First“NATO Intermediate Strategic Communications Course” is conducted in Baltic Defence College

From March 23 to 27, the “NATO Intermediate Strategic Communications Course” is conducted in Baltic Defence College. The aim of the course is to educate military and civilian decision makers and planners how to ensure the full integration of StratCom into operations and crisis management situations at all levels within their headquarters in support of their execution.

Key topics, which are included into the Course are: NATO Strategic Communications, NATO StratCom policy and its relationship to Political Military Direction and Guidance, Information Environment Assessment, StratCom functions and capabilities, StratCom planning products and implementation of StratCom considerations into a battle rhythm.

There are as many as 28 students in the course - 21 student from Baltic Defence College and 7 external participants. They are coming from all three Baltic countries, as well as Norway, Hungary, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland and Romania. This ensures excellent multinational cooperation during syndicate works, including expertise from different level HQs and ministerial level.

This NATO certified course is conducted in cooperation with NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga and among lecturers there are representatives of the NATO HQ Public Diplomacy Division and SHAPE Communications Division, as well as the Latvian Joint HQ and the Estonian Defence Forces.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the course is conducted in the online environment using distance learning principles. This involves not only video calls, but also chats and virtual syndicate rooms.

The syndicate works are not the only tasks for students – they are to write individual assignments and must prove their knowledge in online test. After successful completion of the Course, during the virtual graduation, students will receive the certificate for accomplishing NATO certified course STO-ST-35529.

Strategic Communication is becoming more and more important for military and civilian communicators, especially for commanders, high ranking officers and civil servants to support planning and execution of any activity. Baltic Defence College, along with NATO School Oberammergau, is one of the Education and Training facilities providing Strategic Communication course for non-communicators. This knowledge is very valuable for any person, who is to serve in any NATO post in coming years. Hence, we would like to announce the dates for the next course – March 22 – 26, 2021.