200: Jörg Grössl on the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence

Welcome to the One CA Podcast. Today, Commander Jörg Grössl from the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence will discuss the center’s contribution to the maritime domain.

From research, I found that 80 percent of the world’s population lives near a coast, and 90 percent of world’s trade is carried by ships.

So, we are bringing in Commander Grössl to discuss the CIMIC role in the maritime environment and cooperation with Government and Non-Governmental Organizations to build awareness and mitigate the potential impact of military operations at sea or in the littoral regions.

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and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

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or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Transcript

00:00:01    Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Today we have Commander George Grossel from the NATO Civil -Military Cooperation Center of Excellence, who will discuss the center's contribution to the maritime domain.

00:00:46    JACK GAINES
From research, I found that 80 % of the world's population lives near a seacoast, and 90 % of the world's trade is carried by ships. So it makes sense that we would have a maritime simic type of operation. So Commander Grossel, welcome to the show.

00:01:02    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, thank you. And to add some figures to what you said, we had in 2024, the crisis and the Red Sea, in addition to the Panama Canal drought and the Baltimore Bridge incident, a reduction of container traffic of 80%. We had... 3 ,400 ships in the Suez Canal less than the year before. So that is what we are talking about. It's how the CIMIC can support that and what does that mean for us as a society. That must be a pretty good size impact on the global economy to have that much slowdown in shipping.

00:01:32    JACK GAINES
must be a pretty good size impact on the global economy to have that much slowdown in shipping.

00:01:38    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, true. And approximately 500 ,000 containers waiting in Singapore to be transported because of all those interruptions in sea traffic are causing a delay.

00:01:49    JACK GAINES
Right, because the production doesn't stop just because the sea lanes have slowed down from shipping.

00:01:54    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, true.

00:01:55    JACK GAINES
I remember back at the end of COVID how the Port of Los Angeles had 100, 200 ships in harbor waiting, lined up for unloading, and it was just an enormous mess until everyone finally was able to get back to work and catch up with that delay. Yeah,

00:02:12    JÖRG GRÖSSL
we were never given that motor as that big container vessel. Grounded in the Suez Canal for six days in 2021, that resulted in a backlog of 400 ships and trade loss of almost $60 billion. So that is a mess what we are talking about.

00:02:45    JACK GAINES
defending themselves or prosecuting a conflict.

00:02:49    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, that is the one thing. And a good example was the blockage in Ukraine in 2022 -23 that caused effects even in Africa with the shortage of grains being transported there.

00:03:04    JACK GAINES
I remember North Africa and the Middle East were struggling to get enough grain for the simple breads that they use every day. And it was a real concern here in the United States. Did NATO have concerns about the wheat blockage?

00:03:18    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Well, it was more a UN or a nation's initiative, especially then when we had the agreement arranged by Turkey. But NATO as an organization was not involved in that.

00:03:30    JACK GAINES
Okay. And plus, Ukraine's got a border with Poland, so it could export grain that way into Europe. And Europe has a pretty robust grain agricultural system too, so it probably wasn't as big of an impact.

00:03:44    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, well, it developed to a bigger impact. They compensated it now, but especially at the beginning, it was all based on sea transport. And land transport was basically possible, but not in the same capacity as the sea transport. And they had to make that running via land. They went through Romania to the Mediterranean, things like that. But that was not established at the beginning. And so NATO had to be involved in?

00:04:09    JACK GAINES
so NATO had to be involved in? Deconflicting military and commercial maritime operations and also collaborating?

00:04:16    JÖRG GRÖSSL
NATO nations like Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey, they had their ships there, but NATO as an organization was at the beginning not involved. That developed then later. But in fact, NATO was not involved into protecting transport or things like that. So it was just putting the picture together and minimized the impacts. With all of the issues with commercial shipping,

00:04:41    JACK GAINES
issues with commercial shipping, grain shortage, how did you work with NATO to deconflict gray hole operations with commercial shipping and ensuring that they didn't get drawn into the conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

00:04:58    JÖRG GRÖSSL
They were basically, they were in the conflict. They were a kind of a bargain. from the Russian side to allow or deny the flow of goods. And that was a clear bargain that they used against Ukraine. And at that time, NATO was not involved because they didn't want to be thrown into the conflict and get into an active part. So it was more like the NATO nation, Turkey as such, who played a role. But the NATO as an organization observed that, but we didn't play an active role in it. Okay.

00:05:33    JACK GAINES
Now, with Turkey being effectively the arbiter between Russia and Ukraine on shipments and security, did what they learned help NATO out with their maritime summit programs?

