{"id":19005,"date":"2023-07-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=19005"},"modified":"2023-07-17T06:48:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T06:48:20","slug":"why-dont-we-do-a-little-partnership-thing-the-department-of-defense-national-guard-state-partnership-program-is-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=19005","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Why Don\u2019t we do a Little Partnership Thing?\u2019 The Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program is Born"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>

\n 1 \/ 5<\/span>
\n
\n Show Caption +<\/span>
\n Hide Caption \u2013<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n
\n National Guard delegation boards plane to Latvia at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, November 15, 1992.
\n (Photo Credit: Courtesy retired Col. Max Alston)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \"State
\n <\/a>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n 2 \/ 5<\/span>
\n
\n Show Caption +<\/span>
\n Hide Caption \u2013<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n
\n Front row, left to right: Col. Vance Renfroe, Brig. Gen. Tom Lennon, Lt. Gen. Conaway, and U.S. Ambassador to Latvia, Hon. Ints M. Silins; back row, Col. Wayne Gosnell at a conference session, November 1992.
\n (Photo Credit: Courtesy retired Col. Max Alston)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \"State
\n <\/a>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n 3 \/ 5<\/span>
\n
\n Show Caption +<\/span>
\n Hide Caption \u2013<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n
\n Lt. Gen. Conaway (center) lays a wreath at the Freedom Monument in Riga, Latvia, November 18, 1992, Latvian Independence Day.
\n (Photo Credit: Courtesy retired Col. Max Alston)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \"National
\n <\/a>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n 4 \/ 5<\/span>
\n
\n Show Caption +<\/span>
\n Hide Caption \u2013<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n
\n Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, and Serbian Army Lt. Gen. Miloje Miletic, chief of staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, review Serbian troops following McKinley’s arrival for National Guard State Partnership Program activities in Belgrade, Serbia, Sept. 10.
\n (Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \"Minnesota
\n <\/a>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n 5 \/ 5<\/span>
\n
\n Show Caption +<\/span>
\n Hide Caption \u2013<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n
\n Minnesota National Guard members and members of the Norwegian military prepare to participate in a flag ceremony while in Norway on Feb. 9, 2012. The flag ceremony between Norwegian troops and troops from the Minnesota National Guard marked the start of the 39th Annual Norwegian Exchange.
\n (Photo Credit: Master Sgt. Ralph Kapustka)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

This is part one of the five part series “State Partnership Program turns 30.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 It began in 1992 with a brief chat between two general officers about how to help emerging democracies following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.<\/p>\n

Thirty years on, the product of that chat between Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, then both NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe and commander, U.S. European Command, and Air Force Lt. Gen. John Conaway, the 22nd Chief of the National Guard Bureau, has become a worldwide program, with security cooperation agreements between the National Guard of every state, territory and the District of Columbia and 100 countries \u2013 or more than half \u2013 of the world\u2019s 195 sovereign recognized nations.<\/p>\n

Today, the Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program includes countries on every continent except Antarctica and in every U.S. geographic combatant command.<\/p>\n

But in 1992, it was just an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about the Guard going behind the Iron Curtain to help some of the emerging democracies,\u201d recalls Conaway, now retired, \u201cand that the Guard might be the best vehicle for the Defense Department to use to go there. And that was the end of the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Shalikashvili, a World War II refugee, immigrated as a teen to the United States via Germany. He had grown up stateless in Eastern Europe and seen the benefits of the Marshall Plan, America\u2019s European Recovery Program, which helped devastated Western European countries rebuild after the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gained a firsthand appreciation for what Americans fight for and how very important it is that when we do fight, we win,\u201d Shalikashvili, who died in 2011, once said.<\/p>\n

A chat became a plan, Conaway recalls: \u201cI was going to take the first trip behind the Iron Curtain to the emerging democracies, starting with the Baltics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Army Gen. Colin Powell, at the time chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved the plan. Conaway then visited the White House, and on Nov. 15, 1992, the 22nd CNGB and staff left Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, destination the Baltics, closed to the West for more than four decades.<\/p>\n

The Russians had not yet left Latvia when Conaway touched down in Riga, the capital. He recalls being greeted by Latvian colonels with Russian colonels closely watching nearby. The Russians filmed his every step at the airfield and at subsequent stops in Tallinn, Estonia, and Vilnius, Lithuania.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went around and visited, saw how they lived, saw some of the austere conditions that the Russians had the Baltic people live in,\u201d Conaway says. \u201cYou know they drafted them and sent them to Afghanistan to fight? We lost an awful lot of Baltic soldiers thanks to Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the return flight, Conaway says, \u201cWe started talking about what can we do to help these folks, and how can we do it?\u201d<\/p>\n

There were models: The Minnesota National Guard had a longstanding relationship with Norway, and Puerto Rico led National Guard exchanges in Central and South America.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t we do a little partnership thing to help the Baltic emerging militaries get started, and help train them, and help them with equipment?\u201d Conaway, revered by some as the \u201cFather of the State Partnership Program,\u201d remembers thinking on that long flight back home.<\/p>\n

The timing was auspicious: Desert Storm and Desert Shield were over, and the Warsaw Pact threat was collapsing. Suddenly, the National Guard had the capacity and capability to support this new mission at exactly the right moment.<\/p>\n

From the outset, EUCOM provided the authority, funding, and direction for SPP engagement in Europe.<\/p>\n

Conaway says the National Guard also was uniquely suited to the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cPotential partners saw how the National Guard operates, taking care of the local community in the state while also trained for the federal mission,\u201d he says. \u201cWe fit their template better than the active-duty military did, and that\u2019s why they came to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

