 Well, it's my pleasure to welcome Lieutenant-Colonel Cord von Einem and his senior staff officer, Chief Lessons Learned Branch of the Civil Militia Cooperation Centre for Excellence in the Netherlands. I know that's a mouthful, but I wanted to say it all because you work in the equivalent of the centre that is hosting this conference, don't you? Tell us about your centre. Yes, the Simic Centre of Excellence basically is located in the Netherlands in Enskede, which is right off the German border. We are an institution which is established by a few European nations, NATO nations, but we are not in the command chain of NATO, we are independent. And we deal with the same topics as your centre here in Australia with a simple military cooperation. And how long have you existed? Since 2005. And who funds you? Our contribution nations, sponsoring nations, European nations like Germany and the Netherlands, but also Poland, Hungary and a few others. And do you try to have staff that come from that diverse range of nations as well? Yes, mainly. But we welcome everybody who want to work with us and everybody can come to us and share experience, knowledge and education. Could you give us some examples of the work that you do, whether it be conferences or research, whatever. Does it give us a sense of the diversity of what you're doing? Well, basically our main work is to be subject matter expert for NATO and our sponsoring nations in the field of SEMIC topics. And what does that mean, SEMIC? SEMIC means civil military cooperation, so the interrelation between the civil environment and the military, because we face these challenges in nowadays conflicts worldwide. And we are well aware of the fact that modern conflicts cannot be solved only with military topics. Military responses. And do you do work in relation to disasters and humanitarian responses to disasters? Yeah, we also work on that, on humanitarian assistance in disasters and disaster relief. Because this is also something that is required from political stakeholders and we are dealing also on that. And NATO. What is the role of NATO in the 21st century? There must have been changes and shifts there in its role and focus as Europe has changed. Absolutely, yeah. And our centre is playing a role in that as well. We have seen in the past conflicts and ongoing conflicts that the comprehensive approach is key to many of the conflicts worldwide. And also NATO is learning that experience and we are helping NATO in that. Our centre is not part of the NATO command chain, but is NATO accredited? I'm interested in one or two of the issues that you're working on personally in your work. What are you doing when you go back to the Netherlands? What's the focus of your work? Well, I started my career in SIEMIC as a SIEMIC Staff Officer in the German Army Force Command, but transferred this September to the Centre of Excellence. And here I have the task to establish lessons learned and we are orientated on the lessons learned structure of NATO. You know, everything here at this conference, it seems to be about developing a common language and methodology to learn lessons, to put them into action, to understand transitions and to manage them and so on. And I'm just thinking at your centre, you have a mixture of cultures, actually different cultures, some of whom have been at war within living memory. How do you manage, what have you learnt about cooperation across cultural boundaries and with former enemies? Well, basically we have to be open and we learn that on our daily work. What does that mean open? Well, different cultures, different opinions, different approaches to things we deal with, but this is basically what we have to learn if we want to solve conflicts worldwide. One of the people I've interviewed for this conference spoke with passion about the need to avoid stereotypes. She was talking about stereotypes of military versus someone who works for a non-government organisation. Is that something that's important in Europe too, this complex Europe, that you have to avoid your cultural stereotypes? Well, it's part of our nowadays culture. Europe tries to transition from different states to a more common state, let's say this way, and so we have to learn how to live with other cultures, other opinions and I think we are doing good in this job. The economic troubles in Europe though are bringing some new tensions into those relationships again, aren't they? Yeah, but nothing that is not or cannot be solved. So I don't think that this will be or will ruin the process we achieved so far. And I guess the people who come to work at a centre like yours are by nature bridge builders, aren't they, and peacemakers? They have to be. You have that inclination. At the conference so far, are there particular issues that have interested you as you see people from the South Pacific and so on, as well as Northern Europe? Basically everything is of interest for us since we are a learning institution and so different opinions are of interest for us and especially your centre here in Australia is of interest for us since your centre has more a civilian phase and our centre has a more military phase and this is very interesting for us and we want to learn how you approach things and how you ways to solve conflicts, what your ways are. And tell me what you mean by a more civilian phase? Well, it starts with a personnel. Our personnel is purely military and what we learned is that your personnel is mostly civilian and this is very interesting for us since comprehensive approach means that we have an interagency approach on things and our centre wants to learn from that experience. Transitions is the theme of this conference. Do you work on transitions at your centre? Yes, of course as well because we also monitor NATO missions but not only NATO missions. All missions worldwide also UN missions and of course there has to be a time when military has to be withdrawn and so this is the face of transition and to hand over authority from military to civil authorities and we have to learn that, yes. You know, earlier on I was asking someone about examples of positive transitions where we could see transition from war back to peace and economic development and so on and the example that the person drew on was in fact from the Second World War that Germany was devastated at the end of that war and has rebuilt itself to become the economic powerhouse of Europe playing a crucial economic role in Europe. What can we learn from that transition? Is history relevant or is that just too far back? Should we look to Japan and Germany to learn about transition from war or should we come to more recent times? Well basically, yes, I think it's a good example but the credit goes not only to Germany because Germany was supported by the former enemies of Germany and they did a great job and helped Germany to be a good partner in Europe and worldwide and also strengthened our economy. When we look to withdrawal from Afghanistan or withdrawal from the Solomons two of the situations that have been discussed at this conference again that willingness in that final transition stage to do economic investment and development is that an important lesson about transitions? The civilian population economic development? Yeah, absolutely. I think without development of economy in a country conflicts cannot be solved so I think one of the major topics we have to learn is how to bring countries which had a conflict how to bring them back to normal and especially to give them work and income. What drew you personally to this work? What made you decide to do this as your job? Well from the background I'm lawyer so I was pretty much interested in civil-military interrelation and so I think I'm absolutely behind the idea of comprehensive approach and that the solution of a conflict is purely a civilian solution, civil solution but the military can give time regarding security for this process. And the re-establishment of the rule of law and police and effective local police are two other themes I think around transition to normalcy? Absolutely, yeah. Because police is part of the civil environment and not of the military environment so the sooner the military withdraws from a conflict the better it is for the population. Well Lieutenant Colonel Cord von Einem from the Netherlands thank you so much for giving us some of your thoughts on the conference, thank you. You're welcome, thank you.