00:05:47    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Turkey not just played a moderator role, of course. With them owning the choke point of the Boxboroughs and the Marmara Sea, they were also a nation that allowed or denied traffic going through. And so the key message that NATO learned from that was who owns the choke points as the joker in his hands. He who holds the choke points makes the rules. Yeah, exactly. You see that on the other side at the Bob Elman Depp,

00:06:14    JÖRG GRÖSSL
exactly.

00:06:16    JÖRG GRÖSSL
see that on the other side at the Bob Elman Depp, you see that at some other choke points like the Panama Canal, who has control, writes the rules.

00:06:32    JACK GAINES
stop policy or promote policy, and those who run it have enormous power over the lives of the rest of the nations in that region. And we've seen some use by countries to influence that. Iran has used mines in the Straits.

00:06:50    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, absolutely. And we see that at the Bob Ellman debt, the moment where a rather short number of foodies have a severe impact to world economy. Right.

00:07:02    JACK GAINES
And that's been a real struggle on trying not to get sucked into a full conflict with the Houthis in the Red Sea.

00:07:08    JÖRG GRÖSSL
We all know who the Houthis are, that they're a proxy for Iran against Saudi Arabia, Israel -Gaza war, and the Israel -Lebanon conflict that we have at the moment will add some more oil to that fire. Well,

00:07:24    JACK GAINES
and that's the challenge that NATO faces. It's always been a networked organization with multiple nations that can forward foreign policy. And now other countries are starting to become regional powers and are using similar tools and techniques to influence policy in those areas. And so we have to start thinking of Iran, Russia, China as networked organizations. They're not just one country anymore because they've got partners, they've got proxies. Some of them have criminal groups that work as operators on behalf of them, and some have paramilitary groups. So it's a more complex environment for NATO. to work on international rule of law and stability and security.

00:08:06    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yes, absolutely true. But to make that clear, at the moment, NATO is not involved, for example, in operations in the Red Sea. It is only run by NATO Nations or the European Union. The NATO as an organization at the moment is not involved. We are doing other things that have the same importance, for example, in the Baltics, in the Mediterranean. but not in the Red Sea at the moment. Well, tell me about the Baltics. We usually call the Baltics Sea a kind of a swamped field. And sometimes you can walk with dry feet from Germany to Denmark or to Sweden because of that amount of shipping. And of course, you have basically the only ice -free Russian access to the north in the Baltics, but they have to go to the narrow of the Femont Belt and the Catechart in Denmark. You have Kaliningrad in the Baltic. You have St. Petersburg in the Baltic. And of course, in that rather small area, you have a high density of gray ships. You have a high density of white ships. And to have a picture on that is quite challenging. And NATO nations are working together to get a picture of what is going on above the sea.

00:09:25    JACK GAINES
Is that what the NATO Shipping Center does? picture and help coordinate between gray holes and commercial shipping?

00:09:32    JÖRG GRÖSSL
shipping? To some extent, the NATO shipping center is adding to that. But the NATO shipping center has no tools. They have no radar stations. They have no electronic devices. So they just use the picture that they get from the bordering nations. They use the information that they get from the ships that are in the Baltics, for example. condensed that to a picture that they can use to support the merchant shipping. Okay.

00:10:04    JACK GAINES
Explain to me how they support merchant shipping.

00:10:06    JÖRG GRÖSSL
The NATO Shipping Center, it is meant to be the link between the organization of NATO and the merchant shipping community. And basically, they are the point of contact to exchange and to get information, to propagate warnings to the shipping, and to interact with the wide shipping. The NATO Shipping Center as such is a rather small organization, but they have a quite extensive network of reservists that are captains of merchant shipping in their civil life and participate in the NATO Shipping Center when they do their reserve missions. And so they are the connection between the military part and the civil part, like passing information. passing warnings, and try to filter the information that are coming from the civil life and put them into the military.

00:11:01    JACK GAINES
They cover the Baltics. Do they cover the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean as well, or does it go further than that?

00:11:08    JÖRG GRÖSSL
They're covering the Baltics. They're covering the North Sea, the Atlantic to some extent. It always depends on what nations are available if you have them. Like in the Baltics with Germany, Denmark, now Sweden, Finland, and Poland. For example, in the Mediterranean, only the northern part of the Mediterranean is covered by NATO nations and the southern part is not. So your picture that you have there is different than, for example, in the Baltic or in the North Sea.

00:11:37    JACK GAINES
That makes sense. And then, of course, whenever there's a crisis, like that ship grounding in the Suez, then they also probably put some type of focus on that because it's going to impact. shipping coming out of the Baltics in the North Sea?

