Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes

• 1. Introduction

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  The Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes began with a single speech. In June 1998, United States Secretary of Defense William Cohen stood before European and Atlantic defense ministers and called for something that had never quite existed before: a cooperative security network built not on treaties or military alliances, but on education. His address, titled "Toward a Cooperative Security Network for the 21st Century," was delivered at a meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council on the 12th of June 1998. What followed was the creation of an institution that now connects over 800 defense academies and security studies institutes across 60 countries. How does a network of educators and researchers shape the security of nations? What does it actually do, and why does it operate out of a small town in the Bavarian Alps?

• 2. A Network Takes Shape

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  William Cohen's speech did not stand alone for long. The sentiments he expressed in June 1998 were echoed in the concluding documents of both the NATO and Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Summits, held on the 24th and the 25th of April 1999. From the beginning, the United States and Germany co-sponsored the new organization, grounding it in the spirit of the existing Partnership for Peace Program. The explicit purpose was to strengthen defense and military education through enhanced national and institutional cooperation.

  The Consortium established its base at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, a town better known for its alpine scenery than its geopolitical weight. That choice of location placed the organization within an institution already dedicated to post-Cold War security dialogue. Since its founding, sponsorship has grown well beyond the original two countries, with numerous partner states and organizations contributing to its work.

  By 2012, the annual report documented eight hundred defense academies and security studies institutes in 59 countries participating in 69 defense education and defense institution building events that year alone. In the Canadian House of Commons in 2017, Liberal MP Wayne Easter, representing Malpeque, acknowledged the Consortium's long contribution in promoting stability, security, and democracy.

• 3. Governance and Structure

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  Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, NATO International Staff, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States all hold seats on the Senior Advisory Council, which sits at the top of the Consortium's governance structure. SAC members may be permanent or rotational, depending on each contributing state or organization's interests. The council meets annually to review the PfPC's activities and ensure they remain aligned with the Consortium's founding principles.

  Below the SAC, the Consortium organizes its practical work through nine Working Groups and Study Groups. Each group has a chair, a co-chair, and technical advisors who contribute voluntarily or otherwise. These chairs and co-chairs collectively form the Consortium Steering Committee, which also meets annually to report on activities and plan ahead. The structure is designed to keep the organization's direction tied to its founding objectives while allowing individual groups considerable latitude to pursue specific security topics.

• 4. Teaching Defense, Country by Country

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  As of December 2014, the Defense Education Enhancement Program, known as DEEP, had active programs running in 13 nations: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. DEEP sits at the heart of the Education Development Working Group and operates through individually tailored multi-year action plans. The goal is to help foreign government defense institutions improve the quality and relevance of their curricula and to promote faculty development and modern learning techniques.

  A separate track, the Advanced Distributed Learning Working Group, focuses on e-learning. Its mission covers the creation of interactive courseware, access to open-source e-learning technologies, and the sharing of best practices. One of its strategic goals is to integrate interested partner nations into a broader community of practice around digital learning.

  The Emerging Security Challenges Working Group produced one of the Consortium's more concrete outputs: the NATO and PfPC Cybersecurity Generic Reference Curriculum. Developed under the leadership of Sean Costigan from the George C. Marshall Center and Michael Hennessy of the Royal Military College of Canada, the curriculum earned endorsement from the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. It is now available in four languages: English, French, Arabic, and Russian.

• 5. Security Sector Reform and Gender

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  The Security Sector Reform Working Group was formally established in 2001 and carries financial support from the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport. Its stated purpose is to enhance the exchange of ideas, insights, expertise, knowledge, and best practices of security sector reform between consolidating and consolidated democracies in the Euro-Atlantic area.

  From 2010, the group shifted part of its focus toward human security issues, and in particular toward improving gender equality through defense transformation. That shift led the group to identify teaching gender to the military as an area that needed more attention. Starting in 2012, the group organized a series of workshops in collaboration with the Education Development Working Group. Representatives from NATO and partner countries specializing in military education, gender education, and integrating gender in military operations attended those workshops. The group's current activities center on producing a handbook to document what those workshops found.

• 6. Dialogue in Fragile Regions

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  Two of the Consortium's Study Groups focus specifically on regions where security remains fragile. The Regional Stability in Southeast Europe Study Group carries out strategic research intended to supplement practical peacebuilding work already happening in the Balkans and surrounding areas. Its mandate includes creating networks in the field of security policy and building a stable community compatible with the broader Partnership for Peace network.

  The Regional Security in the South Caucasus Study Group works in one of the world's most contested neighborhoods, involving experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia alongside representatives from the European Union, the Russian Federation, Turkey, the United States, NATO, the OSCE, and the United Nations. The group's activities are directly tied to broader conflict resolution processes, including the Geneva Talks and the OSCE Minsk Group. A particular goal is encouraging a shift in the conflicting narratives that have made dialogue in the region so difficult, in hopes of moving conflict negotiation forward.

• 7. Connections: The Academic Record

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  Connections, the Consortium's peer-reviewed academic quarterly, was established in 2002. It covers security, defense, armed forces, conflict, intelligence, history, and war. The journal launched with its first four volumes published in English, French, German, and Russian. Starting from volume 2, publication settled into English and Russian, with volumes 7 through 10 as the exception, appearing in English only.

  An international editorial board guides the journal, with editorial decisions made under the guidance of the Senior Advisory Council. SAC membership for journal purposes includes the commandants of defense academies from Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Poland, and Sweden, the director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, senior representatives from NATO and DCAF, and the Consortium's executive director. The journal is distributed to over 1,000 institutions across 54 countries and is indexed in Scopus, JSTOR, ProQuest, EBSCO databases, Columbia International Affairs Online, and the International Relations and Security Network. Over 90 PfPC events per year across the United States, Europe, and Central Asia provide the activity groups with material that feeds both the journal and the broader research mission.