By, With, and Through: A Closer Look at CENTCOM's Approach in the Middle East

The effective prosecution of America's new global priority of competing with China and Russia requires the reallocation of U.S. military resources from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere. This in turn places a higher premium on U.S. security cooperation with partners in the Middle East.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)'s "By, With, and Through" approach can help further the goals of security cooperation and specifically develop closer ties with partner forces in the region. But is it working? And if it isn't, what are the main challenges both at home and abroad, and what will it take to generate better results?

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to convene a panel of experts to reflect on this subject. Bilal Y. Saab, MEI's Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense and Security Program, will discuss some of the key findings of an upcoming publication in the 2019 Fall issue of The Washington Quarterly entitled, "Broken Partnerships: Can Washington Get Security Cooperation Right?." He will be joined by General Joseph Votel, former CENTCOM Commander and currently a nonresident distinguished senior fellow at MEI; Dana Stroul, senior fellow in The Washington Institute's Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics; and Kenneth Pollack, author of Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The conversation will be moderated by Eric Schmitt of the New York Times.

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