In his inaugural contribution to the National Security Institute’s new blog, The SCIF, Lexpat’s Managing Director Adam Pearlman argues that strong counterterrorism partnerships are a strategic way for the United States to free-up resources for Global Power Competition and other national security imperatives. He highlights the U.S. battlefield evidence initiative as an example of how the U.S. has been putting that principle to work over the past several years. “As more terrorist organizations diffuse and become cell-based,” Pearlman writes, “the importance of border security, transportation security, consular, and law enforcement officers increases, as does the military’s ability to pass them items, information, and intelligence to advance those civilian missions.”

Lexpat’s team has significant experience in working with and training others on matters related to battlefield evidence (BE). BE is an important area of developing countries’ counterterrorism and rule of law capacity. The ability to properly collect, process, analyze, and store items recovered during counterterrorism operations in ways that civilian security and justice-sector agencies can credibly and reliably use, necessarily improves a country’s governance, human rights, and national security posture.