Since a real soldier never accomplishes his or her education and personal development, also Major General Ole Køppen, Deputy Commander of Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE), attended a NATO Senior Officer Policy Course, which took place from 9 to 13 February 2009 at the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany.
As a matter of fact, he was not the only representative of MNC NE in Oberammergau. Also Chief of G-2 Division Colonel Jerzy Fela participated in the course broadening his knowledge. Among the participants, there were members of different NATO commands, headquarters, agencies and other organisations, altogether 103 people.
"I wasn’t bored a second!"
General Køppen emphasized that the combination of broad and specialist knowledge of lecturers and interesting topics chosen for the agenda was the most important value of the course. This one-week course covered diverse topics related to NATO. An overall impression on developments within the organisation was given by NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero. The mission in Afghanistan and strengthening security in Europe were presented as main priorities of NATO. In fact, the Afghan mission was talked over also during different presentations.
Other topics raised during the course referred to, for instance, the NATO Strategic Communication, the Deployable Joint Staff Elements or the US Missile Defence Programmes. A very interesting presentation touched upon China, which went far beyond security issues. The cooperation between NATO and the United Nations and the European Union as well as other players was also thoroughly discussed. As General Køppen stated, it was very important that the balance was kept and views from different perspectives were presented. Therefore, speeches were delivered by representatives of Russia or Georgia. Each presentation was followed by a fruitful discussion, during which different views were contrasted.
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