All right, I think we're live. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this afternoon's event. I'm Dr. Francesco Milán. I'm the Deputy Director for ICSC Land and I'm also lecturing the module from Daesh to Donbass where we discuss issues related to hybrid warfare, grazing, activities, violent non-state actors, stabilization and counterinsurgency and how all these elements combine together. We put together this event today with Colonel Giuseppe de Magistris, who's Director of the NATO Center of Excellence for Stability Policing. And we've done this in the context primarily of the module we are running at the Defense Academy, so trying to make more sense of security dynamic in the contemporary world and trying to understand security dynamics more broadly. What we will discuss today is how fragile states work in the context of conflict and instability, what role violent non-state actors play in this context and how they are competing for authority and power. The main contribution in today's presentation is the fact that when we intervene in this crisis and in the context of these instability theaters, we intervene, we do so as external actors and we bear the burden of responsibility in most of cases for what's on the ground is in fact a systemic revolution. We are trying either to help a system to remain in place despite existing frictions and despite competing actors or we are trying to facilitate an actor to take control of that system and of that country. This happens from a security perspective in a very peculiar and nuanced way. We have on the ground a range of actors who are testing the boundaries of this system and we can take three key examples. The local population is asking, as a local I would ask myself, who's in charge? Who is the authority in this country and who is going to protect me? And this is a recurring question throughout the crisis, throughout a campaign. And nothing of this is going to be permanent. Actors in place keep on changing and keep having different degrees of control over what the population perceives as the legitimate authority. We also have other groups that are testing the boundaries of these systems such as the criminal world who was trying to figure out how much as a criminal, how much can I get away with in carrying out my activities on the ground? So where are the boundaries, the new boundaries of legality? And obviously we do have also our adversaries who are trying to figure out how to disrupt this process or how to exploit it to their own advantage. These, of course, all stress is one of the key points we're trying to discuss throughout our modules which is the fact that stability is not purely a military activity and how perception of security and what security looks like is going to change significantly depending on which actor we are taking into account and which perspective we are employing in analyzing security itself. Today's event also gives probably a fresh look into what we consider gray zone activity and hybridity because by talking about stability policing, we are looking at one of these activities that doesn't put ourselves strictly speaking in direct confrontation in a kinetic sense with our adversaries, but it's more about a competition to demonstrate who has the capacity to establish itself as the authority in a given country. It also has quite a distinct, let's say, hybrid flavor because as you will see, we will be covering a spectrum of activities that go from the military end of the spectrum into paramilitary activities, into more constabulary activities and all the way into the civilian realm which shows how multifaceted security is and throughout the presentation, we'll see what role stability policing plays in this context. Without any further ado, I leave the floor to Colonel Giuseppe de Magistris who's gonna guide us through the concept of stability policing, recent experiences from NATO's perspective and some of the challenges and the critical points in the practice and in the doctrine of stability policing. Excuse me. Colonel Flosso, yours, I'll start the presentation in a second. Thank you so much. Thank you, professor. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for having me first and foremost. This is a great opportunity first and foremost for the director of the stability policing central versions, which being me, because I have the opportunity to provide you with an initial understanding of a very specific set of function which NATO is equipped. But I will say that is even a great opportunity for you that they're already commanding, I mean, you're an officer commanding, units and will be staff officer, will be deploying and planning roles, but you will be even the future commanders for your country, but even for NATO. So I believe that you do need to know which are the tools available to face today's challenges. I mean, this is a very chaotic environment. You know, I mean, we do experience all the issues related to the theater operation which are very far from here because for instance, mass migration is the first effect, but terrorism is another effect. So we have to be cognizant that we cannot underestimate the consequences of the wars or the stabilized environment far away from our homes because they do affect our families. That said, professor, if we can start the presentation, you know, the power... Apologies, Colonel. I'm having a technical glitch with the presentation. Do you have a copy yourself? Because for some restrictions on Zoom, I don't seem to be able to upload it right now. I have my copy. I need just to minimize the screen. Right, thank you. Apologies for that. No worries. I should be able to speak about it without anything. But do the... If I may, students have the presentation? No, it hasn't been circulated. Okay. It's not classified, so. Anyway, your colleagues, I will go through the subject matter in focusing my attention on the elephant in the room because NATO across the years across three decades seemed not to take into the right consideration the subject matter. However, you know, although it's a bottom-up approach, it was a bottom-up approach, NATO is still, if I may, struggling to acknowledge the fact that it is to be equipped with this set of functions. Indeed, by the end of this year, hopefully we will have a concept on stability policing approved by the NATO 20 counts council. Apart from talking about stability policing, I will talk about the Afghan National Police, which is really a challenge. One of the most corrupt entity in Afghanistan. And I would like to give you a gist of what are the findings of our inquiry, what are even endeavors on this very matter. And then I will touch upon NATO center of actions and the stability policing center of actions. Anyway, I need to set the scene. So in order to set the scene, let me put say something on a side. The bulk of the stability policing asset is provided by the so-called gender-maid type forces. We are talking about military equipped with civil police skills. I know that it might sound weird for an Anglo-Saxon colleague. However, in the Latin world, it's very common. In Italy, we have the state police, which are civilian, the Caribbean Corps, in France, the police, and the gendarmerie. In Spain, they got the civil and the civil police. The Netherlands police and the Mauritius cells. So, you know, in Portugal, got the National Republican and police. So this is something which comes from the heritage of Napoleon. However, this kind of police forces fully equipped with military skills, but even capable to discharge civil police do have the responsibility of state defense and public order security. But they do have even a double function. I'm talking about in their own countries. They are armed forces. The Carabinieri are the force service of the Italian armed forces. So they sit along with the army, navy, and air commanding. Our commanding and our commanding ships in front of the midst of the fence. Something like the United States Marine Corps, which is a service on their own. So as an armed force, we do have to protect the state, our borders, but as a police force, we have to implement public order security, the rule of law to ensure the rule of law. Somebody else on the other side of the pond, maybe we'll say low and all. Anyway, to summarize, we are the gendarmerie type forces of police forces. We meet a status organization capable to express law enforcement capability, but we are even oppression body for the civil protection. This mention to the civil protection, which will, sorry, help us to understand a little bit more the function of the Afghan national police, namely the Afghan uniform police, but we will say later. So I don't know whether professionally you might ask to project the presentation. I think so. We should have it up on screen. Is it? It's not huge. Okay, it is. So thank you so much. So please next. Okay. So my point is, is NATO missing an opportunity? We will see with that. Okay. Yeah, Aristotle is funny. This man was right already at that time. He said that it was not enough to win a war. We have to think about how to organize the peace. We have to think about how after putting the boots on the ground, but before getting to a theater operation, we have to think about the exit strategy. And sometimes NATO, the international community did forget to do so. Sometimes I'm talking, thinking about the United Nations, several United Nations mission. They revolved to war in a matter of years only because the spoilers, the spoiler threats which were looming in those theater operation were not addressed in the very beginning, since in the so-called critical golden hour when you do the planning. And how can you identify spoiler threats? You do need to develop a very attentive planning which doesn't underestimate even all the information which police forces can gather in a more effective way. Not because they are better than the military, but because they do carry out community policing activities. So they talk to the population. They don't have only tips, but they gather information even from the day to day talk. So please next. Okay, next, could you please click on the video on the left-hand side? Okay, this is what NATO did. They didn't mind the gap. The gap, I mean, go, please next. This kind of gap was identified in 1997. There should be an animation in this slide. Anyway, I can talk over this slide, no worries. It was identified in 1997 by SHAPE, the Supreme Court of Allied Powers Europe. And General Clark was, at that time, was the first advocate. This slide contains an animation, but what was the situation in Bosnia and Tegovina at that time? We had the International Police Task Force, which was a mission deployed by the United Nations, but it was a single mission. They deployed small teams of police officers from all over the world, unarmed and equipped, not trained, untrained, too, with a different perspective and without clear mission. We know what happened. You heard about Srebrenica.  