Page 6 - Cormorant Issue 20 2017

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HCSC 17
Colonel Richard Slack
THE HIGHER COMMAND AND Staff Course has been running since 1988. In its rst year it was an Army course that focused on the
threat of Soviet encirclement, but its purpose has remained constant: to train selected of cers for high command
appointments. The structure of the course continues to evolve – this year the course was delivered in a ve week strategy phase, an eight week operations phase, and a ten day Staff Ride across northern France and Belgium – but the overarching construct and academic deliverables will be very familiar to our most senior leaders in Defence. Indeed a brief perusal of bay 22 of the Cormorant Library will reveal the endeavours of CAS, DSACEUR, and DCDS(Cap), all students of HCSC 05; CJO, CDI, DCDS Pers and UK MILREP from HCSC 06; and VCDS, DG JFD and DG DSA from HCSC 07. So with the passing of another New Year, 24 UK military students, 5 civil servants (from FCO, DfID, GCHQ and MOD), and 6 international students (from Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand and the USA) assembled in the Alanbrooke Lecture Theatre on Monday 3rd January 2017 to begin an intensive 16 weeks of training and education in strategy and operational command.
Every course has its own themes that have dominated discussion and debate. HCSC 17 bene ted from a rich seam of current strategic and operational issues: the impact of the Trump administration, implications for European security
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A student delivers his Staff Ride stand on Omaha Beach, Normandy
from BREXIT, challenges to international norms from Russia and China, and the relative opportunities and threats emerging from non-state factors, including private sector power-brokers, exponential technology growth, migration and trans-regional terrorism.
Given its relatively short duration and broad remit, the course has a reputation for being intense. HCSC 17 hosted 112 visiting speakers in its 16 weeks, some of whom joined us by VTC from the United States and Iraq. We were particularly grateful that Lieutenant General HR McMasters took the time to y across the Atlantic speci cally to spend an afternoon with us, some three weeks before he was appointed as President Trump’s National Security Advisor. (And with the utmost respect to all of the 4* Chiefs of Staff
- who were, of course, all quite superb when they came to address the course - HR McMasters was in a class of his own in the Alanbrooke).
HCSC routinely spends 35% of the course away from JSCSC visiting strategic and operational HQs, and reviewing speci c operational capabilities. HCSC 17 followed in the well-trodden footsteps of previous courses visiting key ministries and military headquarters in London, as well as the Secret Intelligence Agencies, and then visiting NATO strategic, operational and tactical headquarters in Europe. In many different ways there was a stiff BREXIT breeze blowing as we passed through
the corridors of Brussels. This year the course also broke new ground by visiting the two Queen
Every course
has its own themes that
have dominated discussion and debate. ◆◆◆