has provided considerable support to implement several
peace processes and to support peacekeepers in the field from a variety of budget
accounts for well over a decade, it has provided relatively little funding to build up
foreign military capabilities to perform peacekeeping operations.1
The United States previously provided peacekeeping capacity-building
assistance to foreign militaries primarily under two programs, the African
Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program (ACOTA) and its
predecessor program, and the Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities
program (EIPC). Both ACOTA and EPIC have been subsumed under the GPOI
budget line. ACOTA is now the term used to refer to the Africa training component
of GPOI.
Impetus for GPOI came from the Department of Defense (DOD), where officials
in the Office of Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) worked
with the State Department for over a year and a half to develop the proposal.
Officials in SO/LIC’s section on peacekeeping developed the plan as a means to
expand and improve the ACOTA program - with more and better exercises and more
equipment - as well as to extend the program beyond Africa to other parts of the
world. Policymakers hoped that the availability of peacekeeping training would
encourage more countries to participate in peacekeeping operations, enable current
donors to provide a greater number of troops, and increase the number of countries
which potentially could serve as lead nations, according to some analysts.
The GPOI budget is part of the Foreign Operations Appropriations
Peacekeeping (PKO) account, also known as the “voluntary” Peacekeeping account,
under the Military Assistance rubric. The PKO account funds activities carried out
1 The term “peacekeeping” is used generically here. It covers the range of activities referred
to elsewhere as peace operations, stability operations, or stabilization and reconstruction
(S&R)operations.

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under Section 551 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (FAA).2
Section 551 authorizes the President to provide assistance for peacekeeping
operations and other programs to further U.S. national security interests “on such
terms and conditions as he may determine.” (This provides some flexibility to the
President, but is not tantamount to the discretion that he can exercise when funding
is provided “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”)
GPOI Purposes and Activities
In his September 21, 2004 address to the opening meeting of the 59th session of
the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush asserted that the world “must create
permanent capabilities to respond to future crises.” In particular, he pointed to a need
for “more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious
violence and ethnic cleansing.” A similar rationale prompted the Clinton
Administration to formulate the ACRI training program in 1996 and underlies the
current search for new strategies and mechanisms to prevent and control conflicts.3
GPOI Goals and Needs
To accomplish these ends, GPOI, has three major goals:
! Train some 75,000 troops worldwide, with an emphasis on Africa,
in peacekeeping skills by 2010. (The number is the total to be
trained by all participating countries, according to a State
Department official.)
! Support Italy in establishing a center to train international gendarme
(constabulary) forces to participate in peacekeeping operations (see
section below); and
! Foster an international deployment and logistics support system to
transport peacekeepers to the field and maintain them there.
Through GPOI, the State Department also promotes the exchange of information
among donors on peace operations training and exercises in Africa. This is
accomplished through donors meetings which serve as a “clearinghouse” to facilitate
2 The State Department’s Peacekeeping Operations account (i.e., PKO, also known as the
“voluntary” peacekeeping account) funds U.S. contributions to peacekeeping efforts other
than assessed contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations. U.N. assessed contributions
are funded through the State Department’s Contributions to International Peacekeeping
Account (CIPA).
3 For more information on this topic, see CRS Report RL32862, Peacekeeping and Conflict
Transitions: Background and Congressional Action on Civilian Capabilities, by Nina M.
Serafino and Martin A. Weiss.

