Successful completion an important project: The DEEP Team (Dr. Sven Gareis/Marshall Center, Amanda sellers/NATO International Staff, and LTC (GS) Klaus Huettker/German General Staff and Command College) together with MG Choijamts (MNDU President) and graduates of the first Mongolian Staff Officers Course.

Mongolia graduated the first class of the Mongolian Staff Officer Course (MSOC) on 11 December.  MSOC was developed by the Mongolian National Defense University in close cooperation with Deputy Dean Prof. Dr. Sven Bernhard Gareis through the framework of the Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP).

Speaking before the new class of eighteen graduating officers, Major General Yadmaa Choijamts, President of the MNDU, highlighted the hard work undertaken by the MNDU and its partners.

“The Mongolian Staff Officer Course will play an active role in preparing the high level staff officer corps in not only in our Armed forces, but also in other national security agencies. MSOC is the crucial link of our Professional Military Education chain,” said Choijamts.

In his address to the graduates Dr. Gareis emphasized their role as a new generation of defense educators that will bring the Mongolian Armed Forces substantially ahead in their modernization process.

Marshall Center at work: Major N. Tsogtgerel is proudly presenting the emblem of the new Mongolian Staff Officers Course to MNDU President Y. Choijamts (a Marshall Center SES alumnus) and Dr. Sven Gareis.  Major Tsogtgerel  is responsible for the implementation of the DEEP at the MNDU – a huge responsibility that the young officer competently masters not least due to the skills he acquired during his attendance of 2014 PASS.

“The Marshall Center is supporting the Mongolian National Defense University as part of the Defense Education Enhancement Program run by the Partnership for Peace Consortium and NATO. This cooperation aims at cementing collaboration between Mongolian and NATO country Professional Military Education institutions, modernizing teaching methods and curriculum, strengthening interagency dimensions of the MNDU's academic program, and carving out a niche for Mongolia as a provider in the NATO and partner education and training community,” said Gareis.

DEEP Mongolia was initiated in 2013 at the request of the Mongolian Ministry of Defense. The program has bolstered the MNDU's faculty and curriculum development efforts through the academic leadership of the George C. Marshall Center and the active involvement of experts from institutions such as the German General Staff and Command College in Hamburg and the Slovak Armed Forces Academy in Liptopvsky-Mikulas.

Jointly managed by NATO and the Partnership for Peace Consortium, the DEEP program features multi-year cooperation plans with partner countries to assist with the modernization of defense education institutions. To date DEEP programs are underway in 13 countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

For more information on the DEEP program, please visit PfP Consortium website