On April 17^th – 18^th 2024, two members of International Courses Department (IDC) of Armed Forces Academy of GEN M. R. Stefanik (AFA), MAJ Miroslav Majtner and MAJ Jan Sedliak took part at OPOAAA ADC (Annual Discipline Conference of Operations Planning, Operations Assessment and Alternative Analysis discipline) in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This event is annually organized by the NATO C2COE (Command and Control Center of Excellence) based in Utrecht, which acts as Department Head (DH) of OPOAAA discipline. It has been already 4^th ADC of OPOAAA. AFA offers two courses within planning of operations at the operational level within NATO, one of which is NATO approved and the second one is on the way to be approved.  That gives reason to take active part at the ADC.

25 representatives participated at the ADC.  Some of them were members from two NATO Strategic Commands (SACT Norfolk, SHAPE Mons).  Other participants came from ETFs, which offer courses in the field of operations planning at the operational level (JWC Stavanger, NATO School Oberammergau, CMDR COE Sofia, Baltic Defense College Tartu, NDU Carol I Bucharest, SWEDINT, Turkish PfP Training Center Ankara, IFESO Paris, Canadian JWC Ottawa, NCI Academy Oeiras, JSEC Ulm, SVK AFA).

At the beginning of the conference, the representatives from the individual institutions presented the state of fulfillment of the tasks within the discipline during previous period, the activities carried out in this calendar year and the plan of courses and educational activities for the next period. Due to Sweden becoming the newest member of NATO, representatives from SWEDINT came out with the main tasks, structure, activities and courses portfolio of their institution. The program continued with discussions on the requirements of Strategic Commands for training and education in the field of operations planning and on the possibilities of ETFs to facilitate those requirements in the form of new NATO approved courses. In the area of updating the curriculum of individual courses, the possibility of implementation the TOPFAS software was the topic for discussion.  The issue of Multi Domain Operations (MDO) in operations planning courses was discussed as well. Evaluation of the possibilities for updating the job descriptions for individual positions to be filled within the NATO structures so that they reflect in more detail the real requirements for E&T was another important topic.

At the end of the conference, the organizer and DH, as well as the commander from C2COE Utrecht, thanked everyone present for the numerous participation and constructive discussion, which became the starting point for the advancement of the OPOOAA discipline in the future.