Training - Senior Security Management Workshop

The Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) is offering a Senior Security Management Workshop in cooperation with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) in Geneva, Switzerland. The course is part of the Security Management Initiative (SMI).

The registration form for the event can be downloaded here.

Training - UK Corridors of Power

The British Overseas NGO's for Development (BOND) is offering an innovative course entitle, 'UK Corridors of Power'. The course intends to:

'To develop participant's knowledge and understanding of the UK political process (Westminster and Whitehall) and improve their ability to navigate the UK policy-making arena.

A key skill that applies itself to a variety of NGO work is an understanding of the UK political process. Knowing how the decision-making process really works and how to get key political players on side, is vital if your advocacy is to change policy.'

While UK-focussed, the course is an interesting initiative to arm institutions and individuals on how to better arm themselves in promoting policy change with states.

Fight Less, Win More - the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy

An interesting Washington Post article written by an instructor at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy.

'The grandly misnamed "academy" is a tiny collection of huts and tents on Kabul's dusty southern outskirts. Since May, motley classes of several dozen Afghan army officers, Afghan policemen, NATO officers, American officers and civilians have been learning and living side by side there for a week at a time.

The academy does much more than teach the theory and tactics of fighting the Taliban insurgents who are trying to unseat President Hamid Karzai and claw their way back to power. It is also a rare forum for military officers, civilian aid workers, academics and diplomats -- from Afghanistan and all 37 countries in NATO's International Security Assistance Force -- to unite in trying to bring good governance, prosperity and security to Afghanistan. The curriculum is based on the Army and Marine Corps' new counterinsurgency doctrine, released in December. Classes revolve around four so-called paradoxes of counterinsurgency. Unless we learn all four well, we'll continue to win battles in Afghanistan while losing the war.'

The theory sounds great, shame there isn't more online about this 'academy'. Where does one sign up for this week-long love-in of soldiers, aid workers and others??

Training- NATO Basic CIMIC Course

NATO is offering a Basic CIMIC Course in Italy, open to civilians as well as military staff. Having taken a similar NATO course, can highly recommend it to those in IOs//NGOs to get a better idea of how the military sees its role in undertaking traditionally civilian tasks. They are kind enough to heavily subsidize the course for participants.

Training Coaching US troops on Iraqi culture

As part of their pre-deployment training, US armed forces are enjoying increasingly sophisticated immersion exercises. BBC has a great article on "Mojave Viper", a new pre-deployment cultural training course established to prepare US forces for "irregular warfare" in Iraq. We've posted on these elaborate training exercises in an earlier post, with particular focus on the difficulties in finding appropriate role players.

'Barack Salmoni, deputy director of the centre, says the focus reflects a 2006 military assessment that "developing broader linguistic capability and cultural understanding is critical to prevail in the long war and to meet 21st century challenges".

During the six- to eight-week course, the marines learn about 200 basic words in Arabic - enough to allow them to deal with local people on the ground in Iraq...

But, Mr Salmoni says, the US military became aware of the need to give the troops' mission in Iraq "civil and cultural dimensions" when the Bush administration decided to establish a new Iraqi government.

The US military is trying to teach troops how to build trust with Iraqis.

"We noticed that we had the military tactics but lacked the knowledge of Iraqi laws and traditions so we needed to learn about them all. I am afraid we didn't anticipate all these bifurcations."

Since January, newly established PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) have increased their operations in Iraqi cities.

The military is becoming more involved in "civil affairs", which entails helping to build local infrastructure.'

Border agents recruited for Iraq duty

In the same vein of outsourcing, a military contractor is actively recruiting Border agents for service in Iraq. DynCorp International already has 700 trainers in Iraq, but received a request from the State Department to augment this force. Not surprisingly, the salary is roughly triple what agents earn at home. DynCorp is not new in this business, its website includes provides further background on this service they provide.

Danish military to aid African armies

An interesting shift in Danish foreign aid, from a country typically associated with generous contributions to civlian development and humanitarian agencies:

'While Danish foreign aid to Africa has traditionally gone to humanitarian projects such as digging wells and conducting immunization drives, the country has now allocated 248 million Danish krone (about 44.5 million U.S. dollars) of its development aid budget to defense related projects.'

The article did not specify precisely the form of assistance that Denmark would provide, but suggested support might include helping to train Kenyan peacekeeping forces, conducting courses at defense academies, or helping to train Ghana to patrol its coastal waters.

Human rights group protests IDF battle exercises in West Bank

A unique situation in Israel, where IDF forces used a live assault on a Palestinian village in the West Bank as a training exercise for Reserve forces focusing on routine security operations in the West Bank.

The human rights group Yesh Din intervened with IDF authorities.

Update: AlertNet ran an article on the same subject, with greater detail.

NATO basic civil military cooperation course

This is a great initiative, the first time that NATO has advertised one of its courses via ReliefWeb. Hopefully this will attract greater participation from NGO audiences, the chronic challenge that military trainers face in running CIMIC courses.

Especially for those of you in civilian organizations- this is a great course to get a heavily-subsidized introduction to CIMIC. Getting to spend 9 days in Italy isn't so bad either...