• Government representative from Norway

A keynote presentation the first day focused on detailing the advent of the fourth industrial revolution as well as the role of the SEE and Alliance in that process. It was delivered by Dr. Linton Wells II, who had been U.S. Chief Information Officer and Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense of Network Information and Integration (ASD/NII) in charge of the US$80 billion cyber budget of the United States, Distinguished Research Professor and Director of the U.S. National Defense University Center for Technology and National Security Studies, and NATO Transformation Chair. He is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow at U.S. National Defense University as well as Executive Advisor to the C4I and Cyber Center of Excellence at George Mason University. In addition, Mr. Mark Laity the Chief of Strategic Communications for NATO SHAPE spoke to the audience on both the pivotal role of the region and communications. He drew upon his extensive career which included coverage of the breakup of Yugoslavia for NATO as well serving as advisor to the first president of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Turkey recognizes the Republic of Macedonia with its constitutional name.

Presentations and discussions covered the following areas of military and defense aspects of cross-border threats: terrorism and violent extremism, cyber issues, weapons trafficking, academic and other cooperative efforts, behavioral and organizational assessments, border and criminal institutional challenges, models of development, technological and cyber solutions, cooperation mechanisms, research models being employed at the government level to assess hybrid threats, hands-on technical demonstrations, as well as case-study presentations on national and cooperative efforts. Finally, ample time for break-out sessions facilitated open dialogue among speakers and participants focused on problem solving and partnership development to yield the best input. Given time constraints, some excellent presentations unfortunately do not appear in this book. What follows is a brief summary of their research.

Mark Laity's “Working Together We Succeed: Getting the Story Right and Organizing for Success” discussed strategic communications, military needs, and organizational requirements SEE leaders must factor to address contemporary security challenges in SEE and partnership opportunities. Mr. Laity's comments were particularly well received given his reputation in the country and in the region from his previous positions mentioned earlier. Dr. / Reverend Carrie Pemberton-Ford represented the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and is the Director of Research and Institutional Development at the Cambridge Center of Applied Research in Human Trafficking. Her presentation, “The Trouble with Securitization: Myths and Realities of Irregular Migration, Trafficking, and the Threat to National Security” discussed the role of migration as a national security issue rather than just a humanitarian one. Her focus underscored how migration issues are regularly slated to the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) basket without enough consideration to how it comprises an intrinsic hard-security concern. This controversial and interesting perspective fostered discussion throughout the entire week.

Dr. Nikola Dujovski, Vice-Dean and Associate Professor of Security Studies, University St. Kliment Ohridiski – Bitola, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Ibid.

LTC (Romanian, Army) Lucian Munteanu as the Chief of Concepts, Development, and Experimentation (CD&E) branch of the NATO HUMINT Center of Excellence (HCOE) in Romania presented on “Intelligence and Training Considerations for SEE Border Security Threats.” He provided an unclassified explanation of the role of human intelligence and cooperation to address complex threats related to military and defense aspects of border security. Several conversations ensued regarding partnership and research possibilities on topics covered in his talk. Finally, the Dean of Criminal Criminology and Security Studies at the University of Sarajevo Dr. Nedžat Korajli'c, and his Vice-Dean Dr. Jasmin Ačić, presented on the “Education of Leaders in the Security Sector in the Balkans.”

This presentation from Bosnia-Herzegovina was well received in that it was both frank and realistic assessment of the challenges that face leadership and education issues in the Balkans. Very forthright discussions ensued on the role of graft, corruption, fake diplomas, and plagiarism. In addition, the threats of terrorism and violent extremism as it exists in Bosnia-Herzegovina were laid out clearly as well as the restrictions of the legal and justice systems. This topic sparked much open dialogue on the real problems of the SEE in terms of leadership development in the security sector as well as how to address them. Dr. Lazar Gjurov, the PfP co-director of this grant and Associate Professor of Communications at the “General Mihailo Apostolski” Military Academy-Skopje, Associate member of University Goce Delčev – Stip of the host country also presented on “National Culture's Influence on Senior Leadership's Security-Related Problem Solving.”

