SOFIA, Bulgaria - National Guard and Department of Defense leaders and military chiefs of defense and civilian emergency planners from 10 Southeast European nations who gathered here in early June agreed to increase their joint support to NATO missions and strengthen their capacity for military support to civil authorities.
U.S. and foreign officials called the National Guard State Partnership Program (SPP) Southeast European Regional Workshop that met here June 2-4 a solid success.
"It exceeded all of the participants' expectations," said LTG H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau. "We got an agreement from all the National Guard states and their partner nations to increase our participation and collaboration in mutual NATO missions."
In addition to agreeing to boost SPP contributions to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the defense leaders:
- Discussed ways to strengthen the SPP in the region and contribute to improved Southeast European security, stability and progress.
- Agreed to bolster military support to civil authorities. "We agreed to extend the partnership beyond military-to-military," Blum said, "Civil-military relationships are very important to be in place before the military has to be called upon to support civil authorities."
Examples of military support to civil authorities include response to natural and manmade disasters, terrorist attacks or other asymmetric attacks. Military support to civil authorities is the epicenter of the National Guard's homeland defense activities.
In the United States, National Guard leaders place great emphasis on establishing relationships with civilian organizations before natural or manmade catastrophes occur.
- Pledged to expand people-to-people relationships. "In the end, that's what it's really all about, is relationships," Blum said. "Cooperation and friendship enables the SPP to be as powerful, as valuable as it is."
During a side visit to Bulgaria's National Military Training Complex at Charalitza, Blum found military officials and civilian emergency managers from Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and numerous other countries working on mutual support plans.
"Fifteen years ago, you wouldn't have seen them in the same room," Blum said. "And if you had, they wouldn't have been talking."
The National Guard's SPP has played a role in changing that environment.
"SPP makes a huge difference to this region," Blum said. "It's acting as a catalyst to accelerate progress toward cooperation and reform. The trust and the confidence level grow every day amongst militaries that have not always been partners."
The SPP has helped former adversaries become allies. "To take people that have been in an adversarial role in recent history and move them to a place where they are truly colleagues and partners in such a short period of time is outstanding progress," Blum said.
The SPP benefits both sides, Blum emphasized.
"It broadens our experience," he said. "It professionally develops our people."
That includes National Guard bilateral affairs officers serving full-time overseas, in addition to training exchanges and collaborative real-world missions.
"The National Guard Citizen-Soldier or -Airman is, perhaps, the best ambassador for the United States," Blum said. "They're superb Soldiers and Airmen. They're committed citizens. They're not only concerned about the security and wellbeing of their neighbors and their state and their nation but also the world community."
The National Guard's SPP, which has evolved since 1993, pairs 59 countries with state Guard organizations to promote military exchanges and military support to civil authorities, including emergency management and disaster response and civil security cooperation through educational, legal, medical and scientific contacts with a security nexus.
At one point in the workshop, Lt. Gen. Galimir Pehlivanov, the Bulgarian deputy chief of defense for operations and training, gave about a 15-minute soliloquy detailing the highlights of Tennessee's 14-year relationship with Bulgaria, during which time the country transformed from a member of the Warsaw Pact to a member of NATO and the European Union.
"Pretty impressive," Blum said.
The Southeast European countries and partner National Guard states represented at the workshop were: Albania and New Jersey; Bosnia & Herzegovina and Maryland; Bulgaria and Tennessee; Croatia and Minnesota; Hungary and Ohio; Macedonia and Vermont; Montenegro and Maine; Romania and Alabama; Serbia and Ohio, and Slovenia and Colorado.
Some National Guard states have more than one partner.
"There's not one country that's a partner that doesn't bring value to the relationship and bring new techniques or procedures or attitudes or approaches to how we deal with problems that are common to all of us," Blum said. "We greatly benefit from seeing how other nations deal with their security challenges and how they handle response to either a defense support to civil authorities mission or a national defense issue."
The workshop was Blum's initiative to build on the positive results of a groundbreaking 2007 Southeast Europe Regional Workshop in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, bordering the Adriatic Sea. The Sofia gathering was intended to more sharply focus SPP activities in this still volatile and unsettled region of Europe in support of NATO's revolutionary transformation into an expeditionary alliance and European Command's goal to strengthen cooperation and integrate the region into the Euro-Atlantic community.
Blum has been in uniform almost 40 years.
"I don't think anyone foresaw the magnificent progress that we've made in the last 15 years in Europe, particularly with NATO enlargement," he said. "There is no more Soviet Union. There is no more Warsaw Pact. Yet NATO has enlarged. In a quiet and unadvertised manner, the SPP had a lot to do with setting the conditions for success for NATO enlargement."
The general said he sees only growth in the SPP's future.
"We'll probably see additional growth in partnerships in Africa in coordination with the new Africa Command," he said. "I certainly see enlargement of the program in the Asia/Pacific region with Pacific Command and some enlargement even in the Western Hemisphere through Southern Command. I could easily see the 59 partners growing to 70 in the near term."
Blum said the SPP's expansion is a measure of its success. "The program is more mature, more recognized for its value today than it has been in the past," he said. "The SPP five years from now will be more important to the security of our international partner nations than it even is today."
Blum and Bulgaria Chief of Defense Gen. Zlatan Stoykov co-hosted the workshop with two of Stoykov's deputies, Vice Adm. Emil Lyutskanov and Lt. Gen. Galimir Pehlivanov.
Among those who attended: Radoslav Bozadzhiev, Bulgarian deputy minister of defense; Gen. Sir John McColl, the deputy supreme allied commander of Europe; Donald Loren, deputy assistant secretary of defense for homeland security integration; Maj. Gen. Robertus Remkes, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) plans and policy directorate (J5); Maj. Gen. Richard Wightman, NATO representative to Sarajevo; Brig. Gen. Virgil Balaceanu, commander, South East Europe Brigade; Andrei Ivanov, director general of the Bulgarian National Civil Protection Service; Alex Karagiannis, the U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Bulgaria; Maj. Gen. Frank Grass, EUCOM director of mobilization and reserve component affairs; Maj. Gen. Terry Scherling, special assistant to the chief of the National Guard Bureau; and Maj. Gen. Mike Sumrall, assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on National Guard matters.