Foreign Military Training and Socialization: An Examination of Human Capital and Norm Transmission Between Allies

Abstract

s Foreign military personnel routinely participate in educational and cultural programs administered by the U.S. military. In addition to bolstering the capacity of the recipient military, one of the primary goals of these programs is to professionalize the military of the recipient state. It is hoped not only that the soldiers will internalize norms of human rights and democracy themselves but also that they will become influential members of the military in the future. Existing cross-national research, along with selective anecdotes of U.S.-trained soldiers leading coups and rebellions, suggests that military aid may be ineffective. To date, however, a nuanced understanding of the more granular effects of military aid on the recipient country has been hindered by a lack of data and a focus on the macro-level. We address this lacuna by examining norm transmission among a sample of the Hungarian officer corps. We show that while soldiers who graduated from IMET programs display more favorability toward human rights and democracy, they do not believe the military should remain insulated from policymaking. We believe this is a valuable step toward a deeper understanding of how U.S. military aid shapes recipient militaries and, more broadly, how norms are transmitted between allies.