But I do remember the slaughter of Srebrenica and the UN were under attack. So NATO intervened. This was the first ever crisis response operation, not Article 5 operation. And immediately NATO planners identified a security gap, which was lately identified by the UN report, the so-called Brahimi report. It was the special envoy of the United Nations Secretary. The security gap is a capacity gap, a capability gap, beg your pardon, which encompasses the void between the local institution, the local law enforcement agency. Usually, you know, in such scenario, the local police are reliable, are corrupted, imagine how they were biased in Bosnia and Zegovina, you know, because of the, it was an ethnic war. So the Muslims were slaughtered by the Serbs, who are orthodox, however, even the Muslims did their own slaughter. So imagine the police, which should be independent, should be unbiased. So the police did prosecute it and persecuted innocent civilians. So there was a need to monitor them, but even to, let's say, first support, I would say, substitute them. So it was decided that to fill this gap, they couldn't fill this gap with the tank. Ultimately, you cannot change a rubber with the tank. And so Italy stepped in on voluntary basis, my core, the Karabini Recall Joint Endeavour, and they deployed a regimental size unit in Bosnia and Zegovina. It was the first MSU, multinational specialised unit. At that time, there were contribution, few contribution, but there was even a platoon from Argentina. There were some gendarmes, but the bulk of the force was comprised of the Karabini. And there were even some few American officers in staff position. Anyway, as the slide reads, this regimental size unit was capable to somehow fill the security gap. You know, this regiment deployed even detachment, even in Banyaduka, where there was the UK, the British Brigade, in order to support the local commander, the commanding general of the brigade, in the infographic activity, presence patrol, crowd-ride control operation, and so forth. Whatever relates to policing, whatever is needed to address the security gap, which is not only a capacity, sorry, a capability void, but it is even, because you can go even to the next slide, even a void related to the needs of the local population. So in a nutshell, I will say that, talking about stability policing in principle, let me stress in principle, because stability policing is an open club, and we will see later. We are talking about gender maintain forces, which implement the same task that they implement in back in their countries. And they can do it both in conflict prevention, these are the three areas of operation, article five and non-article five operation, which are the main pillars for NATO, you know, the NATO collective security is the main pillar, then there are crisis response operation, then there is the cooperative security according to NATO. So these are the three main war streams for NATO. However, the ability policing is a set of capabilities which can be implementing across the full spectrum of operations. And even, as I said, in cooperative security activity, so when we do capacity building across the world. Again, is an open club. What I mean for that? I talked about a regimental size unit, so which is comprised by companies, which is comprised by a maneuver unit, which is dedicated to carry out high level, high skilled policing or policing related tasks. And then there is a regiment for sure there is a support unit. So don't look at this unit as a unit of cops, but think about the possibility to carry out any kind of duties which are related to stability policing within your own force. What I mean, stability policing unit can be joined even by a traditional military police unit. There are five functions in military police according to NATO doctrine. Oblity support, detention, policing, the force, not the population, and then protection of infrastructure. And then the fifth function is stability policing, which is a function for the MPs. So if the MP carry out a stability policing function, so low enforcement activity, in that capacity when they focus on the local population, they will discharge a stability policing activity. So the definition, the NATO definition is on the slide. So set a police-related activity aimed at to restore, uphold, the rule of law, public order security, protect human rights. I know that the UK has got the 77th Regate which covers whatever is related to the human security and the human security is a huge subject matter which ranges from a child, children in armed conflict, gender protection, to cultural property protection, and so is some thought. All these activities which are not by nature, military or addressed by the military are all those activities which most likely back in our country, we consider activity to be protected by the penal law.  So, and then as a last bullet, another task for the stability policing asset is to support temporary place in these police forces. As a consequence, we start in 1998, the first deployment of the MSU, the multinational specialized unit, dates back to the 6th, August, 1998. After that, imagine that up to 2004, there was not all plan for the operational plan for the MSU unit in Bosnia and Zegovina. It happened to me at the time I was the G3 chief in that unit to write from a blank page, the all plan, what a nightmare. But then this all plan was even exported, if I may, even to Kosovo where there is still a multinational specialized unit discharging such duties in Kosovo. And we can talk about Kosovo if we have time later because it is another challenge, and the thing that you know, and the reason why we are still in a, in Kosovo because of the sensitiveness of that theater operation. So, and then as a consequence, you know, Doctrine Camp came out and then we managed, it was an initiative of the Italians to establish the center of excellence, which was, which initiated these activities almost five years ago. Please next. Okay, these slide aims to summarize what I said. The policing gap can be seen from two different directions. I said, one is the void of the needs of the local population, we, you know, people need to be satisfied, need to have their security needs addressed. Because if nobody addresses their needs, they will turn to organized crime. They will turn to insulah, insulah, insulah. Insulah, insulah, insulah, terrorist, totalitarian. Think about Afghanistan, you know, arriving or putting in charge of the police station or police provincial command, warlords or drug lords in Afghanistan. And this was a mistake underlined even by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. I think you heard about it in the US. I mean, it's a huge mistake because local population will not trust the international community. If you bet, if the international community backs such of criminals. And so if the international community loses the battle of narratives, the local population will turn towards, in this case, Taliban. Anyway, on the other side, the policing gap is a capability gap. In the beginning, there is a, usually in a war-torn country, there are no police. As the situation evolves, the capabilities of the local police grow. However, they do need to have the support of the international community.  And this is somebody's stability policing asset. Please. And as you have seen next, stability policing can go across the full spectrum of activity from a replacement mission to a supporting mission. So we are talking about, especially the stabilization and reconstruction phase however, a stability policing unit in the beginning of multinational specialized unit can be deployed even in the very beginning of operation when bombs are still falling. In Kosovo, in 1999, if I'm not mistaken, there was a confrontation between the Russians and the UK paratroopers at the airport in Pristina. A couple of weeks later, there were still the troops deployed in the airport that were still facing and the NATO troops started to arrive, started to land there. And amongst these troops, there were the Caribbean of the MSU and then other countries joined that unit. There was even a Lithuanian platoon at that time. And at that time, Lithuania was not a NATO country yet. So, stability policing time is running. I think, yes, stability policing is a concept which is a reality across the main international organization. Everything started, as I said, in 1998 in Bosnia-Zegomir. And in Bosnia-Zegomir, we had the first exercise of creating this unit from a NATO mission to a European Union mission. So the stability policy, the multinational specialized unit by reacting, rebadging their uniform became an integrated police unit. Maybe we can address the differences between the United Nations approach, the European Union approach, NATO approach in the Q&A time. However, the main difference is that the normality for the NATO is working always within the military component with advisors plugging on a case-by-case basis. So it's a fully military approach. For the United, for the European Union, it's different. For them, it's more important the conflict prevention. They deploy small teams attached to survey or monitoring mission. They can deploy military-like unit, gender-metallic forces in the integrated police unit. But they do prefer deploying within a police-like or a civilian component, which is at least separated from the military component, a foreign police unit. So there are different pillars, according to the European Union approach. And they are just almost copying, pasting the United Nations approach, which moves across several pillars.  