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CRS-3
coordination. The first of these State Department meetings was held in Washington,
D.C. on October 7-8, 2004.4
Demand for Peacekeepers. For many analysts, continued efforts to
improve the peacekeeping skills of African and other military forces is an important
step towards controlling devastating conflicts, particularly in Africa. In the mid-
1990s, several developed nations provided most of the peacekeepers. The perception
that developed nations would not be able to sustain the burden indefinitely, as well
as the perception that the interests of those nations in Africa were not sufficient to
ensure needed troop commitments there, led international capacity-building efforts
to focus on Africa.
As of the end of December 2004, shortly after GPOI first started up, almost
25,000 of the nearly 58,000 military personnel who were participating in the current
17 U.N. peacekeeping operations were from the 22 African troop-contributing
nations. (African nations provided over half of the military personnel — roughly
24,000 of 47,000 — in the seven U.N. peacekeeping operations in Africa.) Africa’s
military contribution to U.N. peacekeeping at the end of 2004 was over double that
at the end of 2000; five of the top ten African contributors, who provided some 98%
of the military contribution, received training under the ACRI/ACOTA program.
African contributions to the U.N. international civilian police pool (CIVPOL)
remained just about the same over those four years: 1,213 in December 2004 (of a
total of 6,765 from all nations) compared to 1,088 in December 2000.
African militaries also participate in regional peacekeeping operations under the
auspices of the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) and the
African Union (AU). (The first ECOWAS peacekeeping mission was deployed to
Liberia in 1990. Subsequent missions were deployed to Liberia once again, Guinea
Bissau, Sierra Leone, and most recently the Côte d’Ivoire. The AU deployed its first
peacekeepers to Burundi in 2003 and Sudan in 2004. All missions but Sudan
eventually became U.N. operations.) Both organizations are trying to develop an
African stand-by peacekeeping force, comprised of contributions from five regional
organizations, by 2010. Under GPOI, the United States will work to enhance and
support the command structures and multilateral staff of ECOWAS and the AU.
Need for Gendarme/Constabulary Forces. A second capability in short
supply is the specialized units of police with military skills to handle temporary
hostile situations such as unruly crowds.5 Several countries have such forces, i.e., the
4 The United States European Command (EUCOM) held two previous “clearinghouse”
meetings in May and December 2004.
5 Gendarme/constabulary forces are trained in both military and policing skills, but are less
heavily armed than soldiers. According to the Clinton Administration’s Presidential
Decision Directive 71 (PDD-71), constabulary tasks include the regulation of peoples’
movements when necessary to ensure safety; interventions “to stop civil violence, such as
vigilante lynchings or other violent public crimes” and to “stop and deter widespread or
organized looting, vandalism, riots or other mob-type action;”and the dispersal of “unruly
or violent public demonstrations and civil disturbances.” (Text: The Clinton Administration
(continued...)

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Italian carabinieri, the French gendarmerie, and the Spanish Guardia Civil, among
others. In the United States these are referred to as constabulary forces.
U.S. Peacekeeping Training in Africa through FY2005
Since 1996, the United States has provided field and staff training to develop
military capabilities for peacekeeping through the African Crisis Response Initiative
(ACRI) and its successor program, ACOTA, which as of 2005 was subsumed under
GPOI. From its inception through FY2005, the United States trained6 troops from
nine African nations — Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali,
Mozambique, and Senegal.7 (It also trained a small number of gendarmes who
received the same training as the others.) The United States also provides non-lethal
equipment to the militaries which it trains.8 Initially, under ACRI, U.S. soldiers
provided field training and oversaw classroom training provided by private
contractors.9 Because of the demand for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan,
private contractors also began to conduct field training.
During FY2005, some 11,000 African troops were trained and a total of 14,000
are expected to be trained with FY2005 funds. This included the training of six
battalions from Senegal which were subsequently deployed to specific peacekeeping
5 (...continued)
White Paper on Peace Operations, February 24, 2000, pp 9-10.) Constabulary forces often
can deploy more rapidly than other international civilian police because they usually deploy
as “formed units” (i.e., in previously formed working groups) instead of as individuals. They
also are often equipped with their own communication and logistical support. See CRS
Report RL32321, Policing in Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Problems and
Proposed Solutions, by Nina M. Serafino.
6 ACRI provided training in traditional peacekeeping skills where there is an existing cease-
fire or peace accord. The more muscular ACOTA, initiated in 2002, has also provided
training in the skills needed for African troops to perform peacekeeping tasks in more
hostile environments, including force protection, light-infantry operations and small-unit
tactics. Information from a State Department official and Col. Russell J. Handy, USAF,
Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance: Developing Training Partnerships for
the Future of Africa. Air and Space Power Journal, Fall 2003, as posted online at
[http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/fal03/handy.html]. ACOTA
also put greater emphasis on the “train the trainer” aspect. As of 2005, training packages
included Command and Staff Operations Skills, Command Post Exercises (i.e., exercises,
often computer-bases, of headquarters commanders and staff) and Peace Support Operations
Soldier Skills field training, according to a State Department fact sheet.
7 Ugandan troops were trained briefly under ACRI. That training was halted because of
Ugandan involvement in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
8 This includes communications packages, uniforms, boots, generators, mine detectors,
Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and medical and water purification equipment.
9 MPRI and Northrup Grummon Information Technology (NGIT) are both qualified to bid
for State Department contracts. According to a State Department official, many of the
trainers provided by the private contractors are military retirees or reservists.

