Troy C Morgan

National Guard Bureau's State Partnership Program: Enhancing Global Stability in the Post-cold War Era Troy C Morgan

Publisher Marketing: In wake of the post Cold-War era, the National Guard has embarked on a new mission. It is a mission of preemption, prevention, and peacetime engagement; it is the State Partnership Program (SPP). The SPP was born in the spring of 1993 in response to the vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The fledgling new governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union, requested assistances from the West to help posture their countries for democracy. In order to create a low profile military presence, the Secretary of Defense recommended using the reserve component to provide military-to-military contact. The idea was to pair a State National Guard with a single country or region to support U. S. national security interests. With the approval of the U. S. European Command Commander and the Chief National Guard Bureau, the SPP was created. The primary objectives of the SPP are to improve military interoperability between the U. S. and the partner country, demonstrate military subordination and military support to civil authorities, assist with the development of democratic institutions, foster open market economies to help develop stability, and represent United States humanitarian values.