And so the idea of a foreign police unit is slightly different from multinational specialist unit, but it descends, it comes from the first idea. A foreign police unit is a company-level police unit, which can be comprised of civil police or gender-metallic forces, but the tasks are limited. So they discharge a crowd-wide control operation, critical infrastructure security, VIP protection, and info gathering activities, minor police activities, and presence patrol. But when they carry out presence patrol, they do it always with the local police. What is the assumption? Usually, a United Nation in the European Union mission is deployed within a sovereign state. So it's an assistance mission. It's not, they do not have executive powers as it happened for Eastern in Kosovo, where even the judiciary did not exist in the beginning. So they started from scratch. And then we have the European Gender-Mate Force, which is a coalition of willing European countries equipped, I mentioned before, equipped with gender-metallic forces, which decided in 2007 to create a permanent quarters to deploy the quarters that are 36 people. So it's not a force itself, it's just a permanent quarters, which plans for continuous plans for operation. So they are capable to cover the full spectrum of gender-made or stability policing activities. However, being a coalition of willing, they need the request for another international organization to deploy. Otherwise, they cannot deploy by their own. And they are currently busy in Africa and Mali with a capacity-building team in organized crime and counter-terrorism. So capacity-building, which means on-the-job training, monitoring, mentoring, advising, assisting, and so on and so forth. Here's next, Professor. Thank you so much for being the clicker. Okay, doctrine. I don't want to make you fall asleep talking about doctrine the early afternoon. However, as I said, NATO seemed in the beginning to underestimate the need of such an asset capability. So I know that I'm bashing into an open door, but if you do not have a concept in NATO, you do not exist in the NATO defense planning process, neither in the NDP, nor in the SAG, which is the SACARE annual guidance for the Equation Training Evaluation of Units, which means that should something happen tomorrow, unless there is a willing nation, two willing nations that say, okay, I will volunteer to deploy a stability policing unit. But you probably need to move the video because otherwise I look, no, sorry, it's better. You will have, I mean, unless you have somebody who volunteers to make it carry out the intervention, nobody will provide this set of capabilities. So doctrine now helps a little bit. The slide is set explanatory. However, we still, we are still struggling. We have been struggling for years for a concept. In the Q&A, maybe you can be curious to know the reason why. So is there any MP between you, your colleagues? Is, I don't know whether there are somebody from the UK meter, please? Yeah, we'll probably find out in the Q&A because there's several groups joined together. So we don't have a full, who's who of everyone yet. But hopefully they're gonna show up in the Q&A. Without embouching me. Next, please. Okay, so in a nutshell, oh no, there is the video, if you can play the video. So you click twice or no, okay. Yeah, let me know if the audio works because this is a bit of a bootleg way to show the presentation. So if the audio doesn't work, just let me know and we'll jump to the next one. This is what is stability policy. I can't hear anything. Sorry, I don't know how to get around this because I'm showing the presentation through my screen and the audio is not coming through. So you mind if we jump to the next slide? For sure the video is far more clear than me. Anyway, in a nutshell, you cannot chase a robber with a tank. Somebody is to do it in a theater of operations. Somebody is to fill this void. No, I served across Italy, I had some experiences overseas, several experiences but even I served in several regions in Italy. I would say the most sensitive ones. I had the luxury to be deployed in Sicily. I think you are in Sardinia, in Calabria, mostly in the South, in my operations assignments. Sometimes I was in charge of unity which were in the middle of nowhere where the only representative of the state of the government was me. It was a great responsibility. You are in the middle of nowhere in a sub-province, in a portion of a big province where you have 44 municipalities spread out across 1500 square kilometers of mountains and you have 32 stations up to 600, 700 carabinieri spread out in 32 stations, three companies. And you have to satisfy the need of the local population. If you do not manage to satisfy the need of the local population, somebody else will be satisfied. We garner several lessons from the COVID here at the center, which might be another, the matter of another conversation with you colleagues. If the state doesn't provide food to the local population, organized crime will go around, especially in small villages, ending over food. If people do not have access to loan, loan shark will come out saying, okay, you can give me the money for six months from now. I will talk later about interest. This is loosely, loan shark is a very heinous crime. People lose all their goods when they got under usury.  Or do you go to the local chiefs team, local criminal asking for the moped? Think about the Birmingham, big cities. It applies everywhere. The neighborhoods along the land, go to Rome, I mean, wherever, to Chicago, everywhere in the world. They call the horse who comes back because if the police do not find the moped to a kid, somebody else will find the moped for the kid, for 200 euros. And the same applies for biggest crime, most serious crime. The same applies in the theater of operation. So these are the takeaways which I would like to leave you today, to give you today. We aim at bringing the police dimension into military operation, peacekeeping operation, but any kind of military intervention. Because there is a chaotic situation. War crime overlap is not that easy to face. And when we deploy, we have already, we must already think about disengaged. We must think immediately to the exit strategy. Who can do it, any kind of willing nations, but any kind of asset too, throughout the full spectrum of the conflict, before, during, and after the conflict. The focus just to be clear is to be the local population and the local police. Through reinforcement, through replacement, through assisting, then in their activities. Again, now in war-torn country, most likely the local police do not exist or are really unreliable. Please, next. So talking about these takeaways, there was an overlap of images, the animation. I'm sorry for that. The latest step on stability policing was the establishment of this center of access. Okay, Afghanistan. I attend, last time I attended Afghanistan was last November. On the right-hand side, you might recognize Jenna Andrew Harrison at that time, Megai, means a basic group interior deputy command in general. And on the left-hand side, Jenna Yakubi in charge of, at that time, of the Department of Operation of the Afghan National Police. Different priorities, different approaches for sure. The international community approach, the NATO approach was, I don't know whether I can pose question, but I think that it is, okay, I understand.  Can you please help me? Anyway, the NATO approach at that time was checkpoint-centric. I think that most of you served in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq. In other war-torn country, very challenging countries. And you know that Afghanistan police run the country, especially by running checkpoints at the crossroads and the border crossing. Whilst for the police, there is a different problem.  I was coming from a completely different duties because I was provincial commander in the south of Italy up to exactly 365 days ago. So on the end of November, I didn't have a clear understanding what were the priorities for the Afghan National Police. And this man told me that the main priority was community policing. The main priority for them is addressing kidnappings. People get kidnapped in their own houses in Afghanistan. They don't care about roadside bomb.  It's true, as a matter of fact, we are not mad people. So everybody, even the best heroes, are scared by roadside bomb. However, for the Afghan population, the most important threat to be addressed is to avoid to be kidnapped within your apartment. Whilst you are living with your friends. Imagine that people get kidnapped and then the people, the criminals ask for ransom or they get robbed in their apartment. Like I mean, going to the market to buy some apples. So the need for the Afghan is to be protected, the main need. By the same token, why is the international community thinking about the Taliban as insurgents? Is it even a fictional unit? Because if you address them as a insurgent, you will apply the war in the law and armed conflict. Whilst for the Afghan authorities, they have the ownership. The Talimans are terrorists and as such they must be prosecuted. Not only kill point blank, according to any kind of law. We can go into details because in that country, you know far better than me that everything happens, everything happened and the law, I mean it's really multifaceted and it can be interpreted in a different way. Please go to the next. I don't know, videos are not playing, but anyway. Next, how can we approach policing in a war-torn country? In the same way we approach policing back in our countries. My solution is not the best solution. Your solution is not the best solution. Our solution is the best solution. So let's think all together about the challenge and let's face the challenge with putting all together our toll for the benefit of the local population, first and foremost. Afghanistan, very quickly, three, I would say judicial system, because apart from the pinnacle of the Sharia, Islamic law, especially in the Pashtun areas in the south, there is the informal tribal formal justice system, the jirke for the Pashtun and the shure. So they do not have any kind of policing in those areas. NATO, the Tresha Committee made the mistake to create me to recognize militia in the beginning. And this militia carried out an awful lot of, heinous crimes towards the local population. And so since they were branded NATO somehow, or they were related somehow to NATO, to the Tresha Committee, imagine the damage to the reputation on the Tresha Committee these people made. And then in the past, the Afghan didn't have any kind of police. So only in the early 19th, 19th, 19th, sorry, the Germans, first and foremost, and then the Turkish started to train some police. But in the beginning, most of the police were recruits. And that kind of approach is a very, is a moral security approach rather than a proactive approach. So they carry out the critical site infrastructures, checkpoints, they are not dynamic as a normal police force. Now, I mean, the Tresha Committee fueled them with money, billions, I would say, and they are doing huge step forward. So up to the sixties, we had the Germans in the Turkish, then the Soviet era, civil war, Taliban, you can imagine what the Taliban did with their religious police, please next. We need to see what I'm saying now against the peace deal and the peace process ongoing. Unfortunately, in some part of the country, the Afghan National Police is recognized as the most corrupt organization of Afghanistan. In some regions, according to a NetoPool, NetoPool, sorry, the Afghan National Police scored the 2.6% of appreciation of the local population, or the record. Too much nepotism, lack of transparency, there are no career path, no robust pension system. We see in another slide, they know the salary is a problem even up until the Tresha Committee paid the salaries in cash. I mean, there were so many ghost soldiers for the Afghan National Army or ghost policemen that, I mean, we can never believe. And the money, where the money ended up, for sure in some bank account of a police officer who were skilled enough to open a bank account in the Emirates on the US too. As I mentioned before, Afghan National Police is still to checkpoint terrorism, terrorism centric. This mistake is, you know, Italy, for instance, we have been facing both terrorism and organized crime. We still face a lot of challenges with organized crime.  