Partnership for Peace Consortium

📢 Call for Papers: Exploring Enemy Imagery in Conflict 📢 Join us at the 24th Annual Euro-Atlantic Conflict Studies Conference to dive deep into the role of enemy imagery in shaping conflicts, alliances, and military strategies. We welcome submissions exploring historical and modern cases of "enemy perception." The conference will be held at the Science and MIiitary Memory Agency (SMMA) in Chişinǎu, Moldova. 📅 Key Dates: 🔹 Notification of participation: March 1, 2025 🔹 Abstract submission (up to 500 words) & CV: March 15, 2025 🔹 Notification of abstract acceptance: March 30, 2025 🔹 Conference arrival: June 2, 2025 🔹 Conference departure: June 6, 2025 🔹 Final paper submission for publication: September 30, 2025 Don’t miss this opportunity to contribute to essential conversations on conflict psychology and strategy. Presenters and auditors welcome! Please send paper proposals and a short CV to Col. Petru Mihalcea ([email protected]), Pfor. Dr. Jan Hoffenaar ([email protected]), and Dr. Cristina Brǎgea ([email protected]). Further details can be found in the PDF below. #CallForPapers #ConflictStudies #EnemyImagery #WarAndPerception #EuroAtlanticConference #MilitaryHistory #StrategicStudies #CSWG #PfPC

🚨 Call for Nominations! 🚨 ✍️The PfPC is assembling a volunteer writing team for a new reference curriculum on Implications for Leadership from Emerging and Disruptive Technologies. We’re looking for subject-matter experts in military leadership, strategy, and science & technology to contribute to this 1-2 year project. 🗓️ Project Kickoff: December 2024 ✈️ Meetings: 1-3 in-person, international meetings per year (travel provided). Help shape the future of military leadership in the digital age. See the official flyer below for more information or email [email protected] to get involved! #Leadership #EmergingTech #CurriculumDevelopment #PME #MilitaryStrategy #TechnologyInLeadership #PfPC

🗣 Cognitive Dimension of Irregular Warfare and Hybrid Threats in the Black Sea Region 🗺   Last month, the Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC)’s Irregular Warfare and Hybrid Threats (IWHT) Working Group conducted a seminar on cognitive dimension of IWHT in the Black Sea Region. In partnership with the EU Hybrid Center of Excellence (CoE) participants from #NATO member and partner nations focused their discussions on three main areas: 🧠 1) The critical importance of bringing psychology and neuroscience into focus within the irregular/hybrid threats framework. ⚙ 2) Demonstrated cognitive-emotional mechanisms and vulnerabilities in human behavior and decision-making. 🔎 3) Examined and highlighted specific case studies where the cognitive dimension of irregular and hybrid threats/warfare is significantly impacted. Participants worked on developing strategies and frameworks for building cognitive security and resilience on an individual, community, and national levels within the Black Sea region. Thank you to all of the members of the working group (tag some people) and co-chairs Dr. Dr. Aleksandra Nesic and Dr. Kevin Stringer for their leadership! ------- #PfPC #IW #IWHT #IrregularWarfare #HybridThreats #CognitiveWarfare

🌍 Strengthening Security Cooperation in Kosovo 🇽🇰 On Thursday, the Marshall Center and the Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC) co-hosted an event in Pristina, #Kosovo, with over 70 #GCMC alumni and PfPC participants from the Study Group on Regional Stability in Southeast Europe. GCMC Director, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Barre Seguin, and Austrian Ambassador to Kosovo Georg Schetzinger kicked off the evening. 🗣️"The U.S. stands with Kosovo on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration, economic prosperity, and rule of law," said Seguin in his welcoming remarks. 🤝 Kosovo has over 280 GCMC alumni out of the Center’s 16,000+. Special thanks to former Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga, a Marshall Center alumna, for joining us. The event also marked the start of the PfPC workshop titled “Building Trust Under Difficult Conditions – Kosovo/Serbia and the View of the Neighbors,” which will run through the weekend. The workshop aims to assess post-war development in Western Balkan countries and its implications for the region and beyond. Embedded in the academic frameworks of the PfP Consortium and the Austrian Ministry of Defence, the study group is examining conflict areas and proposing solutions to local and international actors alike. 📚💡 🌐Learn more: About the GCMC: https://lnkd.in/e6htXJSZ About the PfPC: https://lnkd.in/dZVBSGYt Austrian Ministry of Defence: https://lnkd.in/diEUUkat #MarshallCenter #PfPC #RegionalStability #WesternBalkans #EuroAtlanticIntegration #BuildingTrust #SecurityCooperation #Diplomacy #GCMCAlumni #PartnershipForPeace #ConflictResolution ---- Post Credit: George C. Marshall Center