The goals and outcomes of this senior leadership roundtable were to:

• Assemble an international and interdisciplinary group of speakers to interact with SEE senior leaders responsible for developing and implementing appropriate policies to these security threats.

• Provide a platform for collaboration to maximize limited resources, prevent duplication of efforts, as well as increase the speed and efficacy of decisions to address these emerging and dynamic, contemporary security challenges.

• Foster avenues of partnerships and mechanisms for development of protocols.

• Provide an intensive and interactive format for senior-level government, practitioners and experts; and enable the formation and strengthening of international expert networks.

• Facilitate dialogue between public and private sector leaders to share experiences, exchange knowledge, thoughts and approaches to develop networks of trust and cooperation to more effectively address fluid security dynamics.

• Provide a foundation of current NATO standards and procedures on these issues which is critical given SEE Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries actively take part in NATO-led operations.

• Publish the proceedings to increase dissemination of lessons-identified, potential areas of cooperation and other military and defense-related recommendations that emerge.

This NATO SPS grant achieved its goals and several spin-off projects were discussed at the Berovo 2017 event and are under development. And, as a mark of success, participants unanimously requested this be a yearly effort as there is currently no other regional forum for this discussion at a senior-leadership level with such an interdisciplinary mix of people that also carries the legitimacy of a NATO activity. Concomitantly, NATO DEEP took hold in the country at the same time; and the DEEP representative, Mr. Pavel Anastasov, was a speaker at our roundtable. His article appears in this book.

Since then, Mr. Michael Gaul, the NATO SPS program officer who greatly assisted in the awarding of this grant has moved to the Partnership for Peace Consortium PfPC, where a U.S. contingent manages all the funding for DEEP. This year, U.S. EUCOM has deemed the DEEP effort as one its top priorities for enhancing defense cooperation. Furthermore, the PfPC also co-sponsored an event on resilience at the C4I and Cyber Center of Excellence at George Mason University in April 2018 to which high-level members of the host country were invited and participated. As of the writing of this book, PfPC is also planning to host an event on hybrid threats in Skopje as well in 2018 in which I and members of my partner institution in the host country will take part.

Acknowledgements

First, I would to thank the team, the other organizing committee members of this NATO SPS grant without whom it would not have been possible: Dr. Lazar Gjurov (PfP country co-director), Dr. Orce Popovski (Dean of the PfP country institution), LTC Nikola Klentnikov, M.S. (PfP country institution), Dr. Jugoslav Achkoski (PfP country institution), and Dr. Dejan Rancic (organizing committee member from Serbia). Second, a special thanks goes to Mr. Michael Gaul for his assistance in developing and getting approval for this novel form of SPS grant within NATO and his encouraging efforts and comments throughout. In addition, numerous members of George Mason University, U.S. National Defense University, and U.S. European Command helped make this a reality. Since it was the first time the U.S. Department of Defense executed a NATO grant, multiple layers of approval were needed. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Linton Wells II and Ms. Trina Zwicker for their assistance, as well as Dr. Rebecca Goolsby, at the U.S. Office of Naval Research for supporting the research.

Among my European colleagues, I greatly appreciate Mr. Bekim Maksuti, Vice Minister of Defense of the host country for his support of my U.S. efforts the past five years and for spending two days at our event. Likewise, I appreciate the support of Mr. Mariusz Solis at NATO DEEP, Mr. Evariste Karambizi at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and General (Estonia, retired) Johannes Kert who encouraged in various iterations of this event over four years and supported this effort by recommending and sending various speakers. In addition, the excellent organizational support from Mr. Vlatko Kostenchev at Aurora Tours and Aurora Resort and Spa was invaluable to our success. Finally, a special note of gratitude is extended to Ms. Helen Sahk for her editorial and fact-checking assistance.