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missions,10 and three battalions from Botswana who anticipated deployment.
Training for a 7th Senegalese battalion and a battalion from a new partner, Gabon,
began training in FY2005 and continued training into FY2006. Predeployment
training began in November 2005 for Mali and Senegal. Also during FY2006,
ACOTA will sponsor training for Benin, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
and Mozambique, as well as for two new African partners, South Africa and Zambia.
Military personnel from a third new partner, Nigeria, will join the program in
November 2005 as part of an observation team and later, in March and April 2006,
Nigerian personal will receive “train the trainer” training. Another battalion from
Gabon will be trained in February and March 2006.
Funding for ACRI, which like ACOTA was provided under the State
Department’s Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) account, totaled $83.6 million during
its six fiscal years (FY1997-FY2002). (Additional support for ACRI was provided
through the Foreign Military Financing program.) ACOTA was funded at $8 million
in FY2003, $15 million in FY2004, and $14.88 million for FY2005.
Other support for classroom training of foreign militaries was provided through
the EIPC, a “train the trainer” program which began in FY1998 and was subsumed
under the GPOI rubric. EIPC provided assistance to selected countries — some 31
as of early 2005 — by designing and implementing a comprehensive, country-
specific peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance training and education program
to enhance a nation’s institutional structure to train and deploy peacekeepers. EIPC
funding, provided under the Foreign Military Financing Program, has totaled about
$33.3 million, including an estimated $1.79 million in spending in FY2005.
Development of the “Beyond Africa” Program in 2005
The State Department initiated the “Beyond Africa” training and equipping
program in mid-July 200511 in order to extend GPOI training to three new regions:
Latin America, Europe, and Asia. (As in Africa, some equipment is provided during
training, but only that needed for the training itself. Trained troops are not provided
with equipment needed for operations until they deploy.)

In Central America, GPOI funds were to be used to train and equip soldiers from
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as to upgrade an existing
facility in order to establish a peacekeeping training center in Guatemala. The
intention is to stand up a battalion of about 600 Central American troops.
In Europe, the first countries whose troops were offered training under GPOI
were Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the Ukraine. GPOI funds were also to be
used to provide pre-deployment training for a “South East Europe Brigade”
10 The Senegalese have been trained to participate in missions in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC), the Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, and Darfur.
11 The Department of Defense transferred the $80 million in P.L. 108-447 (Division J
Section 117) supplemental appropriations to be used for GPOI programs in June 2005.
Funds became available for obligation in mid-July, 15 days after the State Department
notified Congress of its spending plans.

