![NATO COPC CD Senior mentor]()
Cdr Claus Rasmussen, DNK-N (Course Director NATO School Oberammergau), Senior Mentor MG (ret) Leo van den Born, NLD-AF and LCDR Harry Jaantola, SWE-N (Course Director SWEDINT).
Photo: Thorsten Hagelberg / SWEDINT
The COPC is accredited as a NATO SELECTED course and now conducted for the seventh time at SWEDINT in close cooperation with the NATOSchool in Oberammergau, Germany. The cooperation between SWEDINT and NATOSchool is based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) since 2009 and the course is scheduled for two iterations annually.
The COPC is using the NATO Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive (COPD) as the main reference document for the conduct of the course. The COPD supports headquarters’ on the strategic, operational and tactical (component command) level to conduct a parallel planning process to achieve the best use of recourses to meet an ongoing or expected crises. The new version of the COPD was just signed by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) as of 4 October.
To better meet today’s complexity of crises, it is necessary to harmonize the military and non-military aspects of planning for deployment to an ongoing or future Crisis Response Operations (CRO), either in a NATO or an EU context.
In addition to the traditional military planning, a new dimension is added by implementing the use of a gender perspective view in support of military operations. SWEDINT and its new department, Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations (NCGM) is the Department Head (DH) for NATO gender issues. This means that NCGM is responsible for ensuring NATO training and education meet NATO operational requirements. The operational planning process (OPP) and the implementation of a gender integrated concept in the comprehensive approach will subsequently contribute to better trained personnel for current and future missions.
LCDR Harry Jaantola / SWEDINT