Highlights from last week’s Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC) Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) working group in Lisbon: Co-chaired by Dr. Aaron Presnall (USA) and LTC Michael Nickolaus (DEU), and hosted by Dr. Garry Hargreaves, Director of the NATO Communication and Information Academy, this event coincided with the #NATO Training Technology Conference (NTTC). During both events, Dr. Hargreaves emphasized the importance of “pull through”—ensuring innovations move from ideas to practical, real-world applications. Brigadier General Konstantinos Tsiakalos Mathios (GRC), from NATO Allied Command Transformation, celebrated the PfPC’s 25th anniversary in his opening remarks. He praised the #ADL working group for driving initiatives such as Training While We Fight, which is quickly becoming a cornerstone of operationally relevant training: “For 25 years, the PfPC has been dedicated to fostering collaboration and enhancing the capabilities of our military professionals. The ADL working group plays a critical role within this broader mission, and… this innovative perspective has the potential to transform how we approach training and development.” The ADL working group covered key topics, including NATO and US Air Force efforts to scale adaptive learning and advance learning engineering, respectively. Progress was also made on two important projects: 1. Addressing cognitive warfare through technology-enabled learning 2. Improving e-content sharing among Allies and Partners It was a dynamic week of collaboration and forward-thinking solutions. I’m excited to see where these initiatives take us next! #DefenseEducation #TechEnhancedLearning #MultiDomainOps #LearningEngineering #PfPC

💻WHAT IS ADL in MDO?🌐 🕊️The Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC) Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Working Group joined the NATO Training Technology Conference (NTTC) last week at the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency). The conference focused on the application of ADL in Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). 🌐MDO is a progressive operational concept the that describes a holistic integration of military capabilities: across domains (land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace domains), echelons, phases of warfare, governmental silos, and in conjunction with multinational allies and partners. MDO reflects the increasingly complex and interconnected nature of modern warfare. Although MDO relies heavily on advanced sensing, analysis, and other operational technologies, it also relies on highly capable people—and this necessitates ADL capabilities, such as distributed learning, on-demand support, mixed reality, self-regulated learning competencies, and a flexible digital learning ecosystem. 👉A few (of the many) conference highlights included: 🔹NATO leaders discussed the evolution of MDO 🔹 Dr. Sae Schatz keynoted on Human Performance in MDO 🔹 NATO CIO Office presented on advancements in adaptive learning and analytics 🔹 Ukrainian representatives shared insights their VR officer training scenarios 🔹 Dr. Wendy Walsh discussed Learning Engineering and Competencies 🔹 Lt. Col. Michael Nickolaus highlighted the Bundeswehr’s advances in ADL 🔹 Experts showed VR in military medical training and Agile Learning use cases 👉The conference underscored the complex challenges of modern military education, emphasizing the need for innovative tools and methodologies. The ADL Working Group continues its mission to enhance security policy and training through technology-enabled learning. 🌐For more on the PfPC Secretariat at #GCMC, visit https://ow.ly/caLB50TnUt6 #NATO #DefenseEducation #TechEnhancedLearning #MultiDomainOps #LearningEngineering ---- ✍️&📸: PfP Consortium | Sae Schatz

Why is the #PfPC talking about synthetic biology?    One answer was offered by presenter Dr. David Gisselsson Nord, Professor of Molecular Pathology from Lund University. He explained that genetics is already in the national security space—and it’s found in the disinformation domain. Or, as he quipped, bad actors are abusing our favorite science in the gray zone!    Examples include hacking health care genomic databases, such as data gained from 23andMe and Ancestry.com (both of which have reportedly been hacked), whether to leak data, push false alerts (e.g., to members of a particular group that falsely claim they have a genetic illness), or to accuse a particular opposition candidate of hiding a progressive genetic disease. DNA database access could also be used to corrupt those databases, antagonistically profile ethnic groups, or even for DNA-based targeting.    Genetic gray zone activities are already happening, often taking place in partner nations. The more the media hypes AI, synthetic biology, and pathogens, the more we see those concepts used for manipulative ends, such as narratives about ethnically targeted bio-weapons. Nations can leverage their universities and scientific community to help provide facts that debunk those narratives, but those experts need to work in close collaboration with democratically elected governments.  - - -  Interested in this? Check out Dr. Gisselsson’s Greyzone Genetics project and read two recent NATO strategies of interest: Summary of NATO’s Biotechnology of Human Enhancement Technologies Strategy and Summary of NATO’s revised AI Strategy.  Project: https://lnkd.in/dGC-_ePE NATO Biotechnology: https://lnkd.in/geduUqMA NATO AI: https://lnkd.in/gr9wEyee

