U.S. European Command State Partnership Program

The United States European Command State Partnership Program (EUCOM SPP), according to its own mission, is a National Guard program that "links U.S. states with designated partner countries to ... support the command’s security cooperation objectives." Currently, 22 Partnerships exist "with former Soviet, Yugoslav and Warsaw Pact countries in the EUCOM Area of Responsibility." Becoming independent on the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, these countries shortly requested the advice and assistance of the United States in creating new self-defense forces.
They had been acquired by the Soviet Union from the European Theatre of World War II. The requests began among the Baltic states, notably Latvia, which had approached NATO. It sent a delegation from five member countries, including the U.S., which chose the National Guard Bureau as most appropriate spokesman, considering that Latvia could not afford a standing army. EUCOM thus became the first of the six geographic Combatant Commands that make up the 
"global SPP," and the NG, which is divided into state-sized contingents, became the host of each state-sized new national force, typically, but not necessarily, one-to-one, totally voluntarily. A country member must begin by requesting membership. The very first Partnership Program was with Latvia.
Concept of security cooperation.
Attempting to put a name on the theme of the partnership, the DoD arrived at "security cooperation." Although it does retain its general English meaning, the phrase has become part of the specialized vocabulary of the DoD and currently is viewed as a strategic goal. However, to a large degree it means whatever the DoD defines it to mean for specific applications. In the case of EUCOM, by linking U.S. States with designated partner countries, the SPP stated aim is to promote access, enhance military capabilities, improve interoperability and enhance the principles of responsible governance. Furthermore, the SPP aims to support several areas of potential interest to the US Congress, such as:
All EUCOM SPP activities are coordinated through the U.S. Ambassadors' country teams, the partner State, and other agencies as appropriate, to ensure that National Guard support is tailored to meet both U.S. and country objectives. Specifically, all activities must support the EUCOM Theater Campaign Plan (TCP) as well as individual U.S. Ambassador mission plans in the countries where they operate. The unique civil-military nature of the National Guard allows active participation in a wide range of security cooperation activities, such as:
History.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, an opportunity emerged for bilateral relations with the 15 former Soviet Republics. Such relations were necessary to maintain regional stability and to ensure the development of civilian-controlled militaries.
The SPP evolved from the 1991 U.S. European Command decision to set up a Joint Contact Team Program in the Baltic Region with Reserve component Soldiers and Airmen. A subsequent National Guard Bureau proposal paired U.S. states with three nations emerging from the former Soviet Bloc (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) and the SPP was born, becoming a key U.S. security cooperation tool, facilitating cooperation across all aspects of international civil-military affairs and encouraging people-to-people ties at the state level.
Sparking the program was a request from the Latvian government for help in developing a military based on the National Guard’s citizen-soldier model. Army Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time and Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, then EUCOM commander, embraced the concept as a way to build partnerships with non-NATO countries in the region as they established democratic governments and market economies.
The United States European Command (USEUCOM) took the lead in this effort by establishing the Joint Contact Team Program (JCTP) in 1992. The JCTP was originally composed of active component personnel and included members of the special forces because of their language skills. However, when the JCTP began to engage the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, senior defense officials insisted that National Guard and Reserve personnel play a leading role in any military liaison teams operating in those countries, apparently in response to those governments’ desire to establish reserve-centric defense establishments and to assuage Russian concerns about U.S. expansion into its former satellites. “The U.S. was trying to engage with the former communist nations that were in the Warsaw Pact, and using active duty troops might have been a little too offensive to the Russians or the folks that were in there, so the idea was to use the small footprint of National Guard troops,” said Air Force Col. Joey Booher, Chief of International Affairs for the National Guard Bureau.
In November 1992, Lieutenant General John Conaway, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and Brigadier General Thomas Lennon, head of the JCTP, visited the Baltics. A few months after their trip, in early 1993, the National Guard initiated the first state partnerships: Maryland-Estonia, Michigan-Latvia, and Pennsylvania-Lithuania. Additional partnerships were proposed later in 1993 for Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The SPP assisted the JCTP by providing additional personnel, funding, and access to military personnel from U.S. ethnic-heritage communities who often had relevant language and cultural skills.
Today, 21 U.S. states are partnered with 22 European countries. Two bilateral relationships also exist between NGB and Israel as well as between Minnesota and Norway.
Current partnerships.
The EUCOM State Partnership Program consists of 22 State/Country partnerships. The following is a list of each partnership with the year they were formed in parenthesis.
Claimed benefits of the SPP.
In a U.S. Government Accountability Office Report to Congressional Committees published in May 2012, State Partnership Program stakeholders, including State Partnership Program Coordinators, Bilateral Affairs Officers, and Combatant Command officials, cited benefits of the program as follows:
In addition to the above, EUCOM claims the following additional benefits:
Statutory authority.
The SPP has no dedicated statutory authority; rather, SPP activities are currently carried out under one or more Title 10 (Armed Forces), Title 32 (National Guard) and National Defense Authorization Act authorities that are related to the types of missions conducted. The main authorities that may be used by SPP are:
For SPP events conducted overseas, National Guard members are placed in a duty status by orders issued under the authority of 10 U.S.C. 12301. For SPP events conducted within the United States, National Guard members are placed in a duty status by orders issued under 32 U.S.C. 502. This permits the participating members to receive appropriate military pay and benefits.
Funding mechanisms.
Current funding for SPP activities includes the pay and allowances for the National Guard participants, which are normally funded by the Army and Air National Guard Personnel accounts of DOD appropriations. However, those who serve overseas full-time in support of the program have their pay and allowances covered by the active component Army or Air Force Personnel account. Other significant costs for SPP are travel-related expenses, such as transportation, lodging, and meals. These expenses may be incurred by National Guard personnel or foreign military personnel participating in an SPP event. Such travel-related expenses are typically paid for out of one of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) accounts, although some of the travel expenses for National Guard personnel may be paid out of personnel accounts. This O&M funding has historically flowed to SPP through a number of programs and activities:
External links.
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