From May 8-9, 2018, the NATO Land Operations (LandOps) Discipline Workshop was held at the NATO School Oberammergau (NSO), Germany. The workshop was organized in conjunction with the 2018 Combined Training Conference, and its purpose was to conduct the LandOps Training Needs Analysis (TNA), which would facilitate the development of new education and training (E&T) opportunities stemming from E&T gaps identified during preceding LandOps Training Requirement Analysis (TRA).

    Prior to this LandOps Discipline TNA Workshop, the Professional Military Education Centre (PME Centre) of the Armed Forces Academy of the General Milan Rastislav Stefanik (SVK AFA) elaborated a document called the LandOps TNA Food for Thought, whose purpose was (firstly) to help initiating the LandOps TNA process and (secondly) to suggest/offer some own E&IT solutions developed by PME Centre of the SVK AFA.

    The SVK AFA was recognized by the North Atlantic Council as a Partnership Training Education Centre (PTEC) as early as 2004, and its area of expertise (offered and provided to the NATO member and Partner countries community) has been the operations planning and decision-making procedures at both the tactical and the operational level.

    From 2008 to 2018, the SVK AFA as a PTEC organized 22 iterations of the 9 to 11-week International Staff Officers’ Course - ISOC (mostly two iterations per year), and eight shortened versions of ISOC, 1 to 3-week courses called the “Decision Making Process at the Tactical Level” (MDMP) with a total of 450 students from 24 NATO member and Partner countries. The main subject taught in the ISOC was the operations planning and decision-making process at the tactical level. Moreover, from 2015 to 2017, members of the PME Centre executed three short-term mobile MDMP courses within activities of the NATO Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP). The courses, which served as a preparation for the annual international exercise Rapid Trident, were carried out at the National Army Academy in Lviv (UKR) and were attended by 79 Ukrainian officers.

    In late 2017, in addition to tactical level courses, the PME Centre of the SVK AFA with support of the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College started developing its first operational level course called the “Introduction to the Planning of Joint Operations”. The course subject was the Operational Level Planning Process (OLPP) as articulated in Chapter 4 of the Allied Command Operations Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive (COPD).

    At the end of January 2018, the SVK AFA realized the pilot OLPP course exclusively for 24 officers from the Visegrád Group Countries (CZE-5, HUN-5, POL-4, SVK-10). Subsequently, the Course Control Documents (CCDs) were developed and submitted to LandOps Discipline Department Head with request to start the certification process.

    On May 9, 2018, the certification process of the OLPP course was successfully initiated at the abovementioned LandOps Discipline TNA Workshop by the Signing Ceremony of the Course Control Documents. The Signing Ceremony was attended by the LandOps Discipline Department Head, Mr. Mathew Fitch, USAREUR, by the LandOps Discipline Requirement Authority, Commander Piotr Paluch, LANDCOM, and by the SVK Senior National Representative to NSO, Command Sergeant Major Miroslav Dulaj who represented both the SVK AFA rector, Assoc. Prof. Jozef Puttera PhD., and the Director of the PME Centre, Colonel Tomáš Novotný, PhD.