With a professional military career spanning more than 30 years and as the highest-ranking military officer of his country, Air Vice Marshal Darryl Daniel, chief of Defense Staff of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF), is committed to developing the skills and strength of the men and women of the TTDF and instill in them a true passion for service. Diálogo had the opportunity to speak with Air Vice Marshal Daniel during the Caribbean Nations Security Conference (CANSEC), which Trinidad and Tobago hosted in Port of Spain, December 10-12, 2024. Air Vice Marshal Daniel addressed one of his most promising achievements, the Defence Force Military Academy, the importance of hosting large U.S. Southern Command- (SOUTHCOM) sponsored events, and the TTDF long-lasting partnership with the Delaware National Guard, among other topics.
Diálogo: You’re entering your sixth year as a chief of Defense Staff of the TTDF. In your years leading the force, what would you say have been your greatest challenges and your biggest accomplishments?
Air Vice Marshal Darryl Daniel, chief of Defense Staff of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force: Very good and challenging question. The environment that I found myself in is one of a paradigm shift. The personnel we have in the military are quite different to the personnel from when I joined, and my biggest challenge has been the diverse philosophies and value systems of the current military human resource.
In my time, people joined to serve, and that meant something different. Today we have people who still join to serve, but there’s also the challenge of people just joining for job security, which creates a whole different outlook and attitude toward the job. It means that we, as a defense force, have to find ways and means to get people to be passionate about serving and not just looking for job security.
That has been the biggest challenge, and I’m speaking to my counterparts around the world, even in the United States, it is a challenge we’re all facing because of societal values. We have to adapt accordingly and do things within the military to cause our citizens to want to serve.
In terms of what has been my most promising achievement so far, I would say the establishment of the Defence Force Military Academy, that is the establishment of our training university, but in the military, we don’t call them universities, we call them academies. The University of Trinidad and Tobago, which had to downsize, gifted us one of their sites and we jumped at the opportunity. So, we now have a campus that has the potential to be developed in years to come into what you would normally see in a university where you’d have a sporting complex, a field, buildings, etc. There are some infrastructures that we’re using now, and the plan is in the future that we continue to develop that into what will makes us very proud in terms of a military academy.
There we developed and combined all the training institutions of each formation: the Defence Force, the Coast Guard, the Regiment, the Air Guard, and the Reserves. All the training officers and support staff are now located at that one location — our Defence Force Military Academy in Corinth, in South Trinidad. We have been able to do some successful training locally and with our international partners. We also look forward for that to continue to grow because training is the bedrock of any institution. You give your people quality training and it’s a foundation upon which you can continue to build and become an efficient and effective military. I’m very happy that we were able to achieve that.
Diálogo: How are partner nations benefiting from the Academy?
Air Vice Marshal Daniel: We recently conducted subject matter expert exchanges and training session for military chaplains. It wasn’t just our chaplains, but chaplains from the region, and chaplains in our local environments from the police and penal institutions. This was very beneficial, and that’s one of the things that that we intend to do out of the Military Academy, that is to benefit other entities locally and regionally.
Coming out of CANCEC I had several bilateral meetings with our counterparts and partners, and we assured them that we would continue to work with them to help improve ourselves along with them, because if you help your brother, it means you’re helping yourself as well, and this is something we will continue to do going forward.
Diálogo: These are important months for Trinidad and Tobago and the TTDF, hosting two SOUTHCOM sponsored event: CANSEC in December 2024 and Exercise Tradewinds coming up in May. What is the significance of this regional conference and exercise taking place in Trinidad and Tobago?
Air Vice Marshal Daniel: It provides another opportunity for the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force to demonstrate the leadership role that we are capable and willing to play in the region, but more importantly, it gives us the opportunity to exercise our holistic military skills. A lot of these are skills based on our partners, skills that we have developed over the years and continue to develop. Thus, we welcome the opportunity to show the return on investment from our international partners, both from ourselves and our government. There’s nothing better than seeing the fruits of your labor.
Diálogo: How are TTDF troops benefiting from the planning, preparations, and training that comes with hosting such large events?
Air Vice Marshal Daniel: They allow us to invest a lot in our military skills and training. These exercises provide an opportunity to use the professional military training that we have acquired over the years and that were invested in us and continue to be invested in our human resource. Our men and women feel proud when a mission is successful. They feel proud of what we were able to do for CANSEC, and we look forward to what we will do for Tradewinds. We have hosted both before, but with a different cohort of people, because people are retiring. I’m very happy for the opportunity and look forward to our men and women getting that pride established once again when we successfully complete these events.
Diálogo: Cybersecurity plays a critical role in modern defense. In May 2024, the TTDF joined forces with the U.S. Air Force Cyber Team for a three-day subject matter expert exchange to explore cutting-edge strategies and expertise in defense, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. How crucial are cooperation and exchange of best practices with partner nations and with the United States for the TTDF to strengthen its cyber capabilities and contribute to national efforts to counter cyber threats?
Air Vice Marshal Daniel: I would say that it is extremely crucial. Cooperation and the exchange of best practices with our partner nations and with the United States ensures that the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force cyber capabilities, and by extension our national capabilities in cyber security, are current, agile, and continually evolving just as things are continually evolving in the cyber domain, especially with the burgeoning challenges of artificial intelligence, which we all know is putting us in a dimension that we have never experienced before. We have to try to stay ahead of it or be in line with it as much as possible.
Diálogo: The TTDF and the Delaware National Guard celebrated their 20 years of partnership in 2024, under the State Partnership Program of the U. S. Department of State. How critical is this partnership and what do you have planned for 2025?
Air Vice Marshal Daniel: It’s been a fantastic 20-year experience with the Delaware National Guard. In fact, we were awarded the best partnership award [winning Partnership of the Year in 2022] and we’re proud of that. The partnership has seen us benefit from the Delaware National Guard coming to help us improve our expertise. We are extremely happy about that, and it helps us keep our professional military competence well developed and exercised.
Just this year [2024] we carried out engagements that involved training, air operation exercises, and cyber security. Going forward, we will continue to work together, ensuring we analyze our ever evolving and dynamic defense and security environment and bring to bear the necessary professional military training and military skills that will best position our military troops for operational readiness.
