Croatian Army PSO Center

4/2/2010

NATO Staff Officers Course - NATO SOC

NATO SOC (NATO Staff Officer Course) was organized at the Croatian Army Peace Support Operations Centre during the time period of 11th – 29th January 2010. This course is a continuation of staff officer training and it replaced JSOC (Junior Staff Officers Course). Apart from the Croatian participants, two officers from the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina successfully completed the course.
The aim of the course is to prepare officers for performing various staff duties in NATO commands, peace support operations, or stationary NATO force commands, as well as to prepare officers for duties in national contingent commands that are operationally subordinate to NATO.
NATO SOC curriculum is based on the experience of officers and NCOs of the Croatian Armed Forces in international NATO staffs, experience from previously conducted JSOC (Junior Staff Officer Course) and personal experience of the course director, LTC Boženko Đevoić, who had been the instructor and syndicate leader at Peace Support Operations Training Centre – PSOTC in Sarajevo for two years.
The first week of the course covered topics related to the introduction to NATO, military decision-making process at all NATO levels, PSO features focused on NATO-led operations, staff duties in multinational units and NATO commands, with the emphasis on the preparation and conduct of meetings and reports. Theoretical lessons were combined with syndicate work (up to 8 participants) which enabled participants to gain knowledge through discussions.
Sydicate work was organized every morning for the participants to practice English military terms, definitions and abbreviations, as well as presentation skills, followed by presentations conducted in the central classroom and, final discussions organized in small groups.
The second week of the course was focused on skills refreshment dealing with efficient communication and negotiations in the international environment, media relations, the use of interpreters, UTM maps, radio equipment and GPS.
During the third week, the participants practiced everything they were thaught at the final exercise which lasted four days. The exercise was based on simulated incidents from real operations The participants were organised as a multinational staff of the battle group in a fictive NATO PSO. They were highly motivated and proficient in applying the knowledge they gained during the course. Since the use of English language is indispensable for performing duties in multinational NATO staff, this course was conducted in English.
Taking into consideration progressive and sequential training for PSO at CAPSOC, the requirement for this course is successfully completed Basic PSO Course (BPSOC) and high level of the knowledge of English.
This new product of CAPSOC, NATO SOC, is one of several high-quality courses offered by the Croatian instructors to Croatian and international participants.