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McKinley: SPP relationships have matured well

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke
  • National Guard Bureau
STUTTGART, Germany --  The National Guard's State Partnership Program started as a confidence- building measure between formerly hostile nations and has grown into solid, long-standing alliances, the chief of the National Guard Bureau told conference participants here today.

"The relationship has matured well," said Air Force Gen. Craig R. McKinley.

He cited the example of the young lieutenant colonel from the Illinois Army National Guard who went to Poland in the early days of their partnership. That lieutenant colonel is now the adjutant general of the state, Maj. Gen. William Enyart, and "the folks he met there and maintained contact with are now senior leaders in that nation's military."

Because of this long-standing relationship between Illinois and Poland, the Polish armed forces deployed to Iraq, commanding a multi-national division. "And the Illinois Guard went with them providing critical enabling capabilities," McKinley said.

McKinley said the SPP has matured in other ways too.

SPP partners have developed joint Operational Mentor Liaison Teams, which are currently deployed to Afghanistan, where they have embedded with Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police units. "American and partner-nation forces are working side-by-side to bring security and stability to that troubled country," McKinley said.

Expanding the military-to-military partnership into a military-civilian one is being manifested in other ways as well. "We now have 13 states signed up to field Agribusiness Development Teams in Afghanistan," he said. "We are leveraging the land grant institutions and farm bureaus in our 'farm states' to provide training through deployed Guard units to Afghan farmers."

McKinley added that Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Central Command commander, has asked the National Guard to keep building this program. "He can use as many of these teams as we can build."

Building better State Partnership Programs is the purpose of this conference. "This is a very important event for the National Guard," McKinley said. "It is important that we get together to talk about the various strengths and weaknesses of our programs, because we're on a vector to make it better."

McKinley said he is very proud of the program. "For those of you who have participated in events around the world, you know how important the program is for building partnership capacity," he said.

It was the visionary leadership of retired Lt. Gen. John Conaway, a former chief of the National Guard Bureau, who along with Gen. John Shalikashvili, the former commander of European Command and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, created the program.

"Their vision together collectively ... shaped an environment so that we can today build on those roots," McKinley said.

In the early 1990s, the United States had just finished fighting a cold war that resulted in a changed world environment. We also witnessed the rise of a solidarity movement, free elections in Poland, fall of Berlin Wall, and the demise of Warsaw Pact.

"We had a small group of fragile nations struggling to adapt to democratic institutions and to develop armed forces that were self-reliant and transformed from the Soviet model," McKinley said.

Both generals realized that generations of immigrants had come to America to establish new roots. "Many had joined the National Guard and perhaps a synergy could be built and they created the state partnership initiative," McKinley said.

There are several areas for SPP growth in the future, McKinley said. DoD has asked the National Guard to use the SPP program to assist partner countries in their contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations around the world.

The Joint Staff also envisions the National Guard building partnership capacity programs into a $50 million program. In fiscal year 2009, the SPP operates with a budget of about $8 million. "Those are pretty exciting numbers when you think about where we have come from," he said.

While he is here, McKinley also plans to meet with Gen. William E. Ward, the commander of Africa Command, about increasing the number of SPP relationships in his area of operations.

Finally, McKinley encouraged the states to "keep doing what you are doing. Keep building these relationships. Maintain your basic military-to-military events, but look for new opportunities to do more in the military-civilian and civil security cooperation areas. Continue to generate the good ideas. Your enhanced SPP approach is an impressive example of such forward thinking."