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(SEEBRIG) of soldiers from Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Macedonia in
preparation for their participation in the International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF), the NATO peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.
In Asia, the first countries to be extended train-and-equip assistance and
provided some logistical support were Bangladesh, Malaysia, Mongolia, and
Thailand. GPOI funds were also used to expand the Asia-Pacific Area Network
(APAN) communications capabilities by installing software and hardware in the
peacekeeping centers of these four countries.
Foreign Response and Contributions
G8 leaders12 endorsed the GPOI goals (above) at their June 2004 summit
meeting at Sea Island, GA, adopting an “Action Plan on Expanding Global
Capability for Peace Support Operations.”13 (This was actually the third G8 Action
Plan concerning peacekeeping in Africa. In June 2002, the G8 Summit at
Kananaskis, Canada, adopted a broad Africa Action Plan that contained sections on
conflict resolution and peace-building efforts. The more specific Joint Africa /G8
Plan to Enhance African Capabilities to Undertake Peace Support Operations was
developed over the next year and presented at the June 2003 Summit at Evian-les-
baines, France.14) As indicated by the GPOI “clearinghouse” concept, several G8
countries already have significant programs in Africa. In addition to the United
States, France and the United Kingdom (UK) conduct bilateral training programs
with African militaries. Germany and the UK provided the assistance necessary to
launch the regional Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in
Ghana, which opened in 2004; the European Union and other countries, most
prominently Canada, Italy, France and the Netherlands, have also assisted the Center.
The Italian Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (CoESPU).
In his September 2004 speech to the United Nations, President Bush referred to Italy
as a joint sponsor of GPOI, because it co-sponsored with the United States the Sea
Island G8 peacekeeping action plan. Italy also had moved to establish a school for
training gendarme forces even before the United States Congress had provided
funding for U.S. support for the school. Italian carabinieri, who are widely viewed
as a leading model and have played a prominent role in providing constabulary forces
to peacekeeping and stabilization operations,15 established the Center of Excellence
for Stability Police Units (CoESPU) as an international training center at Vicenza in
March 2005. Italy is providing not only the facility, but also most of 130-plus person
12 G8 refers to the “Group of 8” major industrialized democracies: Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. G8 heads of state,
plus representatives from the European Union, meet at annual summits.
13 Text available at [http://www.g8usa.gov/d_061004c.htm].
14 Texts available at [http://www.g8.gc.ca/2002Kananaskis/kananaskis/afraction-en.pdf] and
[http://www.g8.gc.ca/AFRIQUE-01june-en.asp].
15 According to Carabinieri officials interviewed by the author, as of mid-November 2004,
some 1,300 carabinieri were deployed in missions to Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Albania,
and Palestine.

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staff for the “train the trainer” program. The U.S. contribution of $10 million for the
school’s operation and training programs was transferred to Italy in late September
2005. (According to CoESPU officials, the U.S. contribution covers about one-third
the cost of running the school.)16 CoESPU’s goal, by 2010, is to train 3,000 mid-to-
high ranking personnel at Vicenza and an additional 4,000 in formed units in their
home countries.17
The first CoESPU high-level class graduated on December 7, 2005. About 29
senior officers (staff officers ranking from Lt. Colonels to Colonels and their civilian
equivalents) attended the four-and-a-half week course (approximately 150 classroom
hours) for training in international organizations, international law (including
international humanitarian law), military arts in peace support operations, tactical
doctrine, operating in mixed international environments with hybrid chains of
command, and the selection, training, and organization of police units for
international peace support operations. The first class consisted of officers from
Cameroon, India, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, and Senegal. CoESPU intends to offer
four high-level courses per year.
A pilot course to train about 100 junior officers and senior non-commissioned
officers (sergeant majors to captains and the civilian equivalents) began on January
13, 2006, and was completed seven weeks later. Students for this course were drawn
from the same six countries as those at the first-high level course. This seven-week
course covered the materials taught in the high-level course with an emphasis on
training in the more practical aspects, including check point procedures, VIP security
and escorts, high-risk arrests, border control, riot control, election security, and police
self-defense techniques. CoESPU intends to offer five such middle management
courses per year.
Many more countries have indicated that they would like to send students to the
CoESPU courses. As of mid-2006, 18 other countries expressed interest in sending
students, according to CoESPU. These were Bangladesh, Benin, Bulgaria, Chile,
Costa Rica, Gabon, Ghana, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines,
Serbia, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, and the Ukraine.
CoESPU is also developing a lessons-learned and doctrine writing capability in
order to serve as an interactive resource for SPUs. It intends to develop a coherent
and comprehensive SPU doctrine to promote interoperability in the field, to ensure
that doctrine is the basis of training standards and methods, and to respond to
questions from SPU commanders in the field, as well as to support pre-mission and
in-theater training exercises.
16 Author’s interviews at CoESPU, June 2006.
17 The data in this sentence and the following three paragraphs was provided by CoESPU
officials in October 2005, except for the list of countries participating in the course
beginning in January 2006, which was taken from a dispatch of the Italian news agency,
ANSA, “Esercito: Ufficiali PS Paesi Afroasiatici a Lezione di Pace,” posted on the
Caribinieri website, [http://www.carabinieri.it].