General Powell agreed, writing in a memorandum to Conaway: \u201cI know the Guard\u2019s support will continue to be the key to the successful accomplishment of the mission. Keep up the good work!\u201d<\/p>\n

It takes a highly capable staff to execute leadership vision, and on Conaway\u2019s team were three officers vital to shaping the program: Air Force Col. Vance Renfroe, Army Col. Wayne Gosnell, and retired Army Col. Max Alston, who was now a civilian in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.<\/p>\n

Renfroe, now retired, vividly remembers the early meetings about the SPP, a concept on which he was instantly sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got chills,\u201d Renfroe says. \u201cI said, \u201cWayne, tonight we are in rarefied air. People don\u2019t know this, it\u2019s usually written in the history books, but tonight you and I know that this idea is going to make history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heritage guided which American states were selected as the first partners. More than 1% of Pennsylvanians report Lithuanian ancestry. Maryland had a concentration of Estonian descendants. Some Michigan residents traced their roots to Latvia.<\/p>\n

Those first three partnerships formed in 1993, rapidly followed \u2013 the same year \u2013 by Alabama and Romania, Arizona and Kazakhstan, California and Ukraine, Colorado and Slovenia, Illinois and Poland, Indiana and Slovakia, Ohio and Hungary, Tennessee and Bulgaria, Texas and Nebraska and the Czech Republic, and Vermont and Macedonia.<\/p>\n

An idea had become a program, later chartered in United States Code \u2013 and it spread like wildfire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to fight them off,\u201d Conaway says of the adjutants general of potential National Guard partners. \u201cThey were coming at me loaded. They all wanted in.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no shortage of potential partner nations, either. \u201cCountries started coming to us when they heard of it,\u201d Conaway says. \u201cTheir embassy folks would say, \u2018Hey, how do we get in?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Guard is the oldest military component in the United States, predating the American Revolution, and traces its roots to colonial militias, beginning with the First Muster in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1636.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sort of reminds me of our early militia days,\u201d Conaway says. \u201cThey worked until they got a little better each year, and this is what we\u2019ve seen emerge in some of our early, Eastern European partners. Some of them have done a beautiful job and have a very good military force now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retired Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley was one of Conaway\u2019s successors who nurtured and grew the program as the 26th Chief of the National Guard Bureau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe National Guard is a community-based defense force,\u201d McKinley says. \u201cAnd our communities are the key. Our Soldiers and Airmen come from our communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur states and territories, with the governors and their adjutants general, are key because \u2013 in many cases \u2013 the countries that we partner with already have a demographic, economic, or academic relationship with them. So we bring a unity of effort to the partnership and the sustainability over time that only the National Guard, in my humble opinion, can bring.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sustainability is unique to the Guard, whose members \u2013 unlike their active-duty counterparts, who are typically rotated through different assignments in different places every three to four years \u2013 tend to stay in their home state for an entire career.<\/p>\n

That stability means both Guardsmen and their foreign counterparts ascend the ranks simultaneously. Many of today\u2019s National Guard and partner nation senior officers and noncommissioned officers first met as junior troops in the nascent days of the SPP, building invaluable trust over decades.<\/p>\n

Retired Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, 25th Chief of the National Guard Bureau, says there is another distinctive quality Guardsmen bring that makes the component the perfect fit for the SPP mission: Civilian-acquired skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, a Soldier is a Soldier, an Airman is an Airman,\u201d Blum says. \u201cThey are not plumbers, electricians, farmers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, salesmen, business owners, entrepreneurs, mayors, civic leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, our early partners had conscripts who came in and out of their ranks. And the only thing they knew is what the military taught them. And our people came in with civilian-acquired skillsets that are extraordinary and unexpected by virtue of their rank and their military occupational specialty or career field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is just a bonus. And, oh, by the way, they brought over American military values. Our partners saw it. You could feel it. You could touch it. And they saw it in all of our young men and women. Our Guardsmen act as role models, and they counter all the propaganda and all the stereotypical information.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month, the SPP celebrates 30 years of forging and maintaining effective security cooperation partnerships, with National Guard leadership looking more forward than back, with plans that include enhancing existing partnerships, adding new ones, making the funding that pays for the program more predictable from year to year, and experimenting with noncommissioned officer representation in U.S. embassies overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it would be bigger than what we had done prior to this,\u201d Conaway says of the SPP, \u201cbut I did not realize the massive potential. I\u2019m so thrilled it\u2019s grown to 100 partner nations, and I give all the succeeding CNGBs credit \u2013 every one of them has jumped in and taken it to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 William Boehm, historian, National Guard Bureau; and The Columbus Dispatch contributed.<\/p>\n

National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

National Guard Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

National Guard Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

State Partnership Program<\/a><\/p>\n

State Partnership Program turns 30<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Five-Part Series By Master Sgt. Jim Greenhill and Sgt. 1st Class Zach Sheely, National Guard Bureau<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Why Don\u2019t we do a Little Partnership Thing?\u2019 The Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program is Born<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Our Real Superpower as a Nation is our Allies and Partners’ The Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program Today<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018A Mosaic of Opportunities\u2019 The Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program Looks to the Future<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018It truly is a Team Sport\u2019 How the Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program Works<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018The Most Important People in the Army are the Sergeants\u2019 The Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program: A Crucial Arrow in Ukraine\u2019s Quiver<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 National Guard delegation boards plane to Latvia at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, November 15, 1992. (Photo Credit: Courtesy retired Col. Max Alston) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 \/ 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 Front row, left to right: Col. Vance Renfroe, Brig. Gen. Tom Lennon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19007,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19005"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19012,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005\/revisions\/19012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}