10 U.S.C. § 322 — Special operations forces: training with friendly foreign forces

(a) Authority to pay training expenses. The commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, and the commander of any other unified or specified combatant command, may pay — or approve payment for — three kinds of expenses: the cost of training the command's special operations forces together with the armed forces or other security forces of a friendly foreign country; the cost of deploying those U.S. forces to that training; and, when the training happens with a friendly developing country, the extra costs that country itself takes on because of the training. (b) Purpose of training. The main reason for this training must be to train the special operations forces of the U.S. combatant command — not primarily to benefit the foreign country. (c) Regulations. The Secretary of Defense must write regulations for how this section is carried out. Those regulations must require that any training activity under this section first get the Secretary of Defense's approval, and must set up accounting rules to make sure the money spent is appropriate. (d) Definitions. "Special operations forces" includes civil affairs forces and military information support operations forces. For a developing country, "incremental expenses" means the reasonable, proper cost of things like food, fuel, training ammunition, and transportation that the country uses because of the training — but it does not include the pay, allowances, or normal costs of that country's own personnel. (e) Reports. By April 1 of each year, the Secretary of Defense must report to Congress on the previous fiscal year's training paid for under this section. Each report must list: every country where the training happened; what kind of training it was — including whether it related to fighting drug trafficking or terrorism — how long it lasted, how many U.S. troops took part, and what it cost; how much the foreign military took part, including how many of their personnel were involved, which branch they came from, and what the host country contributed, financially or otherwise; how the training relates to other overseas training, such as Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises, other combatant command exercises, and military department training events; a summary of what was spent under this section; and a discussion of the unique training benefit U.S. special operations forces got out of it.