The Defense System Management College International Center (DSMC-I) has begun implementing a revised approach to International Cooperative Program (ICP) training in the coming months to support Department of Defense (DoD) Acquisition and Security Cooperation workforce members in this complex and challenging area.
For those who are unfamiliar with DoD ICPs, they are government-to-government partnerships between the U.S. and allied/friendly nations to develop new or modified defense technologies, equipment, and systems to meet current and future capability requirements. In that regard, ICPs differ from U.S. defense sales, which focus primarily on buyer-seller purchases of U.S. defense systems, equipment, ad services by other countries. ICPs are used to establish bilateral and multilateral defense acquisition partnership arrangements with allies and friends involving joint investment, technology exchange, and cooperative program management arrangements throughout the defense acquisition lifecycle.
In past years, DSMC-I offered an ICP course, ACQ 340 (Advanced International Acquisition Management), which provided a 4 ½ day international agreement negotiation simulation to train DoD Component specialists in this specific skill. While ACQ 340 was highly successful as a resident course, it was too difficult to restructure as a DAU virtual course in the current COVID environment. As a result, DSMC-I decided to pursue another approach; development of a set of new online ICP learning modules that could be taken by a broader segment of the Acquisition and Security Cooperation communities.
December 2021 Update: Our first two ICP Summary Statement of Intent (SSOI) learning modules --
Part I -- Introduction to SSOIs and
Part II -- ICP Identification & Assessment -- were published on the DAU International Acquisition Community of Practice (ICOP) and DAU International Acquisition Management Video Channel in October 2021. We plan to publish two additional SSOI learning modules on SSOI Development and SSOI Refinement & Validation in December 2021 and January 2022 Future DSMC-I efforts in this area will also include development of an online ICP Science & Technology/RDT&E Project Agreement writing course, as well as ICP international agreement workshop offerings targeted to meet the specific needs of PMs/IPTs involved in system-level cooperative arrangements.
DSMC-I will be working closely with Office of SecDef, Military Department, and Defense Agency stakeholder organizations in the coming months, as these new ICP learning modules are developed and deployed, to ensure they “hit the mark.” We will do our best to keep everyone informed of our progress through DSMC-I’s International Monthly Activity Reports and future blogs.
Until next time,
Prof K
