As Middle Eastern and Gulf states look to develop their militaries, France has been eager to supply them with weapons.
After ascribing an expansionist policy to the USSR, along with suggestions that they were more heavily developing their military than the US, the Report suggested that there would be a significant gap in capability in the late 1950s due to spending levels.
Some also said Mr. Bush's program might give impetus to Europeans' efforts to develop their own military arrangements, perhaps more of a stimulus than Washington might like, given its goal to influence security policy in Europe.
But when Germany and its European partners try to coordinate that defense spending, develop their own military identity within NATO through the formation of a 60,000 strong rapid-reaction corps, and generally sketch a partial emancipation from American strategic dominance, Washington gets uneasy.
He says it also needs to work with partners in Southeast Asia to carry out patrols in the region, and help develop their own militaries to be able to defend themselves and enhance deterrence.
"We're never going to teach them anything about Boko Haram they don't already know, but we can help them develop their capacity as a military," said Maj. Bret Hamilton, 38, an Iraq and Afghan war veteran who led the team in Niger.
The speech recognized, Mr. Berteau said, that countries in Europe and Asia were developing their own military technology in part to get around the controls imposed by the United States, and that the United States could get locked out of that market.
When Pratt & Whitney Canada, based near Montreal, applied for an export license from the Canadian government, it understood that the Chinese would develop their own engine for the military model, Mr. Hamelin wrote.
The Europeans are developing their own diplomatic and military capacity alongside NATO's, and how they work together is a delicate and crucial topic.
On the ground, military intelligence officials were developing their own sets of rules.
