Founded in 2019, the Caribbean Military Academy (CMA), the academic institutional arm of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), is on a fast track to becoming the first of its kind in the region, providing a broad range of training and academic courses for the JDF and security forces worldwide.
Its vice president of Training, JDF Lieutenant Colonel Nadine Notice, spoke with Diálogo about new development at the CMA, the importance of logistics, and teaming up with U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) under the Theater Maintenance Partnership Initiative (TMPI) to establish one of the first nine Maintenance Centers of Excellence in the region. Lt. Col. Nadine was among the participants at the SOUTHCOM-sponsored Senior Leader Logistics Symposium (SLLS), carried out at SOUTHCOM’s headquarters in early June 2024.
Diálogo: What is new at the CMA?
Jamaica Defence Force Lieutenant Colonel Nadine Notice, vice president of Training of the Caribbean Military Academy: The Caribbean Military Academy is an academy that is always evolving. When you ask what is new at the academy, I’m tempted to say the academy, because we just celebrated our fifth-year anniversary at the end of May. When you look at the path that has been championed by the academy in just a short period of time, it is quite remarkable. We are looking ahead to establishing our logistic center of excellence. We are anticipating that in short order, probably early to mid-next year, we’ll be able to offer a multinational logistic officer program or course, something we are very passionate about, and something that we are championing. That’s one of the newest things in the very new academy.
Diálogo: What is the importance of logistics for a military institution such as the CMA, and how does participating in the Senior Leader Logistics Symposium (SLLS) contribute to the CMA?
Lt. Col. Notice: Logistics is the Achilles heel of any military institution. I heard a phrase once that said: “the army wins battles on their bellies,” and it just speaks to the kind of logistics chain, the support, and the supply that you need to ensure that objectives are achieved. It is quite a privilege for us to be here, to be able to benefit from the lessons learned from our various partners within the region and internationally, to benefit from some unique perspective, and brainstorm and come up with shared solutions for some of our own logistics issues.
Diálogo: Jamaica has been investing in national defense and strengthening security in the Caribbean basin which includes focusing on developing the role of noncommissioned officers and empowering them. What kind of joint and combined activities have you been carrying out with the District of Columbia National Guard, your partner under the State Partnership Program?
Lt. Col. Notice: We’ve had a number of interactions with the D.C. National Guard. The main format of the interaction has been through the SMEEs [subject matter expert exchanges], where we have experts coming to Jamaica and working with our team to develop some capabilities. You mentioned junior NCO development, I know that they visited the island and had some interaction with the Jamaica Regiment and, through that some information was provided to assist with the development process and we anticipate that these interactions will continue, be it in Jamaica or when our troops visit the United States.
Diálogo: Women, Peace, and Security is another relevant area partner nations have been increasingly developing. How has the CMA included this topic in the institution?
Lt. Col. Notice: As you know our defense forces are led by Vice Admiral Antonette Wemyss Gorman [JDF chief of Defense Staff]. The WPS agenda and initiative have really been a focus within the force in general. We do have a force gender advisor and gender advisors at the unit and formation levels. Holistically the academy has pioneered the formatting of a learning standard required for inclusion of the WPS agenda and certain topics within our curriculum. What we have designed is a four-tiered approach and it looks at the full life, service life of the service member. So, our recruits in recruit training will be exposed to some of the content being made familiar — the jargons, terminologies — to officers all the way up to senior staff. That’s the four-tiered levels we’re working on. We have not rolled out the program yet; we are currently refining the content for the various levels, and that is being spearheaded by our gender advisors, looking for a rollout in short order.
Diálogo: SOUTHCOM is partnering with Jamaica to establish a Maintenance Center of Excellence that will expand the maintenance training of Anglophone partners at the CMA in the air, sea, and land domains. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Lt. Col. Notice: We have big aspirations for the Logistics Center of Excellence. When the concept of the TMPI, which is being pioneered by SOUTHCOM, came on board, we saw that there was synergy between efforts, that a number of the objectives that we were trying to obtain through our logistic center of excellence was captured in the TMPI project. Interoperability, for example, innate within our system and how we do things, the concept of maintenance readiness… so, in light of that synergy we are undertaking a number of engagements and through this partnership we’re hoping to expand some of our capability.
Some of the courses that we offer now on the various platforms will be pioneering land, air, and sea training for the English-speaking Caribbean. Our initial focus in the program will be that of air and sea. There are some programs that we currently offer within the aviation domain for which SOUTHCOM is helping us build capacity, so we can offer more of that to our partners. Within the maritime space, the outward engine repair is a big one when we only canvas the region, there is a great need for that kind of support, we’re working on building that capability.
There is unison between efforts, our aspiration aligns with SOUTHCOM by way of this project, so we’re hoping to see it move from strength to strength.
