EconDefense
INT-18 / Security cooperation, assistance and education

Exchange defense personnel and pay eligible foreign-partner liaison/travel expenses

Reciprocal or nonreciprocal exchanges, R&D assignments to supporting foreign industry, and narrowly eligible cooperation travel/liaison support.

Download record

At a glance

Possible toolINT-18 · Cooperation & exchanges
Legal basis10 U.S.C. § 311

Authority holder: Secretary of Defense; specific request/coordination requirements vary.

Cooperation & exchanges

Mechanism tags describe the source text; they do not expand the authority.

Availability and verification

Existing statutory pathway; conditional on the listed findings, approvals, eligible purpose and actual available funds. Not an obligation-ready certification.

Requirements and limits

Eligibility & prerequisites

  • Exchange acceptable to parties; State concurrence for specified non-defense/international organizations and foreign-industry R&D assignment.
  • Normally each government pays its own personnel, with specified host costs excepted.
  • Apply developing-country, extraordinary-circumstance and program-specific travel conditions.

Limits & exclusions

  • No oath of allegiance or official capacity in host government under §311.
  • Liaison support, UN Command expenses and Colombia training expenses are bounded categories, not generalized gifts.

Funding conditions

  • Available eligible funds and travel ceilings; §312 liaison annual monetary limit applies.

Read the funding and execution guide

Who contributes what

Need & planning

  • Geographic or functional CCMD security-cooperation planners
    Office profile
  • Embassy SCO and Chief of Mission country team

Resources

Approval

  • Secretary of Defense or documented authorized delegate
    Office profile
  • Secretary of State where required

Execution

  • Service personnel/international offices
  • Host headquarters support and travel offices

Partners & review

  • Foreign partner government
  • Department of State
  • Export-control/foreign-disclosure officials

Office links are editorial matches to the original role text, not verified delegations. Composite labels and unmatched actors are preserved.

Coordination pathway

Headquarters/Service requirement → personnel/international agreement → appropriate State coordination → travel/support office with fiscal eligibility check.

Actor and execution-role sources

Legal basis

What this research establishes

Legal powerSource and conditions recorded
EligibilityProject-specific check needed
Available fundsBalances not verified
DelegationValid signature authority must be checked
ExecutionOffice capacity and approvals must be checked

Confidence: High on express statutory capability; execution/delegation and currently available resources require program-specific confirmation.

Currentness: GovInfo 2024 U.S. Code baseline read; relevant FY2026 NDAA (Pub. L. 119-60, enacted 2025-12-18) amendments reviewed. Target 2026-10-02; source-specific OLRC checks and remaining delta are documented in international.md. No certification of current funds or executed delegations.

Research target: October 2, 2026. A record-specific last-review date is not supplied. Publication date is not legal-currentness certification.

Related tools in this family