The Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum (CTRC) reflects NATO DEEP\u2019s commitment to building resilience against terrorism through education, cooperation, and shared expertise. It’s designed not just as a set of academic modules, but as a practical, dynamic tool to support professional military and civilian education across the Alliance and its partners. During the annual DEEP Functional Clearing House, at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen from 23 June to 25 June, 2025, Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel Chairman, Global Threats Advisory Group (CTAG), NATO DEEP, underlined that the CTRC reflects NATO DEEP\u2019s commitment to building resilience against terrorism through education, cooperation, and shared expertise. It’s designed not just as a set of academic modules, but as a practical, dynamic tool to support professional military and civilian education across the Alliance and its partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The full, authorised transcript of the speech is provided below: The Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum (CTRC) reflects NATO DEEP\u2019s commitment to building resilience against terrorism through education, cooperation, and shared expertise. It’s designed not just as a set of academic modules, but as a practical, dynamic tool to support professional military … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-page"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9161,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions\/9161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepportal.hq.nato.int\/eacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Good morning everybody. I am going to just share my slides and we can proceed. I will talk to you today about the NATO Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum (CTRC). I want to start by acknowledging a few key people: Mariusz Solis NATO DEEP Coordinator, Gabi Lurwig, and Professor Piotr Gawliczek, who have been critical in helping us develop the CTRC. I know there are many other good friends in the room as well. What is the CTRC? My colleague Eve Register, who\u2019s with all of you in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, has probably explained this in detail already. To summarize, the CTRC has three core elements. First, it offers a nuanced understanding of both terrorism and counter-terrorism, in essence, how to prepare for and mitigate threats. Second, it addresses national, regional, and international security policy implications. Countries deal with domestic challenges, but these often spill over into regional or even global consequences. Third, we aim to enable our partners to anticipate and mitigate future challenges, in order to help them prepare, plan, and protect. The CTRC has primarily been delivered in English but has also been published in French, Russian, and Arabic. It\u2019s organised into four themes: (1) Introduction to Terrorism, (2) Understanding Ideologies, Motivations, and Methods, (3) Contemporary Challenges and Evolving Threats, and (4) Counter-Terrorism Strategy, Operations, and Capacity Building. Our goals include creating hands-on professional military education (PME) tools and building a cadre of PME instructors. Like other NATO reference curricula, CTRC is train-the-trainer oriented. We also assist institutions in creating tailor-made curricula that align with national priorities and challenges. It\u2019s not just about implementing counter-terrorism instruction, but also broader international security, defence capacity, and interoperability. CTRC includes elements like border security, emerging technologies, and concepts of soft and sharp power. Who is this for? Primarily, it\u2019s targeted at the military and law enforcement\u2014whether municipal, provincial, or federal\u2014as well as border security and governmental bodies such as foreign ministries, interior, treasury, and justice departments. Participants are typically mid-to-senior-level professionals. The CTRC covers diverse dynamics like insider threats, CBRN, terrorist travel, online threats, ID systems, cryptocurrency, and technology-related justice issues. Our activities began with Ukraine in 2020. Our first programme was with the Military Academy in Odessa, followed by another in 2021, and a collaboration with the National Defence University of Ukraine. All of this was during the pandemic, which posed logistical and technological challenges. I\u2019m proud many of those we trained are now defending Ukraine against Russia\u2019s illegal war. We also helped Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Jacquemin develop a programme for the G5 Sahel Defence College. We\u2019ve worked with other countries too. For instance, the Jordanian Armed Forces and their Military Centre for Counter-Terrorism and Extremism in Zarqa. We created a custom curriculum focusing on threats relevant to Jordan, like converging technologies and transnational terrorist groups. Many militaries are keenly interested in countering violent extremism (CVE), something that\u2019s often misunderstood to be outside their domain. We have created a CVE module, even though it\u2019s not in the current CTRC. Our training strategy includes building participants\u2019 knowledge base, fostering partnerships and trust, ensuring ongoing dialogue, and developing leadership. We don\u2019t just want trainers, we want leaders who can impact national security and share their progress, reflecting NATO\u2019s ethos. Key takeaways: prepare for future tactics and threats, assess evolving patterns, and anticipate emerging challenges. We recently completed programmes with Bosnia and Herzegovina, including 28 tailored classes with SEIPA and a workshop with the border force. Another session is planned between October 2005 and February 2006 with great cooperation from Pavel and Lidra. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Participants complete evaluation forms, and results have shown excellent satisfaction scores. This is an ongoing process of refinement.
Recent updates: We held a CTRC review in the beautiful Warmian-Masurian region of Poland, supported by the Polish Association of Security\u2014thank you to Piotr for helping organise. We\u2019ve introduced new modules based on feedback and current trends. For example, under Theme 2, we\u2019ve added an entire block on misogyny\u2014highlighting how hatred of women fuels radicalisation. Other additions cover artificial intelligence (AI), drones, cyberspace, and prison-related challenges. The final theme also saw changes, including open-source intelligence (OSINT) training. We\u2019re preparing a draft version for peer review, aiming to finalise the new CTRC by 2026. We\u2019re also refining methodology\u2014laying out specific theme-based modules and tasks for each block to ensure clarity and interconnectivity, not just static content. Each module now includes: key concepts, specific methodology, goals, tasks, and case studies\u2014making it both theoretical and practical. We\u2019ve simplified the language and replaced generic classroom guidance with detailed, participatory activities. Additional learning tools include the eCTRC\u2014an online training platform; the NATO DEEP podcast series; and the NATO DEEP eAcademy. The eCTRC enables hands-on exercises, quizzes, and assessments. The podcast features interviews with senior practitioners, which we transcribe and distribute as educational material. Notable guests include Tim Marshall, Leon Panetta, the former CIA Director, and Neil Basu, a senior police officer who served in the Metropolitan Police. In conclusion, I\u2019m happy to take any questions. My colleague Eve Register is with you and can help further. I want to reiterate that this programme is not just about counter-terrorism but also about broader international security. Countries like Armenia and Mongolia can also benefit. And if you want to remember the CTRC by one thing\u2014credit to Gabi for the cover design\u2014it looks like a Milka chocolate bar: nutritious, just without the calories! With that, I\u2019ll conclude. Thank you for listening.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"