And mafia has several declination. There's the mafia, there's Andrangeta, there's Camorra, there's the Sacra Corona, New England, Puglia. So organized crime is very active in Italy. They did export the model very well even worldwide, even in UK. I mean, our mafiosi are very operation, even in your country. So if you focus only on the organized crime, you will forget the local population. Not only will you lose the battle of narratives in this way, but you will even not leave the floor, leave the ground to them, to the organized crime to deal with the local population. So you have even to this community policing means starting from petty crime. You know, I think you heard about the social theory, the so-called policy of the broken windows, repair the windows, provide the population with the best solution for their livelihood. You will see that the community will flourish and they will be independent from the local criminals. And then, you know, who's assisting today in the Afghan National Police? Okay, I cannot make, ask question to you because we cannot interact. Russian, Chinese, Indians, Pakistan, Turkey has got his own problem. And by the way, even NATO has got some problems, forgot to say. And then even Italy has got his own problems. But I mean, at least they are coordinated with NATO. But the first country which I mentioned, I mean, I think that it speaks volumes, dear colleagues, please, next question. Okay, I took out from this slide the Afghan counter crime police because I mean, it's a situation which is evolving. Afghan National Police is under a huge shake up. We contributed to Meghai, he worked a little bit with the generation team last winter on the Afghan National Police post piece paper. It's a 150 something page document which is aimed at planning the reform of the Afghan police. However, I mean, I don't know where the process ended up now because COVID did not help in this situation. And the Afghan authority made their own piece as well. So please go to the next. I think that you read the slide, but you cannot approach policing with different agency. You need coordination. You need a police force which is federal. I found out during my last visit to Afghanistan in this capacity then, I found out that if you want to have the number of a car, of my car in Afghanistan, you have to ask the traffic police the car plate. If you say so, if you do so, traffic police will wonder whether you need my car plate because I'm under an inquiry or because you want to arrest me. So there are no, there is no common database. There is no command and control. There is no clear leadership. The waste of logistical resources is appalling. We are part of a lesson learned project with the cigar. As I mentioned before, special inspector Jennifer of Afghanistan reconstruction. And we have been discovering waste of money of taxpayer money, which really scares me. The police do have an attrition rate higher than the Afghanistan army because most of the police forces are deployed in meter capacity. The training is very poor. And as I mentioned, there are deployed police to go to the next, too much in a checkpoint. So if you use the police as a meter force, you will forget the local population. Again, I cover already this point. If you meterize too much a police force, again, the police force will not be able to work with the local population. I mean, we had a success story. It's not because it was trained mainly by the Caribbean. It was a great success for us, but then even the European general army force stepped in and they supported the reason they were. So we manage all together the European general forces and the European country, which have the main forces managed to increase the main power of the Afghanistan civil order police and success story. I would say because we managed to create a very similar Caribbean like gendermate like police force. Capable to carry out the mission area control control operation, but even a country insurgency activities. But the same token, they were even capable to carry out discharge very effectively because they were very, they are very robust. Even local police duties in the most remote areas of Afghanistan where the Afghan uniform police were not able to do so because they were untrained and disciplined, not capable to do their own job. And they sometimes even corrupted because we don't, especially Afghan uniform police are recruited from the same villages where they are deployed. So this is not always the best solution expected to to police another community rather than your own where you grew up, you have relatives, you have friends and so on and so forth. However, Ankup according to my latest information is going to be merged within the Afghan National Army. So we wasted manpower, we wasted money and by the way, unfortunately we did that even our own fatalities because green and blue doesn't happen only within the army, but even within even police training facility it did happen even in Afghanistan. So, and then, you know, even our training center were under attack. So when you get an ID or, you know, rockets, they do not make any difference whether you are in the army or in the police. But I mean, I burst into an open door, I'm sure their colleagues. And then capabilities and capacities. What is the main issue for stability policy? We have the, we do have the capabilities. So we are capable to do, to cover the full spectrum of police activities, both in a peacetime and in a destabilized environment across the full spectrum of operation. But what about the capacity? And we'll make an example. The Jandarma Turca is comprised of 190,000 people. They are very busy back in their own country. The French Army is comprised of 160,000 people. The Caribbean Corp is comprised of 120,000 people. Can we afford to deploy 50,000 personnel in any theater operation to cover a region like Afghanistan, which is bigger than half of Europe? We can't because we need to police our own countries. So why don't we open, and this is what we have been doing, the club to other kind of forces, which can discharge medium level, basic level, stability policing task without losing their own specificity. For instance, if I need to, in my regiment, I need to deploy a platoon to acquire targets. I will require paratroopers, an airborne unit. So the Caribbean Corp has got a regiment, an airborne regiment back in Italy, which is deployed very often, even across the country, to face, to counter several kinds of crimes, or even for the safety of our embassy across the world. However, so the main power is somehow limited. Can I afford to keep the entire regiment deployed overseas? I cannot because you know the rule. If you have a force, six months deployment, one quarter of the unit, is deployed, the other third is training, the other third is resting recuperating. So I cannot. And so I need to turn to the other NATO forces, and for sure all NATO military have got paratroopers. The same applies for forensics. By making just, you know, some example, I know that the British military police are very good in forensics. They do have very good teams, but if they deploy a team with the military, I mean the local population in Great Britain will not be affected. The same doesn't apply back in France, back in Italy, because if I deploy my forensics team, I will not be able to investigate crimes back in Italy, or will have difficulties to investigate something. So once again, the more we open, the better. You know, we have small boat in the Caribbean, the French in the main, the Guardia Civil in Spain, they are very good at patrolling the sea in the Guardia Civil. However, they cannot deploy their unit, I would say, you know, to carry out river in patrols in Africa in Mali, because, you know, they cannot forget their own task back in their countries. And so why don't we deploy the Marine Corps from the US or your Marines from the San Marco Brigade, the Italian San Marco Brigade? We can do it, because we have to focus on the task accomplished. These tasks are stability policing tasks. They are not military, traditional military tasks. Next, please. Colonel, just a quick heads up five minutes to the Q&A. Okay. I'm at shuttle box, I know. You know, the difficulty of not having an interaction as well, doesn't help. Please go ahead. So the peace deal is the huge question mark. Let's see how it goes. Possible way ahead. These were the, these are the recommendations, which I suggested to, to mega, to the minister, a group of interior in Afghanistan. We have to work on a historical narrative for the Afghan police. For the time being, we are not acknowledged as a service for the country. So if we manage to convince them to have a good tradition, good police officer, honor an honorable, we will become an honorable work rather than just a job. And then we have to work as I wrote here on the cultural culture of mentorship, professionalism, because if we recruit a wheel without making any difference between the recruits, we will not have the best of the best for policing. And we need people who are honest. If we do not manage to instill the military values in these people, you will see that these recruits, these police will be affected by, you know, the political shifts. There's something which proved, like a, you know, in South America, but I mean, we don't have time to cover it. Unless you have time later. Because in the beginning, look at Mexico, look at the crime rate in Mexico, the homicide rate in Mexico. Police disappear early now and then. They do not take action. They escape from criminals because they do not have any sense of pride. We will never turn our back to the enemy. So self-sensitive duty, split the code. These are core values which we have to instill in these units. Please go ahead. Something which really surprised even Iraq because I was there. We applied the same best practice, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I mean, I can't brag that the unit that we trained were pretty successful. You might remember what happened in Iraq as ISIS appeared the first time. How many units turned their back and escaped and the kids in front of the teachers? So, you know, the first activity of the day was physical training. But then after the shower that somebody was not used to have, they would have breakfast and then the racing flag ceremony. They were taught to sing a national anthem. It seems ridiculous. Everybody knows it's a national anthem. They didn't. So you have to build the sense of belonging to a country. So from the basic, from the beginning, from really from scratch. So the police force is to be embedded in the culture of the population. If you go back to London, you will always see pictures or even paintings with Bobbys or the police officer on food patrol in the city. The same applies here in Italy. I mean, the tradition shows not always the Caribbean they're all their own traditional uniform on food patrol in the cities or close by to the Christmas tree and so on and so forth. Even the postcards or the stamps on the postcards as well. But if you do not have a tight bond with the community, if you do not leave the community, you will not be able to discharge your duties in a very, in a very tailored fashion to the needs of the local population. Once again, for the Afghan owner is the synonym of integrity. So you have to make people understand that this is an honor of employment. It's not