The U.S. government, which devotes most of its counterterrorism aid to building the military capabilities of foreign partners, should steer more of that assistance to internal security, according to “Remodeling Partner Capacity,” a new report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
U.S. counterterrorism aid to Jordan and Kenya, for example, has gone mainly to help those countries’ militaries address external threats posed by the Islamic State and al-Shabaab, respectively. But few resources have gone to shore up domestic security services even though radicalized populations at home threaten the stability of both countries, the report says. 
Jordan’s King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC), built with $90 million from the United States, “has become a premier training site for international special forces and military contractors” and has trained about 2,500 Afghan special-forces soldiers, CNAS wrote. But the KASOTC is “less impactful on Jordan’s ability to effectively conduct counterterrorism operations than programs to root out extremists or address the huge flow of Syrian refugees who have entered Jordan over the past few years.”