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Administration Requests and Congressional Action
FY2005 GPOI Funding and Activities
Although the initiative had long been in the works, President Bush approved
GPOI in April 2004, two months after the FY2005 budget request was submitted to
Congress. To fund the initiative at $100 million in FY2005, the Administration
proposed that 80% be contained in the DOD budget and the remaining 20% be
ACOTA funds in the State Department budget. The Armed Services committees did
not back GPOI, because of concerns that its inclusion in the DOD budget would
divert funds from U.S. troops. GPOI’s strongest support seemed to come from
Senate foreign affairs authorizers and appropriators.
Of the $96.7 million in GPOI funding that Congress provided for FY2005,18
State Department plans called for over a third (about $35 million) to be spent on
Africa programs (i.e., for training African troops in peacekeeping and for support to
headquarters of African organizations) and about one-fifth ($20 million) for
“Beyond Africa” training. (Training expenditures include the cost of equipment used
during training.) A little under a third ($29 million) was to be spent on the
acquisition and storage of equipment for distribution to trained troops when they
deploy to missions and for other deployment support, and the remainder for other
purposes. The following chart provides a breakdown of plans, by region and
function, as of August 2005. (Total does not add due to rounding.)
Program
Amount
Africa Training
$29.0 million
Africa Headquarters Support
$ 6.3 million
Latin America Training
$ 6.5 million
Asia Training
$ 8.5 million
European Training
$ 5.0 million
Equipment Acquisition and Storage
$26.0 million
Deployment Support
$ 5.0 million
18 At the end of 2004, Congress provided GPOI funding in the Consolidated Appropriations
Act for FY2005 (H.R. 4818/P.L. 108-447). Section 117 of Division J (“Other Matters”)
provided that “$80 million may be transferred with the concurrence of the Secretary of
Defense” to the Department of State Peacekeeping Operations account. The authority was
provided notwithstanding any other provision of law, except section 551 of Division D (the
Foreign Operations appropriations section of the bill), i.e., the “Leahy Amendment” which
prohibits the training of military units credibly accused of gross violations of human rights.
(A State Department official said that the “notwithstanding” language was requested to
provide an exemption from FAA Section 660, which limits U.S. assistance for the training
of foreign police.) Division D of H.R. 4818/P.L. 108-447 contains the $20 million in State
Department PKO funding for ACOTA and the nearly $1.8 million in EPIC funding that are
now subsumed under GPOI.