something just because you will feed your family. It's not only because you have a good salary. Because if you are, this is your approach. You will be killed in a matter of seconds as you are deployed. Please next. What lacks Afghan national police? They do not have organic investigative powers with what means, what I mean. The reform of the police in the beginning after during the Afghan campaign was led by the Germans with the German approach. The reform of the justice pillar was led by the Italian, the Italian approach. They didn't meet. And by not meeting, I mean, it was even a problem, not only between the two counties, but even, I'm a little bit brush, I know, but it will be bland. But it was a problem even, you know, within the Afghan authorities. We have, the cops are to be in a symbiotic relationship with the prosecutors. But as we said, I mean, there are still even three different justice system there. Afghan national police lacks the so-called follow the money approach. It is something which I mean, we can discuss later, but I don't know, I will require two days to talk with you today. If you take out the money from them, you will for sure reverse the fortune on the lack of these people. Because if you manage to follow the money, intercept legal flow, you take out the revenues to these people. They will not be able anymore because the salary is all for the livelihood of their fellows. And then, you know, you will effectively fight corruption, which is widespread there, really widespread unfortunately, and even organized crime. In this way, by doing so, you manage to even disrupt bigger organizations, like organized crime, like terrorist organizations, because every kind of crime, criminal organization, criminal ring, does require money behind it. Something which is really forgotten, too, is the importation, especially from Pakistan, of the precursors of airing. Afghanistan is the biggest producer of airing, because of the poppy. However, Afghan border police does do not check on the border crosspoints the precursors. So there are several acids which are utilized for an awful lot of activities, but they are even utilized in big quantities to create airing. It's not because they turn a blind eye. It's because nobody told them to do so. It is the problem. They turn a blind eye on other matters for sure. And then COVID-19, but I mean, this is self-explanatory, please. We'll give you a couple of seconds to go through this email. This is live. There are a couple of problems there, Afghan national police additional problem, but one of them is that the terrorist community will never keep financing Afghan national police if Afghan national police doesn't meet the Western standard. The terrorist community is to keep supporting IMP because we do not have to waste all the bloodshed, all the blood that our comrades lost on that theater operation. Currently they are downsizing. We don't know what happens after the US election. Anyway, if we unplug, we might run the risk to have a similar situation to the one which is in Iraq now. The police are not a solid institution yet in Afghanistan for sure. And then, I mean, if we manage to keep our hands on Afghanistan, our oversight, I mean, which should teach them how to have internal oversized mechanism because there is no transparency, there is no human rights upholding, gender is an option. Chief of police gets visited to their office by kids who please them, which is something outrageous, but it still happens. And so this doesn't improve the confidence on Afghan national police for sure. Please, next. I covered these points so we can go ahead. I think that I spoke about it. Human rights and culturalism, my solution is not the best one. This was meant to make you laugh. But anyway, center of excellence just for your knowledge. And then I hope that you can have some fun with that video when you manage to have a look at least to the videos. They are not naked women's women, but I mean, at least to make it laugh. So 28 central excellence across NATO, actually 26 accredited 20 plus two, which are on the way to be accredited. What are NATO central excellence? They are think tank capable to, I mean, tasks to develop adopting concepts, deliver training, attend the exercises on their specific subject matter of their expertise. And then they feed the lesson and cycle. They are not part of the NATO command structure, nor NATO force structure. But they are for sure authority in the special NATO is a keeper with the, as I said, 26 plus two center of excellence, but NATO cannot give any orders to them. NATO like one transformation north of Virginia as a coordinating authority over them. So we receive a passport support, but we do not respond to this request of support. Immediately or as we can, we have to first accomplish the program of work, which is endorsed and yearly by our steering committee. So I report to the steering committee, which is a chair by Italy. And it's comprised of the countries, which you see in the slide, Turkey, Czech Republic, France, please Spain, Armenia, Poland and the Netherlands. So again, I report to the mainstream committee, which gives me the direction by definition to, towards what I have to accomplish for sure and make proposals in line with the strategic concept of the central axis. Again, what we do, we discharge police, we overseas, really in a national, we can substitute the indigenous police forces, the local police forces, or even support them in the restoration, law and order, and the protection of human rights. Almost there, finished. Next one. So these are our partners, the main partners, plus academia. So we have been dealing a lot with academia. But as I agreed, talking with several academic and even with the professor Milan, something is discussing about theory, something else is discussing about the actual experience about helping colleagues on the ground, putting a booth on the ground, please. If you have time, I know that you are attending a course, so you are overwhelmed by information, but if you want to have more information, we are pretty active on the social media. I have a Twitter account too. And so you can reach me out on Twitter as well. And professor Milan has got all my details as well. Next. Lastly, you should go, the animation do not work. I don't know what happened. Anyway, the center of action is based in Vicenza, 70 kilometers far from Venice. This very compound sees several different entities. One of them, the first one is the center of actions for stability policing unit. It's a center of actions run by the Caribbean record by Italy financed by Italy, the US United States Department, which work with the United Nations, which trains cadre, so it's not low level, not low rec office, but cadre of a police officer coming from most likely most often under developing countries. Which are to bound to mission under the United Nations. What means means that under the United Nations regulation, in order to be deployed, your troops need to be certified. So the center of actions is the first center of actions worldwide on policing, which is capable to train and then certify under the UN oversight the personnel bound to the United Nations mission. You know, you heard on the news several times that the United Nations personnel did commit various violations, and so they do need, you know, there are no standards available. So this is why I mean across some developing countries. So this is why this center strives for providing a standard training for these troops, especially again senior officer and middle rank officer. On the left hand side of this slide, when you get the PowerPoint, we have the European Army Force that I mentioned before. The right hand side is the NATO center of actions, the stability policing center of actions. These forms really an international hub for the subject matter. Aside, let me say that another center of actions for stability policing unit, similar to the co-expo, so the Italian-American-led initiative, which dates back to 2007, the Sea Island G8 summit, is in China a little bit younger than these center of actions. And the other one, the main one of the main, the other one, because the main one tends to go, is in the western part of the hemisphere, is in Russia. I think that I've already mentioned these two countries. According to NATO, these are the main threats currently. And please, next. So before going to the Q&A, think about something. The warfare is changing. I think that you heard about the Gerasm of Doctrine, is a Russian general. And then there are two Chinese, I do not recall their name. But you know, warfare is a different way to implement the war through legal means that you export in other countries. But think about unrestricted warfare, the Gerasm of Doctrine, for instance. Think about the attempt of assassination of the former Russian spy. I think it was in Birmingham a couple of years ago. So it seems that according to the British authority, this person was, I mean, somebody tried to kill this person and it's devoted to poison these two people. How? I mean, with the criminal means, but who were them? Who conducted the attack? Who was behind them? According to what I know, it was another country. It was an attack on the British soil, but you can't ask for Article 5 in this kind of operation, but you do require a very strong police reaction. So even on this limit, we can do something, a stability policing, and we can do something across the international police cooperation. Thank you for your time. I know that it took too much, and my apologies. Thank you very much, Karol. Really interesting presentation. I have quite a few questions, but I leave the floor to the audience who's been patiently waiting to intervene. So if anyone has a question, please feel free to make it clear on the list.  