Staff Colleges Professionalize Africa’s Militaries

Nigeria’s College Includes a ‘Think Tank’ for Research

ADF STAFF

First came battle command, the science of directing and leading armed forces against an enemy.

Battle command was the core curriculum of the first military staff colleges, also known as war colleges or defense colleges. The first modern staff college dates to 1810 and focused largely on military strategy. But Africa’s staff colleges, among the youngest in the world, have evolved far beyond the study of the art of war.

Nigeria’s National Defence College (NDC) is a case in point. Although its 11-month program includes the traditional training of senior military and civilian officers for leadership and command functions, its course structure extends to politics and research. The nine “blocks” of the program include war study, research methodology, economics, science and technology, peace support operations, and international affairs. Instructors emphasize that the curriculum is fluid and that some questions have no clearly defined answers.

“The course curriculum is designed such that participants are faced with a variety of problems for which there are no college template solutions,” the college says. “Participants are encouraged to consider and challenge their own intellectual assumptions and standpoints about the nature of war, peace, leadership, politics, ethics and the application of force.”

The college is among the most ambitious in the world. Classes typically have 200 students, with 21 classes graduating since the college’s founding. The students rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general and come from the army, navy and air force. Civilians from government agencies also are included. Graduates are awarded master’s degrees.

Like most of Africa’s war colleges, the NDC recruits students from other countries. Typically, 8 percent to 10 percent of students are from other nations.

The war college encourages the open exchange of ideas. It has adopted what it calls “Rotunda Rules,” a policy of nonattribution in the school’s auditorium, where students and staff members can express personal views frankly, “but privately to a privileged audience.”

The school’s objectives include:

• Teaching command functions with a clear understanding of geographical considerations affecting Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world.
• Understanding the elements of national power and the building of a national strategy.
• Training for joint and multinational operations.
• Within a democratic framework, managing defense interests within the broader national interests.
• Advanced academic research at the national level.
• Making policy recommendations on specific national and international issues.

NIGERIA’S MILITARY ‘THINK TANK’

The NDC also includes the Center for Strategic Research and Studies, which dates to 1996. It was founded on the premise that a full, sustainable peace requires the study and understanding of violence and wars, and how best to prevent and resolve them.

The center has been structured to strengthen the academic program of the NDC and continue to make it relevant to modern developments in peacekeeping and international security. As the research component of the NDC, its functions include supporting the NDC in research, documentation and publication of research findings. It serves as a “think tank” for the college, the three service branches, and the nation in the areas of defense, security and military science.

The center is charged with monitoring events and developments around the world, which can affect Nigeria and Africa. It also collaborates with regional and continental organizations, including the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Southern Africa Development Community and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.

The center also raises money for research, and provides internships and fellowships for visiting scholars. The center’s duties have been divided among four departments:

The Department of Area and Regional Studies provides information to Nigeria’s policymakers on any area or region of the world.

The Department of Conflict, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Studies conducts research and training on conflict, peace support operations and humanitarian challenges in Nigeria and Africa. It collaborates with other organizations, including the African Union, in capacity building for strategic peacekeeping training.

The Department of Governance and Public Policy is the “good government” component. It focuses on research on the rule of law, constitutional governance, transparency and accountability, human rights, elections, political policies, and other areas of democracy.

The Department of Defense and Security Studies focuses on sustainable security development and the challenges of globalization.

A ONE-YEAR COMMITMENT

Africa’s staff colleges have another mission: bringing together future military leaders from multiple countries. That’s a significant commitment, considering that the senior officers’ courses usually last about a year. The National Defence College in Kenya is typical: Its graduating class in May 2014 had 41 students representing 15 countries. Graduates have included Kenya Defence Forces officers, Kenyan senior civil servants, and more than 100 foreign military officers and civilians, with recent courses encouraging the participation of women.

Uganda’s Senior Command and Staff College 2012 graduating class of 43 students included 12 representatives from five other countries in the region. In South Africa, the South African National War College emphasizes participation with officers from the Southern African Development Community’s military.

The war colleges also generally include civilian students. Tanzania’s National Defence College graduated its first class of 20 students in July 2013, and its student makeup was typical of such colleges: Of the 20 graduates, eight were from the military, with the ranks of brigadier general and colonel, and the remaining students were from various government departments, with a rank of director or its equivalent. The school has a 10-year strategy to develop capacity toward self-sufficiency in teaching, administration and facilities to handle up to 100 participants.

The staffs of the war colleges are every bit as diverse as their student populations. The instructors at Tanzania’s first graduating class included government ministers, university professors, senior officers with defense and civil services, and leading industrialists. Some were from other countries.

Foreign travel can be a part of the training at the war colleges. Tanzania’s National Defence College, for example, has sent students to Japan to meet with defense specialists there. In 2013, the school sent delegations to Liberia, Morocco, Rwanda and Uganda.

Flexibility has become a hallmark of staff colleges throughout the world, and Africa’s colleges are no exception. They change their curriculum to adapt to world events. Nigeria’s staff colleges, for example, announced in June 2014 that they were beginning a nationwide training program for officers and enlisted Soldiers on tactics for dealing with the extremist group Boko Haram. Officials said that they had begun a “practical exercise in maneuvering war gaming” for students in one course with a view to combating insurgency.

Such war games are a specialty of the South African National War College. Its “flagship” program is its annual Combined Joint African Exercises (CJAX), conducted with the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) military. Officials say the classroom-based exercise could be linked to the African Union’s planned African Standby Force in the future.

CJAX, conceived in 2007, is modeled after the Combined Joint European Exercise directed by NATO. CJAX is to develop a greater understanding of the joint, multinational and interagency environment among SADC countries. It promotes a better understanding of the challenges involved in planning and coordinating complex multinational peace support operations.