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Italian Gendarme School (CoESPU)
$10.0 million
Support
Measuring Effectiveness
$ 0.3 million
In the end, State Department obligations and expenditures for GPOI in FY2005
appear to have totaled substantially less. According to the State Department’s
FY2007 budget justification materials, actual GPOI spending in FY2005 was $80.0
million.
Congressional Action on FY2006 Funding
The Bush Administration requested $114.4 million for FY2006 funding. The
House FY2006 Foreign Operations appropriations bill, H.R. 3057 (as reported by the
House Appropriations Committee (HAC), H.Rept. 109-152, on June 24 and passed
on June 28), contained $96.4 million for GPOI. In its report, the HAC expressed its
support for GPOI as a means for the United States to “reduce the emphasis on the use
of military troops for these operations.” It explained that it had provided $18 million
less than the request because it did not expect that all $63 million indicated for
equipment and transportation outside of Africa could be obligated and spent in 2006.
The Senate version of the bill (as reported June 30 and passed July 20), contained
$114.0 million for GPOI. The conference version of the bill (H.Rept. 109-265, P.L.
109-102, signed into law November 14, 2005) does not earmark funding for GPOI
or for any other program contained in the PKO account, but it does fund the full PKO
account at $175.0 million (i.e., the same as the Administration’s FY2006 budget
request). (The PKO account is subject to the reporting requirement of Section 584,
which mandates that the Secretary of State provide the Appropriations Committees
a report on the obligation and expenditure of its funds no later than April 1, 2006.)
Estimated GPOI spending in FY2006 will be $100.4 million according to the State
Department’s FY2007 budget justification document.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee version of the State Department
authorization bill for FY2006 and FY2007 (S. 600, S.Rept. 109-35, reported on
March 10, 2005, and returned to the calendar on April 26) would authorize $114.4
million for FY2006 and such sums as may be necessary for FY2007 for GPOI. The
House version (H.R. 2601, H.Rept. 109-168, as reported by the House International
Relations Committee on July 13, 2005 and passed on July 20) does not mention
GPOI and does not detail accounts in such a way as to indicate whether GPOI is
funded. There was no further action on the bill before Congress adjourned in
December, nor in the second session of the 109th Congress as of the date of this
report.
FY2007 Administration Program and Funding
Request, and Congressional Action
The State Department contemplates the possible expansion of its GPOI training
and equipment to 12 new countries in FY2007. In its FY2007 budget justification
document, the State Department signaled its intention to continue assistance to 13
African and 17 non-African countries and stated that the program may also be

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expanded to at least two African and ten non-African countries. The 13 African
nations listed as continuing recipients through the ACOTA component of GPOI were
Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique,
Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Zambia. Possible new African partners were
listed as Angola and Namibia. Training will include subregional organizations and
the African Union. Elsewhere, GPOI plans call for continued training of four Central
American countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua), four Asian
countries (Bangladesh, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Thailand), three European countries
(Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Ukraine), and member nations of the
South East Europe Brigade (i.e., Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, and Turkey) as
well as Albania. In addition, the program may be extended to six more Asian states,
India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka; two Pacific island
states, Fiji and Tonga; one Latin American state, Peru; and one Middle Eastern state,
Jordan. The budget justification also stated that it would provide “modest” funding
to CoESPU, without specifying an amount.
For FY2007, the Administration requested $102.6 million for GPOI funding.
The House is disinclined to provide full funding and Senate appropriators have
expressed discontent with State Department management of the program.
House Appropriations Action. The House version of the Foreign
Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill for FY2007
(H.R. 5522, passed July 9, 2006), contains $82 million for GPOI. This is $20.6
million below the request and $18.4 below the FY2006 level. No explanation is
provided in the House Appropriations Committee’s explanatory report (H.Rept. 109-
486) for the reduction. The report does state the committee’s expectation that the
FY2008 budget request for GPOI “include a detailed summary of the achievements
of GPOI to date and specific information linking the budget request to fiscal year
2008 performance objectives.” The committee also “strongly” encourages the
Secretary of State “to consider sending GPOI participants to common educational
programs in the United States, including the Naval Postgraduate School.” It notes
that the recommendation did not include authorization for GPOI funds to be used
notwithstanding section 660 of the Foreign Assistance act, which had been requested
to provide support for CoESPU. Although the committee report expresses support
for “the proposed program,” it states that it either expected other G8 nations to
support the program or for the Administration to use funding from other accounts
with the necessary authority to provide funds to CoESPU, such as the International
Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement account.

