U.S. Intervention and Coercion-Enabling Capital: Evidence from El Salvador

Many governments have transferred physical and human capital to other governments as a form of military assistance. These transfers are intended to improve the recipient’s governing capabilities and achieve foreign policy goals. These capital transfers, however, are also “coercion-enabling,” as they effectively lower the cost of engaging in predatory behavior against other groups, are associated with multiple principal-agent problems, and result in system effects. We provide a framework for understanding coercion-enabling capital and suggest that such transfers are likely to lead to predation in many cases. To illustrate these dynamics, we examine the case of U.S. transfers to El Salvador during the Cold War and the Salvadoran Civil War of 1979 to 1992.

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