Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Coalition

The Department of Defense Strategic Plan for Distributed Learning (1999) highlighted the relevance of the ADL Initiative for global militaries, noting that it "...represents a unique opportunity to supplement Military Assistance and multinational initiatives, including the Partnership for Peace (PfP), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Technical Cooperation Program, and others..." (p. 18). The ADL Initiative continues to support these organizations, co-chairing the NATO Training Group on Individual Training and Education Developments and supporting the TTCP Human Resources collaborative project on Improving Cost Efficiency and Effectiveness of Defense Training Systems. The ADL Initiative also operates a Partnership Network with representatives from global defense organizations.

Global Defense Cooperatives

The ADL Initiative actively participates with formal global defense bodies in topics related to training, education, and associated distributed learning capabilities.

  • NATO: The NATO Training Group encourages collaboration on training and education across the NATO Alliance and Partnership for Peace countries. The aim of the NATO Training Group is “to enhance professionalism, interoperability and standardization among Alliance and partner forces through improved co-ordination of Education, Training, Exercise and Evaluation, with particular emphasis on supporting operations" (MC238/5). The NATO Training Group consists of a steering committee, executive working group, three service task groups, and three NATO Training Group task groups. Based on authorities granted, ADL Initiative serves as the U.S. delegate and co-chair of the Individual Training and Education Developments (IT&ED) task group, which was established over 45 years ago to coordinate on challenges, solutions, and forward planning in all areas of individual training and education. The group meets twice annually, and during these meetings nations discuss joint projects, share information on training and education policies and issues, and make decisions to improve coalition individual training and education.

  • PfPC: The Partnership for Peace Consortium is a global security cooperation organization of over 800 defense academies and security studies institutes across 60 countries. Members collaborate, organize, and participate in seminars and working groups, conduct research, and develop educational tools and scholarly publications in order to strengthen defense and military education. Like the NATO Training Group, the PfPC has established a series of study/working groups, including one on advanced distributed learning, on which ADL Initiative participates. The PfPC ADL Working Group's mission is to strengthen e-learning-based defense and security policy education through international and institutional collaboration. Its core activities are to discuss and evaluate new education and training technologies which can support nation's military and academic institutions. The activities include the creation and sharing of interactive, widely needed e-learning courseware; providing access to interoperable, open-source e-learning technologies; and the exchange and dissemination of ADL-based best practices.

  • TTCP: The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) is a research and development cooperative including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and U.S. national members. Through TTCP, these nations collaboratively explore concepts related to defense issues. DoD cooperates with TTCP participating countries in the development and exchange of defense technology base information. DoD instruction 3100.8 assigns responsibilities and prescribes procedures for the organization, membership, functions, and responsibilities of TTCP. Like the NATO Training Group and PfPC efforts described above, TTCP appoints working groups for key topical areas. Based on authorities granted, ADL Initiative serves as the U.S. representative to the Individual Training and Education Technical Panel (#23), an ad hoc task group under the TTCP Human Resources and Performance Group. The central concept that led to the formation of TTCP was contained in the Declaration of Common Purpose. That declaration recognized that no member nation possesses the total resources to provide for its own defense research and development (R&D) needs. Each must assist the others by sharing resources and tasks in many fields so that progress and security can be found by all. The aim of TTCP, then, is to foster such cooperation in the science and technology (S&T) needed for conventional, i.e. non-atomic, national defense. Collaboration within TTCP provides a means of acquainting the participating nations with each other’s defense R&D programs so that each national program may be adjusted and planned in cognizance of the efforts of the other nations. This process supplements each nation’s program with the knowledge and resources of the others. It avoids unnecessary duplication among the national programs. It promotes concerted action and joint research to identify and close important gaps in the collective technology base. And it provides each nation with the best technical information available for advice to their governments and military forces on all matters related to defense R&D.