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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:59 What is the State Partnership Program?
01:57 Historical Context
03:58 BetterHelp
05:18 How does the program work?
06:28 How are the National Guard Units coordinated?
06:57 National Guard Units Missions
07:51 Current Partner Countries
08:23 African Partners
08:41 Middle-East Partners
08:49 European Partners
09:23 Indo-Pacific Partners
09:38 South/Central America Partners
10:09 Most recent countries to join (since 2013)
11:45 Summary
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
States and countries. Did you know that around 95 countries in the world have a specific connection
0:05
to a US state? I didn't. But as it turns out, a somewhat interesting thing exists called the
0:11
State Partnership Program, which connects a specific US state to a sovereign country somewhere
0:17
in the world, establishing these relationships to achieve a number of objectives. Those objectives
0:22
are usually to establish US influence in a region, further their national interests
0:27
while simultaneously aiding the host country in various ways. Three examples, since 2003, there are partnership programs between South Africa and New York
0:38
Egypt and Texas, and Mongolia and Alaska, among 95 others in total
0:43
In this video, we're going to learn what the state partnership program is
0:47
why it was created, and what its goals were and are today, how the program effectively works, and which partnerships exist today or have existed in the past
0:57
So, what is the State Partnership Program? The State Partnership Program, or SPP, is a joint program of the United States Department
1:07
of Defense and individual states of the country, including territories and Washington, D.C.
1:13
which become partners of a sovereign nation somewhere in the world upon the request of
1:18
said nation. In this really cool interactive map of the U.S., we can click on each state and territory
1:24
and see which countries they are partners of, as well as the year in which that partnership was
1:29
established. All countries have at least one partner nation. Idaho is sort of the only exception
1:35
its partner nation is Cambodia, and the relationship is stated as dormant. In addition to the states
1:41
the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands also take part in this
1:46
Further ahead, we'll do the opposite and go through a map of the world, where we can see each
1:51
country's partner US state. You can check the timestamps if you want to skip to that
1:55
But let's provide some historical context for this state partnership program. It was created in 1993
2:01
as a version of something called the Joint Contact Team Program. And in order to understand the point
2:07
of the SPP, we need to briefly understand what its predecessor was. The JCTP, established in 1992
2:16
was created after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, sort of the Russian
2:22
equivalent to NATO at the time. All of these countries, formerly under Soviet influence or
2:27
full-on control, were now independent, attempting to secure their new sovereignty and establish
2:32
democratic regimes and their own military forces. It featured long-term presence of extensive and
2:39
expensive teams of advisory specialists to aid these new countries in achieving their goals
2:45
And of course, having the added bonus of establishing good relations with them and buying some US influence
2:52
The JCTP still exists, but it's now a part of the NATO Partnership for Peace program
2:57
which prepares nations for membership in NATO. But essentially, both the programs do the same
3:04
The SPP is just not as intense if you will It cheaper has a lesser American presence as described by themselves and can include civilian agencies
3:15
It's more of a wide-ranging cooperation partnership rather than preparation for something specific
3:21
Although a big component of it, which is rather strange, is that the designated state sends
3:26
a unit of their National Guard to the partner country where they conduct joint exercises
3:33
These aren't always military missions with security as a focus, sometimes just humanitarian
3:38
and crisis relief ones. At the end of the day, that's what the State Partnership Program is, an agreement between
3:44
the United States, through one of its states, and a foreign government to conduct joint
3:49
security operations with the US National Guard. They may or may not lead to membership of the partner nation in some regional defense organization
3:58
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first month at betterhelp.com slash general knowledge and I've also linked them below in
5:04
the description or you can just scan the QR code. And now back to the video. So now that we've
5:10
understood what the state partnership is, why and how it was created, as well as what its goals are
5:16
let's find out how it actually works. Like I mentioned, the program exists and is handled
5:21
by the Department of Defense of the US and each individual state. If interested, a foreign nation
5:26
reaches out to them and asks to become a partner. The process isn't very easy and it's not certain
5:32
that everyone gets accepted. There's actually 8 steps to it. The nation requests participation
5:37
through a US ambassador. The ambassador then endorses the request and submits it to the
5:42
commander assigned to their region. Then the commander submits the nomination to the Secretary
5:46
of Defense who prioritizes annual nominations according to their global strategic priority
5:52
After choosing the accepted partner nations, he reaches out to the chief of the National Guard for recommendations of which US states should be the partners
6:02
The National Guard submits these recommendations and then they are approved and a signing ceremony follows in the new partner nation with the partnership beginning and the assigned state deploying a unit of their National Guard to the nation to execute whatever strategy has been decided Also I not sure if there any criteria regarding the attributed partner state Some states have more than one partner nation
6:25
maybe historical or population connections are taken into account. Upon deployment, the unit is coordinated through a representative of the US Armed Forces, the US Ambassador in said
6:35
nation, a representative of the nation itself, and any other agencies that are a part of the
6:40
local program. This is to assure that the National Guard's support is tailored to meet both the U.S.
