The Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers (CIOR) and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom are jointly hosting the 2024 CIOR Seminar. The format is intended to discuss and educate on relevant topics in security politics and connect CIOR members and visitors in an informal environment.
Thanks to the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, this year's event will take place at the Theodor Heuss Akademie close to Bonn and focus on strengthening relations between military and economy.
Topical background:
Close cooperation between military and civilian industry gave birth to many breakthrough innovations and ensured a technology advantage during the Cold War. As the geopolitical situation calmed down, the intensity of this interaction faded. In the past decade, news were dominated by military projects that were delayed, incurred massive cost overruns or failed completely. Especially multi-national projects were prone to delays as stakeholders struggled to align over requirements and local value-add.
On the military side, the Russian attack on Ukraine shook the geopolitical landscape, suddenly putting the risk of large-scale conventional warfare back on the table. As a consequence, defence ministries and armed forces all around the world must adjust to this new reality. This means they must balance the desire for technological advantage with the need for timely availability, resilience and serviceability of systems.
On the civilian side, the Ukraine war put additional pressure on our economies already under stress from the disruptions of COVID-19. With a recession looming on the horizon, many companies put their hope on generous government spending and depend on the government to provide the stability they need to do business successfully. But governments face many other priorities, among them climate change, demographic challenges, welfare, environment, education, health.
Against this background, it seems that bringing military and civilian organizations closer together again could be essential to increase defence readiness while supporting the economy at the same time. The challenge is not merely to enlarge production capacities but to push for innovative break throughs in military technology that could yield a huge civilian dividend.
In the 2024 seminar, speakers from military, industry and politics will provide their perspective on how we can come back to a more synergetic cooperation between military and civil organizations.
Preliminary List of Speakers:
- Dr. Akitürk: Head of Rheinmetall Project Solutions GmbH
- Dr. Hofstetter: Lecturer for leadership and communication at the military academy (MILAK) of the ETH Zurich as well as for leadership and management processes at the university of Luzern
- General Laubenthal: Deputy General inspector of the German army
- Colonel Reisner: Commander of the "Garde" and military historian and tactician, known to the civilan audience for his analyses of the Ukraine war on YouTube
- Ms Hohmann: Manager in public sector and defence consulting at PriceWaterhouseCoopers
- Ms Witte: Junior Policy Advisor at Munich Security Conference
-... more speakers to be announced soon!