00:11:50    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Not to that extent, because if there is an incident like that, then there is still the International Maritime Organization with their center in Kuala Lumpur. And they are basically responsible for the civil side of it. So it is not a NATO task to inform the merchant shipping about the civil incidents that took place somewhere. So they have their own organization to some extent. Okay.

00:12:19    JACK GAINES
What was it called again? The International Shipping?

00:12:22    JÖRG GRÖSSL
IMO, India Mike, the International Maritime Organization.

00:12:22    JACK GAINES
IMO,

00:12:26    JACK GAINES
Okay. Do you guys ever partner with them or work with them?

00:12:30    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, we cooperate with them when needed. Let's say it like that. Sure. Because you don't want to get too deep into their business and they don't want to get too deep in yours.

00:12:36    JACK GAINES
into their business and they don't want to get too deep in yours.

00:12:38    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah. And they're acting globally and we are not that much interested in about what is going on off the coast of Chile.

00:12:46    JACK GAINES
But sometimes, I mean, NATO gets pulled into, I mean, they got pulled into Korea. Yeah. Pulled into Iraq. So sometimes it's outside the borders and I'm sure there has to be some cooperation when NATO extends itself beyond.

00:12:59    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah. But that is a case by case basis.

00:13:02    JACK GAINES
Sure. But can you give me your perspective of NATO civil -military cooperation in the maritime domain? What is your role? How do you apply it?

00:13:13    JÖRG GRÖSSL
CIMIC functioning in any domain, but especially counts for the maritime domain. What are the civil factors in my environment? How does this impact my operation? How might I impact the operation of the civil traffic? And we try to de -conflict that or to coordinate that, and if possible, even to cooperate. Do you have an example? If we go to the top, for example, to establish an alliance network to GUT. But you could establish an alliance network to the International Maritime Organization, to other organizations that operate there. There is a number of... civil support given to the Yemen. And this traffic also needs to be de -conflicted with the military operations. And if I go now to the latest version of the AJP 3 .19, which is the NATO publication for CIMIC, it says the maintenance of the freedom of navigation, sea lines of communication, key infrastructure, energy flow, protection of marine resources and environmental safety. all in the interests of national and international security. And it's not just about what is above the water, it's also to some extent what is below the water. For example, who is responsible for protecting an underwater sea cable that is transferring information from the US to Europe and back, but that is owned by a civil company? And that is maybe outside any territorial water, so meaning outside the responsibility of any nation, but is of high importance for commercial, for information sharing and so on. This is yet unsolved because everybody is thinking about it because it has been recognized, especially with the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline or the attack on the telecommunication cable between Estonia, Finland and Sweden. So we discovered that there is an issue, but we're working on that, but do not have a situation so far.

00:15:29    JACK GAINES
And it does help that Russia puts out a story, usually on social media about twice a year, about how the cables are under risk. And boy, we sure could clip them at any time, pal.

00:15:40    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, but we're talking about thousands of cables. So clipping one or even 10 or even 100 will not have a severe impact. It's not that easy to clip them. We are not talking about cutting a wire or something like that. But I think there are possibilities to disrupt this disconnection.

00:16:00    JACK GAINES
Well, it's good that they're thinking about it because the only thing that ships more than maritime is probably information across those lines.

00:16:07    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Definitely. And when we're thinking about that, sometimes information are even more important than solid goods. And it's easier. to fake information or to disrupt the flow of information, then to do that is solid goods. That has been one of the learning factors that we draw from the Ukraine war at the moment. Right. You're a sailor, right? Yeah, that's true. I had some experience on ships, well, for about 15 years or so, and I started in the early 90s. And basically had my first deployment in the early 90s to the Adriatic Sea when we did the blockade and the embargo against the former Yugoslavia. I think the word SIMIC was not even existing at that time. But if you consider it, what we did there by checking the traffic that has gone into the Adriatic Sea, by cooperating with mostly Italian. governmental institutions like the police or the financial police and also passing warnings to the shipping. That was to some extent what we do now under the umbrella of SIMIC, but we did that under a different umbrella. So basically it's ever been there. It was just differently named. I started there. I had some deployments to the Persian Gulf, to the Gulf of Aden. I was deployed often to the Mediterranean. I have been in Djibouti. Sometimes I've stood with my ship in the Gulf of Aden doing anti -piracy operations. And at that time, we have to cooperate with the partnering nations, with the surrounding nations and the institutions there. So basically what we do now when we talk about SIMIC.

00:17:58    JACK GAINES
Right. Here, Ed. Deutschland Naval Officer. That is correct, yes.

00:18:01    JÖRG GRÖSSL
yes. But I started to sail on American ships, so I joined Navy after school, and I was on one of our civil man ship, but that was still a Navy ship, but only there were no soldiers on board of it.