Senate Appropriations Action. In the Senate Appropriations Committee
(SAC) version of H.R. 5522, the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs
Appropriations Bill for FY2007 (S.Rept. 109-277), approved by SAC on June 29,
2006, funding for GPOI would be transferred from the PKO account to a new
program under the Foreign Military Financing Program. S.Rept. 109-277 states that
the State Department “has failed to demonstrate a requisite level of commitment to
the program, instead viewing funds provided for GPOI as a funding source for other
activities. The report also scores the State Department for ignoring committee

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guidance on GPOI and for its inability “to articulate any plan for the use of fiscal year
2005 funding until calendar year 2006.”19
As a result, the SAC recommended in its report that a Combatant Commanders
Initiative Fund be created under FMF, the purpose of which “is identical to GPOI,
namely, to identify the critical shortfalls in the training, equipment, and capabilities
of our allies to serve in peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations.” To decide
on the allocation fund, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military [Pol-
Mil] Affairs would consult with commanders of the U.S. regional military commands
(U.S., Pacific, Central, European, and Southern) to identify “the most critical training
and equipment shortfalls of our peacekeeping partners and regional allies” in order
to develop a three year plan and program to address those needs. The Pol-Mil
Assistant Secretary is to present the plan and program to SAC by October 15, 2006.20

Issues for the 109th Congress
With some Members expressing reservations about the management of the
GPOI program, three issues may be of greatest concern.
Are International Training Efforts Through GPOI and its
Predecessor Programs Having the Desired Effect? Members wonder
whether the GPOI program is meeting its goal of providing well-trained peacekeepers
for U.N. and other operations. There are two aspects of particular concern: (1) is the
training provided sufficient to enable soldiers (or police in the case of COESPU
training) to handle the necessary range of peacekeeping tasks effectively, and (2) are
the soldiers (and police) trained under GPOI actually deployed to international
peacekeeping operations? In an effort to measure results, the State Department
awarded in September 2005 a contract to DFI International to develop a system to
evaluate GPOI and to monitor its results against that “metrics” system.
What Are the Practical Implications of Moving GPOI Funding from
the PKO to the FMF Account? Although both the PKO and FMF accounts fall
under the rubric of Military Assistance in the State Department budget, these
accounts are governed by different authorities. As mentioned earlier, the PKO
account is conducted under the authority of Part II, Chapter 6 (Section 551) of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (FAA). The State Department is
entirely responsible for programs conducted under that authority. FMF programs —
which can be either grants or loans but are now virtually all grants — are subject to
the provisions of FAA Part II, Chapter 2 (Military Assistance, Section 503-517), as
well as the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).21 FMF programs are
also State Department programs, for which the State Department sets the policy
19 S.Rept. 109-277, p. 92.
20 Ibid., p. 91.
21 The Arms Export Control Act was developed to legislate foreign military sales (FMS).
Congress places grant assistance under the provisions of the act by reference in annual FMF
appropriations.

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direction, including the final selection of the countries that will participate, and
exercises oversight. Day-to-day implementation of FMF programs, however, is
carried out by DOD personnel through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency
(DSCA), which is charged with the on-the-ground administration and supervision of
programs and their coordination among government agencies.
The placement of GPOI in the FMF account would impose new restrictions,
among them a limitation regarding recipients. Some 10 countries that are current
recipients or potential recipients for FY2007 would not be eligible to receive GPOI
funding because of provisions of the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act
(ASPA).22 Exempting these countries would require a presidential waiver on national
interest grounds.
FMF programs are subject to more extensive prohibitions on the acquisition
abroad of articles and services than are PKO activities. Because GPOI acquires some
articles and services through local contracting, some costs would increase and some
projects would be more difficult to implement under FMF unless an offshore
procurement waiver were obtained, according to the State Department.