This week we’re talking about synthetic biology.     “’Synthetic biology’ is a term that defies easy definition. It can mean different things to different people, but the common underlying need is a toolbox of well-defined genetic parts to build new functions,” or a bit more colloquially, “genetic engineering on steroids,” per Synthetic Biology: Back to the Basics. Nature Methods, Volume 11, 463 (2014).      Dr. Kate Sixt, Principal Director for Biotechnology from the United States Department of Defense, gave the opening keynote. She helped explain the complexity: Imagine an ant colony that can make structures on its own. Could you pick out 5 ants to modify (other than the queen) in order to change the collective outcome of the colony? This is somewhat like what we’re trying to do with synthetic biology: identifying and modifying the individual facets, the “ATCGs,” in DNA.      Dr. Kate Adamala, from the University of Minnesota, added that synthetic biology could be considered the “art and science of using DNA to make cells do what we want them to do” or “bioengineering taken to its logical conclusion.” Synthetic biology involves genetic modification and more. It also includes topics such as AI + toxicology (such as how human bodies may process different drugs), using AI to understand self-organizing behaviors and emergent systems in nature (such as how bees collectively build honeycombs), and bio-manufacturing (such as replacing petrochemicals with cell-based materials, engineering bio-fuels, and growing lab-based meat).   Dr. Sixt closed her keynote by saying that AI will help us understand more and more about what makes us human—the patterns that make us human found in the ATCs and Gs of our DNA. Our humanity is encoded in that DNA. Are we ready with our international and legal frameworks to cover this?    - - -  This meeting is part of the Partnership for Peace Consortium’s Emerging Security Challenges line of effort. The meeting is hosted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, including the working group’s co-chair, Dr. Jean-Marc Rickli, Head of Global and Emerging Risks and Founder/Director of the Polymath Initiative at GCSP. #PfPC #ESC #GCSP #syntheticbiology

📹 Check out a recent video produced by our Swiss stakeholders over at DCAF - Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance covering our recent Security Sector Reform Working Group event at the Akademia Marynarki Wojennej w Gdyni in Gdynia, Poland! ⬇ To learn more about the Security Sector Reform Working Group, click here: https://lnkd.in/dg_ypcwr

📢 What's new with PfPC? WPS and PME! 🆕This week, #PfPC is in Gdynia, Poland at the Polish Naval Academy for a Workshop titled Mainstreaming Women, Peace and Security in Professional Military Education: Understanding the Military Roles and the Use of Student-Centered Learning. Topics participants discussed included: 👉 Military Roles in Implementing the WPS Agenda 👉Considerations for Incorporating WPS into PME 👉Active Learning Methodologies 👉Building Student-Centered Activities ❓Why WPS in PME❓ ➡️Learning about WPS enhances military professionals' understanding of the diverse perspectives, experiences, and needs of women in conflict-affected areas. ➡️Recognizing their unique challenges and contributions is crucial for developing comprehensive strategies that address the root causes of conflict and promote lasting peace. ➡️Incorporating WPS into military education promotes gender equality and human rights within the armed forces, and it helps dismantle gender stereotypes and biases, fostering a more inclusive and diverse military culture. 🌐For more on WPS in PME, visit https://wpsinpme.com/ 🕊️What is Women, Peace and Security? ➡️WPS is a policy framework that recognizes that women must be critical actors in all efforts to achieve sustainable international peace and security. It promotes a gendered perspective and women’s equal and meaningful participation in peace processes, peacebuilding and security. The WPS Agenda evolved from the U.N. Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which was unanimously adopted on October 31, 2000. 🌐To learn more about UNSCR 1325 as the cornerstone of WPS, visit https://ow.ly/rQEO50SGUN0 ---- UN Women Post Credit: George C. Marshall Center