00:18:18    JACK GAINES
Oh, okay. And as a sailor, how did you get interested in airtime Simic?

00:18:25    JÖRG GRÖSSL
That developed over the years. What CIMIC is doing is something that we basically did the whole time. When I was deployed to the Gulf of Aden with my ship, we cooperated, for example, protecting civil shipping, protecting canal in the Gulf of Aden to avoid piracy. We were cooperating with the World Food Programme when they conducted their transports to Somalia ports and avoided. piracy attacks so basically we cooperated with the civil environment of course we integrated the civil picture in our picture that we had and then transferred that to the bigger picture for the whole area so we had the civil factor integration and we also had some civil military integration not under the umbrella of the mic at that time but that made me get interested in that topic and that was then The trigger to say, okay, that could be something that is interesting as well. And basically, in the German Navy, your career ends at your mid -40s because then your chance to be on ships again is rather small. And so you have to look for something different. And for me, that was Simic.

00:19:41    JACK GAINES
That makes sense. Do you have any stories from when you were working operations and you had to deal with piracy or with a shipping issue? something else of that nature.

00:19:53    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, when we were deployed, the Operation Enduring Freedom to the Gulf of Aden. And Enduring Freedom was not at all an anti -piracy operation. It was more the fight against terrorism. And we were employed at the sea part to disrupt drugs, to disrupt traffic of weapons in the Gulf of Aden. But obviously, due to the... The civil situation in Somalia with all the political circumstances, having no government around there, and also the situation due to some overfishing off the coast of Somalia, basically they lost their basis for living. And so they reoriented and found out that piracy could be a good job and they could earn some money with that. And so piracy in that area increased dramatically. And so one of the side effects of the warships being employed there for Operation Enduring Freedom was that they were there as a kind of international call to ships in distress, were also involved in anti -piracy. And for us, that meant we were there. And as soon as a ship called for distress because they were approached by those pirate skiffs. We were there and when the next ship in the vicinity, we tried to help them. Usually that meant that we launched our helicopter and that we tried at high speed to approach those ships. And being a warship as such in the area already had an effect on them. So, of course, they tried to avoid being too close to a warship. And that led to thinking about how can you organize it? that the shipping is not that much affected by piracy. And we were involved in organizing that and we were involved in executing that, that there was a safe corridor established with gray ships being positioned there. And so you had your picture of the civil environment and you had always knew where they are and you were able to have them travel to a corridor. With gray ships protecting them every 20, 30 nautical miles, that dramatically reduced the number of pirate attacks.

00:22:17    JACK GAINES
As the warships were protecting the sea lanes, there was probably people engaging with the populations of the surrounding nations to cooperate with security and presence and transportation.

00:22:30    JÖRG GRÖSSL
In the south, there was Amalia. In the north, there was Yemen. In the northwest, there was Eritrea. The only nation that you could cooperate with was Djibouti. And that led to the point that Djibouti became more and more an interesting point for many nations. And I think it's the only nation where you have a French military base there, an American military base, a Japanese, Chinese, and military from all those nations being there and to have an eye on the shipping that is going on.

00:23:05    JACK GAINES
And you bring that perspective into NATO so that as they write AGP 319 or as they prepare exercises or outreach or training, you bring that in to help color that training so that it has a more personal tone.

00:23:22    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, definitely. And if you exercise as an army unit, you're usually on a military training area and this area is free. But if you're exercising in a naval environment, You're usually exercising in open seas and you have always civil traffic around and you have always air traffic in the area. So you have to live with it or to incorporate that into the exercise. We are in this area and we have that density of shipping. So how do we handle that situation? Because in real life, you have to handle that as well.

00:24:01    JACK GAINES
Well, that's a good thing because in a lot of exercises, people make grand assumptions that they'll have access to ports, access to rail, freedom of the seas. But by actually working exercises in places with sea traffic, you actually have to think about it. You have to actually deal with the reality on the ground. And I think that probably helps commanders better assess logistics and how they can get things from here to there. and apply military strength.

00:24:32    JÖRG GRÖSSL
And it also helps to have, at the joint level, to have the Navy guys think about what impact their operations have ashore, and also for the land commanders, how they have to rely on traffic that is coming overseas. Absolutely. So, do you want to talk a little bit about the NATO school? Yeah. We're the Civic Center of Excellence based in The Hague in the Netherlands, which is good because The Hague is also known as one of the cities where you have a lot of international organizations. So it is an interesting place to be and it's an interesting place to cooperate with the civil environment. We are one of around 30 centers of excellence that exist now. We're basically working for NATO. having two framework nations, which is the Netherlands and Germany. We have some additional nations like Poland, Hungary, Italy. We have three pillars, interoperability and capability, training and education branch, and we have the lessons learned and analysis branch. So we're trying to get information from exercises, from missions, identify lessons learned. try to integrate them in our concept, in our publications, and to train that to the people that are new in the CIMIC world and to integrate that in our training. Overall, we are around 50 people here. And yeah, that's the CIMIC Center of Excellence.

