Reservists on Migration

The GI is a politically independent, non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO), which is currently functioning in the form of a regional cooperation among nine Central European reservist and officer associations. It has been established 26 years ago, and is named after the town – Gaming, Lower Austria – where it held its first conference before the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1990. For each country, one of its officer or reservist associations can become a fully-fledged member of the GI. Besides, like in the case of Matasz, the sending national associations must have authorization from the ministry of defence of their own countries.

One of the GI’s two main events is the GAMING I Spring Meeting. It used to be held in the town of Gaming, but these days, usually some member state plays host to the event that focuses on some current security policy issue in the public eye. The other main event is the GAMING II Autumn Meeting, at which a given member state presents the system of its own national defence, with special emphasis on its aspects regarding the reserve.

The keynote speaker at this year’s spring meeting was Brig.-Gen. Harald Gante, the commandant and deputy dean of studies at the Offizierschule des Heeres (OSH), the German School of Army Officers hosting the event. In his presentation, he talked about the school and its program of education. The institute is based on the principle of lifelong learning, and in this spirit, it does not only train officer candidates in military fields (they acquire professional skills in civil universities so that they have a specialism that can be easily applied elsewhere), but also runs a number of higher-level courses (up to battalion commander level). English language training and the teaching of Mission Command have outstanding importance.

The keynote lecture was followed by presentations on the migration crisis situation that affects the whole of Europe. It turned out that he host and the transit countries had fundamentally different narratives – while the latter view the flow of people across their territories primarily as a security issue, destination countries are more interested in some solution to the integration of masses of migrants. The Visegrád Four (V4) countries were the most determined to stand for the security-first concept.

In what followed, the participants of the meeting visited the Bundeswehr Military History Museum, which provides a good overview of Germany’s military history and has some very unique exhibits on display. Although the last Sunday of May is not designated as Heroes’ Day in Germany, the participants laid wreaths by some war graves in the Dresden cemetery.

On top of the above, the meeting also provided opportunities for bilateral discussions.

The GAMING Autumn Meeting will take place in Bratislava in October, and the representative of Matasz will probably attend it again. Besides, it has also been suggested that Hungary could host a similar event in 2018.

Photos by the authors and the organizers