FMF processes are cumbersome and lack the flexibility needed for GPOI
activities that PKO authority provides, according to some experts. According to the
State Department, “the vast majority” of GPOI equipment and training would have
to be purchased through the DSCA process. In addition, organizing multilateral
exercises and activities would be greatly complicated by AECA provisions that limit
transfers of funds, in effect requiring each participating country to be funded directly.
In some cases, these provisions would prevent the execution of such programs,
according to the State Department.

FMF authorities contain several other restrictions that could have implications
for GPOI if its funds were merged into the far larger FMF account. These restrictions
include a spending cap and a limit on the number of military personnel who could
be assigned to a foreign country for FMF programs.
The transfer of GPOI from the PKO to the FMF account would prevent the
funding of some existing contracts and disrupt those programs, according to the State
22 FMF funding is subject to ASPA (Title II of the 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act
for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, H.R.
4775, signed into law August 2, 2002, as P.L. 107-206). In order to avoid a cutoff of
assistance under section 2007 of that act, each country which has ratified the international
treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) must sign a bilateral immunity
agreement (BIA) with the United States pledging that it will not seek to surrender U.S.
personnel present in that country to the ICC. Among the countries not on the list maintained
on a public website as having signed BIAs are eight current recipients (Guatemala, Kenya,
Malaysia, Mali, Mongolia, South Africa, Zambia, and the Ukraine) and two potential
recipients for FY2007 (Indonesia and Peru). (The source for the list is: the Coalition for
the International Criminal Court. Fact Sheet. Status of US Bilateral Immunity Agreements
(BIAs). August 28, 2006. Accessible through [http://www.iccnow.org].) For more
information on ASPA provisions on military assistance, see CRS Report RL31495, U.S.
Policy Regarding the International Criminal Court, pp.12-13.

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Department. The State Department cites the ACOTA program and the ECOWAS
Regional Information Exchange System as two of the programs that would be
affected.
On the other hand, greater DOD involvement could be beneficial, according to
proponents. One of the main criticisms of the GPOI program as currently run is that
the State Department has not devoted adequate personnel and attention to the
program. Some critics specifically point to a lack of long-term plans, as in the Senate
Appropriation Committee report discussed above. Some feel that there has been a
lack of appropriate attention and oversight; two areas cited are 1) lack of an
accounting of the number of troops actually participating in peacekeeping operations
after training (as mentioned above), and 2) proper safeguards for equipment. Some
believe that DOD might be able to devote more personnel to the management and
oversight of the program than the State Department currently does.
Those skeptical of DOD’s ability to devote the necessary personnel to the
program point out that DOD ceased providing military trainers to the program, as
originally intended, because of demands of military commitments in Afghanistan and
Iraq. According to the State Department, it already cooperates extensively with
DOD on many GPOI activities. For instance, the DSCA already implements “a
substantial portion” of GPOI activities through a special process that permits the
State Department “substantial” oversight of the PKO funds.
What International Contributions Support CoESPU and Should
They Be Increased? The Italian government provides 70% of CoESPU’s annual
budget, covering such costs as infrastructure, equipment, salaries, vehicles, and fuel,
according to CoESPU officials in mid-2006. The United States provides the
remaining 30%, which covers the direct cost of conducting the training. Italy and the
United States have made efforts to involve other G-8 countries in financially
supporting CoESPU, particularly in providing or financing equipment for attendees.
The school is staffed almost exclusively by Italian carabinieri. As of mid-2006,
some 145 carabinieri were attached to CoESPU, of which about 25 were instructors
and training staff. Two U.S. military servicemembers are attached to the center.
One serves as the Deputy Director, although DOD has made no commitment to
permanently fill the slot. CoESPU would like a commitment of five U.S. military
servicemembers, one as Deputy Director, and others to assist with information,
training, and studies and research efforts, including the development of doctrine.

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