Senior Leaders’ Course ended

On 02 December the Commandant of the Baltic Defence College, Maj. Gen. Andis Dilans, graduated fifteen participants, from across the Euro-Atlantic area and from within the civil-military sectors, from the Senior Leaders’ Course (SLC) 2016. This course began on 28 November with a theme of ‘Deterrence after the Warsaw Summit’, with lectures, panel discussions and distinguished guest speakers giving their thoughts on Baltic and European security during the course of the week.

The SLC is a new and refreshed iteration of a pilot initiative taken last year, to provide continuing professional military education for executive leaders from the Baltic states, as well as their allies and partners.

On 01 December the SLC focused on the deterrence of hybrid threats, with an intervention by Mr. Chris Donnelley, Co-Director of the Institute for Statecraft. Participants then visited the recently-opened Estonian National Museum, before attending a formal dinner co-hosted by the Baltic Defence College’s Commandant and the Embassy of the United Kingdom to Estonia. Maj. Gen. Stuart Skeates, Commander of the Joint Expeditionary Force, provided an after-dinner speech, focusing on senior leadership and British support for the Baltic region.

During the last day the SLC culminated with a panel discussion focusing on ‘Deterrence through cooperation in the Wider Baltic’, with interventions from Lt. Gen. Riho Terras, Estonian Chief of Defence; Mr. Janis Garisons, State Secretary, Latvian Ministry of Defence; and Mr. Tomas Jermalavicius, Head of Studies, International Centre for Defence and Security; and moderated by Dr. Zdzislaw Sliwa, Dean of the Baltic Defence College. The panelists discussed the prospect of greater cooperation within the Baltic region in order to enhance the deterrence measures being adopted by the NATO alliance.

Lt. Gen. Terras, when delivering his remarks, welcomed the SLC as an important constituent of the professional military education in the Baltic states, and contribution to the expansion of higher strategic thinking in the region, as well as drawing in the allies and partners of the Baltic states more effectively into understanding security issues in the region.