INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING FOR LOGISTICS COURSE - Defense Security Cooperation University

The most recent Institutional Capacity Building (ICB) for Logistics Resident Course  at ISG Headquarters in Monterey, California recently concluded. Course participants represented a diverse group of senior military and civilian administrative logistics leaders from several countries around the world to include Zambia, Slovenia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Croatia, Senegal, Trinidad & Tobago, The Bahamas, and Mexico.  

The ICB for Logistics Course focused on increasing allied and partner nation’s understanding/ability to develop and implement logistics institutions based on normative and institutional values, subsequently improving their levels of interoperability in support of various geopolitical alliances. 

This included conveying the need and importance of allied and partner nation’s establishing and implementing logistics institutional governance functions, ensuring the professionalization of military forces and their adherence to civilian leadership/control, developing procedural guidelines, administrative practices, and requisite infrastructure to create a Defense Logistics Management System needed to generate and sustain military capability; while working across the Whole of Government while leveraging elements of strategic national power (DIME) and within resource constrained parameters/environments. 

Andragogical and pedagogical approaches in the course included lectures, case studies analysis and facilitation, small group activities, as well as a summative course exercise designed to help students gain an appreciation and understanding of emerging logistics ICB themes, theory, and best practices; while connecting them to the problem sets, they face within their current environments marked with varying levels of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA). The course also included guest lecturers and a Senior Leader Logistics Discussion Panel that provided students and faculty with their unique perspective on strategic level topics ranging from Supply Chain/Distribution Management to how to best leverage Artificial Intelligence in support of Logistics Institutional Capacity Building. Guest lecturers and discussion panel participants included senior executive leaders from FedEx, META, National Defense Industrial Association, Rhombus Power, and the Center for Joint Strategic Logistics, National Defense University. 

This year’s course ended with a discussion on Strategic Leadership in support of Logistics ICB, with an emphasis on encouraging course participants to become reflective practitioners that are better equipped to problematize, in support of operating within indeterminate zones of practice. Next year’s course will occur from 22 April – 04 May 2024 in Monterey, California.