Don't say affiliation, because for us, affiliation is affiliation to the case. Cultural sensitivity imposes me to redact that sentence. So don't say your affiliation, just tell us who you work for. I was teasing you, Professor. Of course. I'll give it an extra second and see if anyone wants to jump into the discussion, or I'll throw the first question in the meantime, Karol. So let's start with, I guess, the Center of Excellence itself. So I've seen nine participating countries from NATO, but I was wondering what's the relationship with countries that are outside the group of nine that cooperates with the Center of Excellence? If you could give us a bit of an overview on how things are going in that direction. Okay. Provided that we apply the Chatham rule, the NATO scenario on stability policing is multifaceted. Some countries within NATO are very focused on the collective defense pillar, meaning that the main threat for them is Russia. And whatever is behind Russia. Why is they forget that Russia GDP is 2.94, I think of the world GDP. You know, the Italian GDP is 2.34, 35, something similar. So I would say Russia could be seen as a giant with a clay fit unless they, you know, they join the Chinese. However, is it the main challenge, collective defense? From my perspective, but even for most NATO's perspective, it's not the main challenge. Neither is the South flank challenge, you know, Africa, which was really invaded and corrupted and not discovering the will by the Chinese. Even the military sea is another challenge. And it reflects even on stability policing. I mean, we have a pretty large attendance of the center, but some countries are still, this is why we do not have a concept, a concept endorsed by NATO, as I said, NAC and NATO Atlantic Council will approve it by the end of this year. I will say that at least not in that. This is because some countries still see stability policing as a limitation of their sovereignty. They say, oh, what the cops are going to do in my own country if we implement Article 5? I do have my own police. My police, police the country. They forget that if, you know, war turned country, the local police sometimes disappear as the sun, as there is no in front of the sun. So this one of the main issue is speaking bluntly, we faced. And then there are some criticalities, if I may, even in the military police family. As I said, five function, stability policing is a function for the military police. Some military police colleagues think that stability policing is a closed club, so they cannot do it or we don't want them jumping on board. This is not true. As I said, it's a matter of capability and capacity. And according to the doctrine, gender military forces are the first logical choice for stability policing activities. However, military police can do it even because they are equipped. I deliver a briefing a couple of weeks ago about the defense school and guarding the military police. But they are very well trained and they do know how to discharge basic police duty and they do know how to carry out military police duties. So they can carry out, as I said, we are three different kinds of tasks, basic, medium level and high level tasks. I don't want to be derogatory, so by saying that there are high level, but for sure, you know, forensics is an high level, high-end kind of police activity for forensics. If you have to carry out critical site protection, you can deploy even a platoon from the infantry. You do not have to, let me say into bracket, waste a platoon of senior police officers very good at investigation. You will use a young infantry soldier very good at protecting the infrastructure even because if they fall under attack, for sure they will be more effective. Think about, you know, there is a very important monastic which is the channel, which is UNESCO heritage. In the beginning, we had our, the Karabineri Paratroopers deployed to this monastic because it was continuously under attack. As the situation evolved, there was a change of responsibility and then infantry platoon was detached there. They worked on shifts and they keep protecting these enclave within an orthodox enclave within the Muslim community in Kosovo. I don't know whether I... Absolutely, yeah, it's really interesting. We have one question from the audience in the meantime and it goes as follows. What are your recommendations when working with capacity building with police forces, whose values don't necessarily sit comfortably with those of your nation or military and gives the example of Sharia law or police forces with endemic racism and sexism problems or those who look to take matters into their own hands? Great question. In this case, our training is inspired by the best values. So we deliver a very specific training which covers the full spectrum of police activities and values. So usually we train recruits. So we start from a carte blanche, we start from scratch. And our hope is that those who we train will grow up as a serious police officer. And I was very disgusted learning that there are still, in Afghanistan, police officers who receive visits to their office by kids. So unfortunately, if it is only capacity building, you can only teach them how to do it. You cannot enforce any kind of oversight towards them. So we aim at providing them and keeping them with the best values as it happens even at the center of action which works with the US, with the United Nations.  And so this is one of the main reason why big international organization like the United Nations NATO loses their battle of narratives because of these very outrageous mistakes. I'm using a euphemism and it's difficult not to find the right word for this kind of really outrageous misbehavior. So we cannot do much more because we are in sovereign countries. When I get out from Italy, I am not any more a police officer. So unless I have a mandate, a UN mandate which allows me to have an oversight on them. If I have the oversight, I should be far more innocent than them with removing immediately those who misbehave. That's quite interesting if I can tie into the topic because as you've pointed out earlier on, there's sort of a tension between getting ideal solutions versus getting a good enough solution that works on the ground and that helps contributing a little bit towards stabilization and a degree of success rather than focusing on the bigger picture. But there's also a dilemma in terms of what type of activities do you endorse, what type of activities do you support and so on and so forth. I was wondering from your perspective at the center of excellence, I would assume this is part and parcel of what the lessons identified aspects and activities of the center look at. Is this sort of tension between the long-term goals and the short-term needs of stability policing and especially tying into the fact you mentioned earlier on that we tend to be undercut by adversaries like China, like Russia, who tend to be, let's put it this way, a bit more agile with their approach to these security problems than we are. Is this whole part of the lessons identified discussion? Does it reach into the discussion on the concept of stability policing on the doctrine and so on and so forth? And if in the meantime there's other questions, feel free to type them in the chats and I'll read them out loud. Thank you. Yeah. You know, stability policing asset is not, doesn't carry out combat light operation activities nor combat support activities. So, but they do address stability policing assets they address no conventional adversaries. They have hybrid adversaries. By definition, whatever is cross-cutting, whatever doesn't fall within the specific limit of the meaning, whatever is not the normal tradition, the conventional adversaries, is addressed by stability policing. A stability policing unit, by definition, being comprised of police officers, has got even the capability to interact with the Interpol, for instance. So, has got the capability even to interact with the local prosecutor if the mandate allows it. But usually if we are in such a situation, for sure we will have a mandate which will allow the stability policing asset to discharge such tasks and so to interact with local authorities. So, going to your question. There is a criticality. Why we identify this kind of hybrid threats? I mentioned at the beginning, the spoiler threats. If only by identifying the possible spoilers of a mission, we will be able to set a long-term strategy, sorry, a strategy for long-term peace and development. Because otherwise, if we do not address them, most likely this people will be politicians sometimes. I happened to be in Bosnia and I did perform an operation, a crackdown, where we arrested several top brass among the most important Croatian party. They were undermining the Dayton Agreement. So, we pushed the local police to do it, especially, I mean, because they were very high level, but they couldn't lose their credibility.  Because, unfortunately, we were not in a sovereign country. So, we were in a sovereign country. So, we couldn't implement the warrant without the support of the local police. So, we address this legitimate combat, the non-combatant, sorry, by a legal means. So, there is a criticality. Because if you do not have the mandate, if the international community, the local authority do not provide us with the mandate, unfortunately, we cannot move forward. Thank you very much. And, Colonel, we are venturing into time slots for other activities. So, I just wanted to check if there's any other question from the audience. Otherwise, we will wrap it up as we are fairly beyond our time frame. And as you know, there's other activities going on at the same time. So, I'll just give you a few more seconds for anyone to raise any final question. I have only one note, if I may. Please do. Absolutely. The traditional instruments of power, according to Neto, are those which fall within the dime approach. Diplomatic, information, military, economic instruments of power. However, it's time, time came as come to think about to fill the security void which we spoke about. So, this is a two-way to be read void, capability gap for policing to cover not the spectrum of activities, but even needs of the local population. Think about filling something with a fill approach, financial, intelligence, and low enforcement approach. This is something which even the Americans are talking about. So, it's the dime plus the fill approach. So, with the fill, 1L, you fill the gap. Because follow the money, I said, something which the Afghan are not doing. It's the best way to disrupt organized crime and terrorism. Take off the money, seize their asset. There will be empty pocket. Carry out intelligence activity. Feed the intelligence cycle. With a good intelligence cycle, your command in general, the commander of the troops will be able to have actionable intelligence, will be able to have good pieces of information which will allow him to take the best decision and then implement your activity even with low enforcement means.  Otherwise, you will lose the battle narrative that you can take to bring before justice and offload of people. You will not have scores of other wannabe suicide attackers. Because if you kill the father of some kids who are, who is just taking not ammunition, but the food to the terrorists without committing any other crime that just, but just supporting. If you take him before the justice, he will spend five years in prison, but he will be alive. And these kids will not be wannabe suicide attackers. Thank you for your time and for your attention. Colonel, thank you very much. I mean, from an external perspective, it definitely seems like the issue of stability policing is here to stay with the type of crisis we've been facing. As you pointed out, at least since the end of the Cold War and it's basically a running theme throughout all security crises we are facing around the world, if not from a law and order perspective, but also from a mentoring, advisory and cooperation broadly speaking perspective, both within NATO, within the international community, but also obviously with local partners. Everyone, thank you very much for your time. Colonel de Magistras, thank you very much again for the presentation. And I'll see you all around the corridors of the Defense Academy over the next few days. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.


