In Country Training teams 'In Country Training Team' tasks are a key part of the Unit's mandate and some 50% of our time and manpower resources are dedicated to this vital outreach work. The reason is straightforward, the UK's armed forces and, increasingly, our Czech counterparts, have a wealth of experience to offer countries currently engaged in the transition from conscript-based to truly professional, democratically accountable armies. The British experience is considerable, spanning many decades of expeditionary operations with Northern Ireland as a bed rock and recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as the current litmus test of effectiveness. The Czech Republic's recent experience of reshaping its forces to meet the needs of its responsibilities in the 21st Century, combined with lessons learned in deploying alongside its allies, provides another perspective with many valuable lessons for other partner countries at whatever stage has been reached in the evolution of their respective military capabilities.
BMATT (CZ) delivers an important part of an agreed Security Cooperation Programme by promoting military cooperation and understanding, building trust and assisting with the development of professional and efficient armed forces under civil democratic control. BMATT particularly seeks to assist by increasing the capabilities of partner countries to participate in multinational Peace Support Operations (PSO).
BMATT offers a range of bespoke training drawn from the following core business:
- Basic Instructor Training Courses
- PSO Instructor Training Courses
- PSO mission pre-deployment training
- Design of peace keeping training and programmes
- Junior Commander training
- Live firing, either marksmanship or tactical
A typical ICTT comprises an officer/ warrant officer as Team Leader and 2 to 5 senior non-commissioned officers as instructors. All will have recent operational experience or have come from employment in key training posts. Wherever possible this team is reinforced with BMATT trained instructors serving with the host nation and normally the target audience will be potential instructors. Ideally the host nation instructors will have attended a BMATT course at Vyškov although frequently this requirement is met by their having been trained on an earlier ICTT. 'Training the Trainer' is the key to an effective cascade of best practice and that is what BMATT instructors strive to achieve.
A snapshot of activity can be gleaned from the following facts. In 2007/2008 ICTTs were conducted in:
- Albania, Armenia x 2 deployments, Azerbaijan, BiH x 4 deployments, Croatia, Georgia x 3 deployments, Kazakhstan x 4 deployments, Lithuania x 2 deployments, Nigeria x 2 deployments, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Czech Republic x 3 deployments, Morocco and Bulgaria.
and in 2009 the work continued in:
- Czech Republic x 3 deployments, BiH x 2 deployments, Kazakhstan x 2 deployments, Serbia, Kosovo, Romania and Morocco.
Brief overviews and picture montages of several 2009 deployments can be viewed under the Related Pages/Documents on the right.
BMATT maintains a busy programme for 2009-10 and looks forward to continuing to make this contribution, which is ultimately intended to facilitate meaningful engagement in current Peace Support Operations.