JP 3-16, Multinational Operations - Defense Technical Information ...

Chapter I
those tasks. This is especially critical in the security line of operation, where failure could
prove to have catastrophic results. If operational necessity requires tasks being assigned to
personnel who are not proficient in accomplishing those tasks, then the MNF commander
must recognize the risks and apply appropriate mitigating measures (e.g., a higher alert level
to potential threats).
f. Trust and Confidence. Commanders should engage other leaders of the MNF to
build personal relationships and develop trust and confidence. Developing these
relationships is a conscious collaborative act rather than something that just happens.
Commanders build trust through words and actions. Trust and confidence are essential to
synergy and harmony, both within the joint force and also with our multinational partners.
Coordination and cooperation among organizations are based on trust. Trust is based on
personal integrity (sincerity, honesty, and candor). Trust is hard to establish and easy to lose.
There can be no unity of effort in the final analysis without mutual trust and confidence.
Accordingly, the ability to inspire trust and confidence across national lines is a personal
leadership quality to be cultivated. Saying what you mean and doing what you say are
fundamental to establishing trust and confidence in a MNF.
4. Security Cooperation
a. Security cooperation (SC) is a key element of global and theater shaping operations
and is the means by which the Department of Defense (DOD) encourages and enables
countries and organizations to work with the United States to achieve strategic objectives.
SC involves all DOD interactions with foreign defense establishments to build defense
relationships that promote specific US security interests, develop allied and friendly military
capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations, and provide US forces with
peacetime and contingency access to a host nation (HN).
b. The Guidance for Employment of the Force (GEF) provides the foundation for all
DOD interactions with foreign defense establishments and supports the President’s National
Security Strategy. With respect to SC, the GEF provides guidance on building partner
capacity and capability, relationships, and facilitating access (under the premise that the
primary entity of foreign engagement is the nation state and the means which geographic
combatant commanders [GCCs] influence nation states is through their defense
establishments). The GEF outlines SC activities that aim to build partner capacity in the
following focus areas: Sustain defense through a partner’s human capacity, operational
capacity, institutional capacity, civil sector capacity, combined operations capacity,
operational access, intelligence sharing, and assuring regional confidence and international
collaboration. Additionally, the GEF established processes for assignment, allocation, and
apportionment of forces to the GCCs.
c. GCCs shape their areas of responsibility through SC activities by continually
employing military forces to complement and reinforce other instruments of national power.
The GCC’s SC provides a framework within which combatant commands (CCMDs) engage
regional partners in cooperative military activities and development. Ideally, SC activities
lessen the causes of a potential crisis before a situation deteriorates and requires coercive US
military intervention.
I-4 JP 3-16