Hey everyone, this is Chris from Grimsby in the UK. You're watching Truckadjosh Vlogs Enjoy Beautiful snowy day out there Chevy beautiful Good day to be at home So I've been at home a few days already waiting for my truck. I brought my truck in Well, let's see. What's today today is Tuesday. I brought my truck in while I went in yesterday Monday morning for a safety and Here in Canada every year you have to get your truck safety They do a very thorough inspection of your entire unit and they find anything that doesn't quite meet the requirements of a safety or Getting close to not meeting it and they replace it so your truck is good to go and safe to operate on the road, right? That's the idea. So they found a bunch of little things that they need to fix They replaced the windshield and that took all day yesterday the windshield and the inspection That might be them messaging me right now. I just sent a message in Letting them know that my truck should be done by the end of day and the people there now See what they said. They said good So I'm not too sure What all exactly need to get done? They went through the whole list of things because they have to get my okay And they called me yesterday end of the day and I was hoping that everything would be done by then already But you know, it's reality. They have to order in the parts They have to install the parts. They have to test the parts before they sign off on it and give it back to me Because if anything is not done, right, they know I'll be back there the next day with a upside-down smile with Not so much of a smile as a frown Should say I'll be I won't be happy and they don't want that obviously they want happy customers Everybody wants happy customers So to keep me happy fix my truck and fix it right the first time and they know this They know this and they I've never had a problem with them. So We'll get the safety done We'll get back on the road and we have to take that trailer down to Cresco, Iowa I'll probably be the Thursday morning. That's what I'm thinking. They wanted me there tomorrow already If I can leave this afternoon I could be there by then but It's all a waiting game. Welcome to trucking. Right. So we're at home today. I got a few projects I need to get done. We've gotten a lot of snow out here Uh Tell in our backyard And a lot of that snow is staying on our roof So I've got a roof rake and I'm gonna be spending the day today Pulling the snow off the roof Get myself all buttoned up It's not too cold out today. That's why I want to get the roof raked today all snow taken off the roof today Because it's only like minus six today. So it's actually a pretty nice day out This season has been really nice actually. We've had a pretty good winter hasn't been that cold at all We're in the deep freeze time of year where it's Usually hovering between minus 20 minus 40 plus wind chill and it's been minus six all year. So Pardon me. Not all year all week. It's been minus six whole week. No, it has not been minus six all year We do have summers here. Canada isn't that cold So some of the Christmas lights have had to come down unfortunately Christmas is over. So we still got these icicles up here that we left up there, but in order for me to scrape the roof Had to take these off See see how much snow is built up there. You can tell where I've right over here I had to take the red and green off Because they were falling off on their own as I was pulling the snow off and We need to get the snow off through one thing. It's heavy like look at all this snow that came off already For one thing. It's heavy putting extra weight on the roof. It's an old house. Don't want that having to deal with any more weight than it has to and also because We have issues We put a new roof on last winter and that should fix the leaking because there was leaking that was coming into our House water coming into our house. We put a new roof on but the reason the water was melting and then it was forming ice Dams and then you know pushing up underneath the shingles was that our heating goes through our attic Our furnace blows the hot air through these like insulated vents that go through the attic into the house and spread it around the house, right? This summer. We're actually moving that to under the house so that the heater The heat will travel under the house instead of in the attic because that heat is warming up our attic on one side of our house it was causing the The snow at the peak to melt and trickle down to the bottom where it freezes and then that continues to happen all winter until you Got this huge dam of ice at the bottom and all the water pooling up behind it And that's it's it's not a good system whoever installed this furnace wasn't thinking about that Maybe they didn't think that would happen, but it did and that was before we moved here So now we got to fix their mistakes It's the story of this house. We're just fixing past mistakes. It's an old house But we love it. This is home and we're gonna keep working at it until It's tip-top by the time, you know, we retire this place will be Immaculate the yard and everything speaking of the yard. I Think I think this might be the last summer using our old lawnmower I think in summer 2021 we may be ready to buy our new tractor It's gonna have a bucket a teller We might even get to we might get a zero point turn lawnmower. I don't know I'm gonna get John Deere, so I got to go talk to them yet, but Little over a year and a half. Maybe fingers crossed That'd be fun. We could finally start landscaping. So we're gonna need our trusty truck To help us out here because I need to get up higher. This is the roof right here. It extends to 25 feet And that's the snow we're trying to get off You see how that side the top there has no snow on it and that side did I Scraped that off yesterday already That side Is what's causing the problem? So it works like this You can push it over the snow and then it's curved in a way that when you pull it back The snow comes with it and it digs into the snow. I Don't know if you can see it or not and see if I can balance myself on the bucket here for you without Breaking my neck. There you go. See there's still ice being built up in the valley there And that's not good Because look at the top there's no snow where ice up there, right? And the furnace comes up out of our furnace room right there and then goes through the attic that way now It goes through insulated tubes and stuff, right?  It's a pretty much on a It doesn't have a basement, right? So it's just on a slab or on stilt or whatever So when it the weather gets cold or when you take weight off the roof it shifts loudly during the night To scare you at the perfect time So in the middle of the night you'll hear this And there's just like you know the frame foundation just shifting I don't know not the foundation but the house shifts and when it gets really really cold that makes things contract as well Right, and then when it warms up it expands and as the house sort of breathes and moves with the environment And when you take the weight off the roof it's freaky. So last night I Swear there was someone trying to get into the house So I was like ready to fight off someone already is freaking out because I'm where are they? I can hear them out there, but it turned out. It was just the house Kreegan Yeah, that would have made an interesting vlog though. Hey So I'm in jail Trying to break into my house. I Wish we had Different laws like in the US But that's a Topic for a different time topic for a different time So as you can tell I'm kind of bored here. I'm sitting here farming. Oh I'm a farmer. I'm not sure if you knew this or not Let's see here. Hey Hey, why is this frozen? What why is my game frozen? Hey Excuse me Well, that is not very nice. I was gonna show you my game now.  What's going on here? Well, that's weird hasn't done that all weekend. So yeah, I'll show you in a bit what I'm doing here But I'm a farmer My spare time not just a trucker. I Just built the big shed and it's gonna show you Man, I hope my game saved. I hope my game saved It's supposed to automatically save every 15 minutes, but control alt delete Nothing, okay, we're gonna have to do a hard reboot Alrighty then I Am the boss me. I will tell you when to turn off and when to stop working. It's gonna reset it It's on board. I'm bored. I Wanted to be on the road right now already. I've got all of my stuff ready to go here All I need is the truck You coming with me on the trip Chevy But all my stuff ready to go here Anyways, so I gotta I'm gonna call them back in 15 minutes because I wanted to be on the road this morning Like I was telling you and I have to leave this afternoon or I'm going to be a little late Not delivering the load I'm delivering can be delivered whenever but they don't receive on Fridays And today is Wednesday, and it takes the whole day to get there. So if I leave this afternoon I'll be there tomorrow afternoon on Thursday and on Friday I have to go pick up a load of glass and That glass has a couple of very shiny nickels attached to it And I don't want to have to give it up to someone else because those are my nickels Mine And if I take too long to get down there They're gonna give it to somebody else and then I'll just be left with pennies And we don't even have pennies anymore in Canada, so I don't even know what I get So let's hope that they have good news for me soon Apparently of course My check engine light was not on right it wasn't on but sometimes for some reason You know it's popped on before and then turns off like half an hour later, and I've had it checked out before apparently It's a sensor And it doesn't happen very often doesn't have very often fixed a couple of times But that the check engine light wasn't on right it brought it there of Course when they bring it into the shop for the safety the check engine light comes on right now They got to run all their diagnostics figure out what's going on figure out if it's the same sensor or if it's a different one So that's why the truck is in the shop today because the check engine like decided to come on exactly when Exactly when I took it into the shop I guess it's better that it goes on before it goes in there so they can fix it, right? but it's just I need to get going chasing chasing some money here and Sitting here farming as fun as farming is it doesn't actually make me any real money I mean I have a bunch of money and actually I'm quite quite a bit in debt So no, I don't have money in my farming life either Even in the fake world. I have no money. Oh Let's start this thing up again. I wanted to show you my farm. I was very proud of it My wife thinks I'm a dork. That's okay. I'm going to reboot this whole game and everything and hope that it saved it Whatever if it didn't that's fine Yeah, so hurry up and wait. It's the name of the game. Hurry up and wait. I can't even do proper circles I don't have enough room here. Watch out, Chevy. Watch out, Chevy. Here I come. Watch out.  Okay, so this is what we do while we wait for wait for our truck There's nothing left to do Chevy Say hi to the good people I'm bored We could play I have a couple of toys you could play with Or we could scratch our ears. That's always fun Chevy, where's your toy? Well, it's really itchy. You want some help with that? Want some help with that? Where's your toy? Can you bring me a toy? You bring me a toy. Where's the toy? Go get it.  Can you find me a toy?   Bring it here Get a toy. No, you got to bring it to me.  Well, at least you made me laugh. Did you hear that? So I guess I will talk to you again when I know more about What's going on? Hopefully I'll have good news for you I'm gonna give him a call in 10 minutes. I Got a hold of the gods at the shop They didn't have the news I was hoping for but it's not the worst news The truck will be done by end of day today, but it will be done at the end of the day today So I called the customer where we're going to be delivering You guys mind if I hang out here with you for a bit and stare at this big black box on the wall cool, so I Called them and I called the customer down in Iowa and let them know or ask them What they're receiving hours were and they don't receive after 2 30 p.m. Tomorrow and Usually they're not open to receive the next day on Friday, which would mean that the load could only be delivered Monday So I put on my best trucker Josh Convincing you voice and I said Would you please please unload me on Friday? I'm paraphrasing. That's not the words exactly used But anyways asked them nicely if I you know could unload Friday if I were to get there Friday And they were very nice But he said you know what we have guys here first thing in the morning They're just not here very long, but if you could be here first thing 7 30 a.m. We can get you unloaded Friday mmm Good so everything should work out and I shouldn't be too rushed So I have about three hours. It's noon right now. They said I should be done by three So I'm gonna go well my sister's coming here to pick me up because my wife is at work right now and I Need to go get my pick I can't bring my pick up there because then I'll bring my pick up there bring the semi home to get loaded up And stuff and then my pick up will be over there And even if I bring all my stuff to load up the truck there and then leave from there My pick up will still be over there with no way to get back here. You know what I'm saying?  