00:26:10    JACK GAINES
Okay. So it sounds like it's a touch operational and academic. How would different forces sign in to get involved?

00:26:19    JÖRG GRÖSSL
I think we have six or seven courses. The staff worker course, where you learn how to work in a multinational or joint environment. We have the higher command course, which is basically the highest level. But we're having courses for the tactical level, for the operational level, and for the strategic level. I don't have the exact number, but yeah, we're quite busy with that.

00:26:46    JACK GAINES
Okay. Well, make sure to send me a link and I'll put it in the show notes in case people are interested in taking a course. Yeah. Do you bring in non -NATO members to attend classes as well?

00:26:56    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yes, we do. We are having people from various nations, non -NATO nations. Of course, at the moment, we have some focus on the Ukraine. We frequently have Ukrainian officers training for us. We had some cooperation. with Jordanian officers, also officers from Austria, for example.

00:27:19    JACK GAINES
That makes a lot of sense.

00:27:20    JÖRG GRÖSSL
So all that putting together under the umbrella of the ACO, the Allied Command of Operations. And on the civil side, we have frequently courses here that are run by, for example, UN OCHA, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. that are using our capabilities to run a course here. And that, of course, gives us the opportunity to cooperate with them, to coordinate our efforts.

00:27:52    JACK GAINES
I was talking to the military liaison to India out here in D .C., and he was really interested in civil affairs and what we do, and I offered... Hey, you can always come on down to Fort Liberty and we'll give you a tour of what civil affairs training is, what our active duty forces are. But I also mentioned NATO. You guys have a center of excellence if he's ever interested in learning what civil affairs or CIMIC does at the NATO level.

00:28:20    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, and one of our projects that we are constantly running to enhance the interoperability between civil affairs and CIMIC by... exchanging personnel, having CA officers here at the CIMIC Center of Excellence, having people from us be at SWICC for liberty. We are running, for example, three times a year as EMPC, which is the European Mission Preparations Course, where people from our CIMIC Center of Excellence are going to the U .S. and train U .S. Army Reserve officers before they deploy to Europe.

00:28:58    JACK GAINES
Oh, cool. Yeah, that's super important. And the nice thing is, even in working with non -NATO members, is that if they ever have to engage NATO, whether they're European or South American, African, Asian, that gives a sense of commonality so that they have a place to start. So it's not so random that you're getting a call from a payphone saying, hey, by the way, we're doing this and it might impact guys or we need training. It gives interoperability to the external partners or people who just may end up getting involved because of an issue. So that's very helpful.

00:29:37    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, absolutely. And in addition, you may have to look into your register and already have an email address where you can talk to. Okay, cool.

00:29:47    JACK GAINES
Well, that's all I have. Do you have any last comments that you want to throw out there or any last thoughts?

00:29:51    JÖRG GRÖSSL
last thoughts? Just get your still. continuously working on expanding our network. For example, this year we had one of our officers in South Korea and contribute a civil military operation tabletop exercise with the Korean armed forces and the US forces over there. So we have the connection over the Atlantic. I'm frequently part of the NATO shipping working group. That is basically organized by the NATO shipping center and they're expanding their network also to South America. The last time we had personnel from Brazil and Argentina with us. Of course, we are not just working within the CIMIC environment, but we're also cooperating with other centers of excellence like the crisis management and disaster response exercise. The Maritime Security Center of Excellence, the Military Police Center of Excellence, and Military Medicine. There are a lot of them that we are cooperating on on various levels to put that all together in one piece. And let me come to the example of the Ukraine now. We have recently published our study on simic factors to be drawn from the Ukraine war. Of course, other centers of excellence did that as well. In addition, what we also do is try to develop CIMIC. For example, we establish CIMIC analysis and assessment capabilities to improve the understanding of the civil environment and to integrate them in the military picture.

00:31:33    JACK GAINES
Oh, yeah. You guys stay busy.

00:31:36    JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

00:31:38    JACK GAINES
That's a good thing. It means that your work's important and... You guys have to stay on top of it in order to keep things flowing and the military not having issues. So that's fantastic. Okay, now I'm done. Okay, I'm done too. You have recorded all my thoughts. Oh, good. You can go home for the rest of the day.

 

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