6:46
especially their ambassadors, and the host country's objectives. They state that the unique
6:51
civil-military nature of the U.S. National Guard allows for its participation in a wide range of
6:56
activities, such as emergency management and disaster response, border and port security
7:02
medical capacities, economic security, natural resource protection, peacekeeping operations, counter-trafficking, counter-terrorism, among many others. In these pictures, we can see some
7:13
examples of the activities from a Thai firefighter training with the Washington Guards, to North
7:19
Dakota Guardsmen training soldiers from Ghana on flood protection, a Mongolian general observing
7:24
Guardsmen from Alaska perform veterinary services, or a soldier from Kansas and Armenia training
7:30
together on demining operations. The SPP has, according to itself, a number of benefits
7:36
both for the American states as the foreign nations. In a report submitted to the US Congress
7:40
in 2012, they name a few of them like providing experience and training for the guardsmen
7:46
developing relationships with the host countries, information sharing between nations, among others
7:51
So, now that we've figured out how the partnerships effectively work and what they can involve
7:56
let's learn about the current existing partnerships throughout the world. There are 87 with 95
8:02
countries. They're all individual one-on-one partnerships except one of them which involves
8:07
seven Caribbean island nations. Although in some partnerships, more than one unit of the
8:12
partner state national guard is deployed. The partnerships are organized into six regions of
8:17
the world. There's US Africum for Africa with 16 partnerships. I'm not going to read all of them
8:22
there's no point in just saying a list out loud. They're going to be on screen so you can pause to
8:27
go through them if you'd like. These include partnerships such as Morocco with Utah, South
8:31
Africa with New York, Nigeria with California, and Burkina Faso with Washington DC
8:36
US CENTCOM for the Middle East and Central Asia, having 9 partnerships, such as Egypt
8:42
with Texas or Tajikistan with Virginia. US EUCOM for Europe, one of the largest partnership regions, which makes sense since the original
8:51
program from which the SPP was created, was meant to aid post-Soviet nations
8:56
Here there are 24 partnerships, they're clearly divided into two time periods, the
9:01
the one right after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s and then more modern times
9:05
Czechia is, I believe, the only country to have two states as their partner, both Nebraska and Texas
9:11
Romania has Alabama, Ukraine, California, Georgia, Georgia, Serbia, Ohio, Kosovo and Iowa, among many others you can see
9:20
U Indo for the Indo including Southeast Asia which has 13 such as the Philippines with Hawaii Mongolia with Alaska or Vietnam with Oregon US NorthCom for North America only has one partner The Bahamas with Rhode Island
9:36
And finally US SouthCom for Central and South America which matches Europe having 24 partnerships
9:43
Honduras and Puerto Rico showing us the partners of 4 nations also include territories and
9:48
Natchez states. Venezuela with Florida, Uruguay with Connecticut, Chile with Texas. Perhaps the criteria here was the similar flag, as well as Haiti with Louisiana, where
9:58
there is a large Haitian community. It's really unclear what the criteria for the state partner selection is, sometimes
10:04
it seems random, other times there seems to be some reason for it
10:08
This map provides us with a good view of where the partnerships are. South America is basically all a part of the program, save Argentina and Brazil in this
10:16
map, but the map is outdated, from 2013. Both Argentina and Brazil have joined with Georgia and New York in 2016 and 2018 respectively
10:25
Let's go through each region of this map and update it to show new member states
10:30
allowing us to see which the newest nations to have joined are. Africa is very sparsely filled with members
10:35
There's no fixed regions that take part in it as we see in other continents
10:40
but many have joined since this map was made. Benin, Togo, both with North Dakota
10:44
showing us how sometimes the same US state has more than one partner nation
10:49
Djibouti, Kenya, Niger, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, and Cabo Verde have all recently joined as
10:55
recently as 2022. In Europe, here in green, the three Caucasus nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia
11:02
are key members of the partnership showing how the initial program was meant for border
11:07
regions with the Soviet Union. It's also very satisfying that Georgia's partner state is Georgia
11:12
Austria and Cyprus have joined since the map was made as well
11:16
In the Middle East and Central Asia, more have joined too since 2013, Qatar, Egypt, Oman
11:21
and Turkmenistan, which makes it so all the Central Asia Estans are a part of this program
11:26
again showing the dedicated influence in post-Soviet areas. And finally in Southeast Asia, the Indo-Pacific region, we can see how this whole area is also
11:35
a part of the partnership program. Since 2013, more have joined too, Tonga and Fiji, Malaysia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, as
11:43
well as Sri Lanka and the Maldives. So that is the mostly unknown partnership program between states of the US and sovereign
11:50
countries across the world. The State Partnership Program. How it was created in the following years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the
11:58
dissolution of the Pact of Warsaw. With its initial objective being to provide these nations with support in regaining their
12:05
independence, having proven itself successful in both aiding the nations but also expanding
12:10
US influence and establishing good relations with the host nations, the program was expanded
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into various regions across the world, continuing and even growing up to today
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Did you know this existed and do you have any corrections or additional information about it
12:25
Let me know in the comments along with your opinions and thoughts about it. Thanks so much for watching this video, subscribe if you want and I will see you next time for
12:33
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