He's gonna come with me He's just you know napping before the big trip right over there Sound asleep and then we'll come back here We'll get loaded up the wife will probably be back home from work around 430. I might be out of here by then If not, then I'll kiss her goodbye and it'll be off to the races And we'll get our trailer and book it down to Iowa. We'll be down there tomorrow evening I am scared to see what my bill is gonna be my truck has been in the shop for three days now And probably what what's the going rate now like a hundred and fifteen bucks an hour Plus all the parts so I had a I'll go through it all with you tomorrow in tomorrow's video of what all got replaced and what got fixed I know there was a a wheel bearing that had to be replaced There was a brake pad that needed to be replaced and a few others little things which turned into big things and a Lot of time spent in the shop. Oh, so I don't know how much they're gonna bill me for It'll be a few thousand dollars. We'll just say that So, yeah, just hanging out here with my boys Everybody's having naps. I'm just staring at that black box hasn't told me anything yet, but Speak enough my other smaller black box is over here and I got my game running. I can show you my farm now You guys excited. This is my farm That's Jose. He's my worker Not to be confused with Jorge. He's my other worker He's a weeding the field for me right now. It's nighttime. It's hard to see Maybe I'll show you this during the day and get the sun to come up See, this is my Combine y'all have to show you this during the day one second. You see it That's the glare how fast the clouds are moving. I've sped up time Trying to get the sun to come up Over there so I can show you guys the farm. I am a dork aren't I so this is my new Telehandler right here It picks up all the pig food and puts it back in the pig pen because they're messy creatures This is my new shed that I got built I'll have to show you this another time There's my pigs over there pigs Like I said, I got Jose over here weeding a field for me. This is actually not my field But I'm weeding it for a friend and I didn't have time to do it. So I hired Jose here to do it for me He's doing a good job. It's good worker Oh now the sun's coming up. You see that sunrise beautiful. So now you can see my stuff more Let's let's slow down the clock here so that we're not racing through time here so much. Okay, real time. There we go Okay, so yeah, I bought this telehandler just recently to help out around the farm And then inside the shop here. You've got my JCB I bought this tractor because it's the fastest and I can get around the map the fastest with it My combine back there just bought this new air seeder over here This part holds all my sugar beets that I feed to the pigs Just store that in there These are my pigs my large pig pen Oh, they need some hay Well, I got another smaller pig pen down down the hill over here Right down here. You gotta go around Gotta do some landscaping so that's not such a big drop there yet. And here's the smaller pig pen That's that On a couple fields and stuff.  It's addicting Spend a lot of my free time whatever free time I do have farming Learned a lot about the farming process all you actual farmers out there are just laughing away at me I know but I'm a farmer. I Don't care. I'm a farmer. I have a whole farm here. Look at this.  It passes the time it takes a lot of time So, uh, I guess we'll continue this video tomorrow. Sorry this video has not had much content It continues to snow and I just cleaned the roof of snow. So that means when I come back in a week or so Or a couple of days actually I'll just be going down to Minnesota. I will come in back when I come back I'm gonna have to clear off the roof again Fantastic, you can see all my footprints in the snow there I'm clearing the roof off It was quite a bit of work. It took a good four and a half hours four and a half five hours So is life in canada So thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for Keeping me company on this boring day while we wait for the truck tomorrow's vlog will start with us going to get the truck or As we arrive at the truck and I'll show you what all got done to it and what took three days to accomplish So I'll see you then. Thanks for hanging out. I will see you later


So we here the IFA here in Sinhaisar and who are you? I'm Michael, hi nice to meet you. And what is this? This is our new Momentum wireless headphone. It's an over ear with perfect sound and really good noise cancelling as well. So perfect sound? Yes. Do you want to try? Even if it's wireless? Yes it is. Well we say that it is the best sounding wireless product at the moment on the market. And if you like you can hear it for yourself. Can you hold this? Alright let me try to hear this. Yeah sounds pretty good. It's totally blocking the sound around. I can only hear this. I can't even hear myself. Cool. So what's the quality on the noise cancelling? Well we have different motors that you can try actually. We have very high motors on noise cancelling. For example if you're on the train. Was it high what I just had now? Yes it is. So that was very high though. I couldn't hear anything? Yes. And then we also have, you can put it on a little bit lower. And then we also have transparent hearing. So if you actually want to hear the outside noises. You can put it on this mode as well. So wherever you are we have basically setting for it. Nice. And then there's this one also. It's just different color right? Yes. So and you have a way to fold it like this? Yes so we have this technology that we don't have an on or off button.  And if you unfold it it turns on again. Nice. And then also a feature that I really like is the smart port. So if you put the headphone on it's going to start playing. But when I put it off again it automatically stops music. There's a sensor in there? Yes. We have a sensor in the right side here. So it recognizes whether it's on your ear or not. And that way you never lose a beat. And is there a price? Yes. In euros it is 399 euros. Available now? No. Yes. Well actually this sandy white is going to be available I think from November. So it's a little bit later. But the black version is available already.


the other day I did share a post outdoors post hiking video about skincare and what I do to take care of my skin. We just got back well not today but we just wrapped up last weekend a beautiful kayaking hiking adventure in between Nevada and Arizona and so this time of the year between spring and summer if you're spending a lot of time outdoors especially in the desert where the weather is very dry and very harsh on your skin so my skin is not having the best time this time it's actually my lips they are extremely dry and so I did share over on Instagram if anyone will be interested in seeing a natural mask that I'm going to make right here just to you know restore my skin and just hydrate my my lips so this is going to be natural very minimal ingredients it's a great way to take care of your lips in particular after you're being exposed to to the sun for a long amount of time so the first thing that I'm gonna do I am going to make a quick exfoliating solution not solution but anyway so um I have some sugar over here over here it's like a bit of sugar and then to it I'm going to add some coconut oil version coconut oil so with the coconut oil that is going to do a good job of the hydrating and then sugar because it's a little bit rough it's going to help exfoliate it's gonna mix the whole thing together it's easier to use my hands there we go probably have to add a little bit more coconut oil so that it's easy for me to apply hope our family here on trekking pals and friends on trekking pals don't think that this is going to become a skincare youtube channel it's not going to be the case it's just that with summer right now um your skin will be exposed to to the heat and it's very important to take care of your skin so that you can enjoy the outdoors with the least amount of damage okay so with that let's see so that's the that's what I made right here so this I can use for a couple of days and then I'm just gonna go ahead and apply it I have these little containers that I use for any face masks or lip masks like now that I make at home so I'm just gonna put it in the container like so and then put it in the fridge what does going to be exfoliates you probably can't see very well but I did share a little story over on instagram and you can see that my lips are really suffering even though I was applying chopstick the whole time it wasn't enough the sun was cooking so this is good just gonna leave it here for a little bit to help hydrate and then close this one I don't have much time so I'm trying to rush through this so anyway um so that's uh my hands are oily so that's good for now there it is and then the next one is going to be a mask that I'm going to to apply after I clean whatever I have on right now and then I can even spend the night wearing the same so for this one I've got my little container and then I'm gonna use some aloe vera I talked the other day about the importance of aloe vera to heal your skin and even help with the burn skin and so on so you know just aloe vera gel I've got two of them I've got this one that I got from Walgreens and then this one probably from fries or something I don't remember I bought plenty of them during the lockdown if you guys remember so I'm going to add some of the gel right here okay and then to that to the gel I'm gonna add coconut oil again version coconut oil it's also unrefined so this is olive oil that I can use for masks like this and even for cooking so the gel aloe vera gel and then coconut oil and then I'm going to add just a little bit of turmeric powder what turmeric does it helps brightens your skin so I think I need that for my lips at least so to to the mixture right here just a little bit of turmeric that should be enough and then I'm just gonna mix everything right here until it feels homogeneous to me I probably put more olive oil than aloe vera gel so I'm gonna add in more of the gel for watching I didn't expect anyone to be on this live because of this time of the day but if I don't do it right now I won't find the time so there it is so there is this is the mixture this is what it looks like obviously this color right here because the gel that I used is green but if I were to use a clear one this is clear see it's clear then the color of the mixture would have been white well it would have been white until I add turmeric obviously but it wouldn't look kind of yellowish you know I mean yeah so that looks pretty good for me you can see right here that's the mixture right so I'm just gonna this is obviously not enough time to exfoliate and such but let's just pretend this is done just gonna clean that it's nice and sweet it's got some sugar so there we go get that cleaned and then just from the mixture that I made I'm going to apply some of it just a little bit feels really good it really does so that is going to hydrate repair and brighten that I can leave on my lips and then before I go to sleep I will also apply and we are grooving so there we go so this is what I made to exfoliate coconut oil version coconut oil unrefined with sugar just to exfoliate your lips and then this is the dehydrating mask so that is aloe vera gel with turmeric and coconut oil as well there we go so I'm gonna store them in in the fridge and I can use them throughout this week and hopefully that's going to help repair the damage on my lips I hope that you guys find this to be useful if you do give this video a thumbs up consider subscribing my name's Habiba this is trekking pals and I will see you very soon on a new adventure bye