SSI Live Podcast – Ep 120 – NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program [DEEP]

In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. Richard Lacquement on his involvement in NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program as the Academic Lead for Morocco. The conversation explores how the US Army War College built its relationship with this NATO program and the varying roles the college’s professors play.

John Deni

Hello and welcome to SSI Live. You’ve long known the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, at the US Army War College, as the go-to location for issues related to national security and military strategy, with an emphasis on geostrategic analysis. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the US Army War College curricula; assist and inform Army, DoD, and US government leadership; and serve as a bridge to the wider strategic community. Now, we are bringing you access to SSI analyses, scholars, and guests, through this, the SSI Live podcast series. Thanks for joining us.

Brennan Deveraux

Hello. Welcome to SSI Live. I’m still your guest host, Brennan Deveraux, as we wait for John Deni to finish up his sabbatical and hopefully put out a pretty cool book. I am joined today by Dr. Richard Lacquement. He is a research professor of national security affairs here with me at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). Dr. Lacquement earned his PhD from Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs.

He’s a retired US Army colonel who served as a field artillery officer and as a strategist. He has been at the Army War College in uniform and as a civilian for over 15 years. Dr Lacquement has published on ample topics related to national security and is SSI’s resident expert on the military profession. For this conversation, we’re going to be diving into Richard’s role with the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Defense Education [Enhancement] Program [DEEP] and his recent trips to Morocco.

Richard, thanks for coming. I’ll jump right into the questions. First, let’s just start from the beginning. What is the Defense Education Enhancement Program, sometimes referred to as NATO DEEP?

Richard Lacquement

Thanks. First off, thanks for having me. I look forward to the opportunity to share experiences and information and perspective on NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program. Really, it’s something I’ve been familiar with for a long time but had not participated in directly. It’s about 20 years old, a NATO initiative that kind of comes out of the Cold War, where, in the immediate wake, we were helping with former Soviet states.

And to this day, some of the countries in the DEEP program are some of those former Soviet states. [Currently] none of the programs [are] for any states that are part of NATO. Briefly, Croatia was part of it, while they were an early NATO member, but for the most part, it’s focused on countries that are partners with NATO, [to include] some remaining … former Soviet Republics like Kazakhstan and Armenia and Azerbaijan, some that are tied to what they call the Mediterranean Initiative, which is where Morocco comes in, [as well as], Mauritania, Tunisia. Some in the Middle East and then some, related to other, activities we’ve had. Iraq and Afghanistan had been a part of it before. And right now, a very active program supporting Ukraine. But the key point is sort of working [with] defense education institutions. So, helping out with professional military education, how to develop curriculum, develop faculty to teach about national security or security topics in general in these partner countries.

Deveraux

Okay. And I’m assuming that these are very much tailored not only to the country, but maybe to varying mission objectives on what that country is looking at for its threat or where it is technologically, along those lines. Is that a fair assumption?