Tale of Two Cities; J9s in Ulm and Stuttgart

What do the two Baden-Wuerttemberg cities of Stuttgart and Ulm have in common?  Both boast world-class universities? Yes, Stuttgart does host two universities and some 19,000 students, while Ulm has 7,500 university students.  Both sit astride major waterways? The Danube does flow past Ulm en route to the Black Sea, while the Neckar passes Stuttgart, flowing into the Rhine and later the North Sea.  The relatively short distance between them (45 miles) is to be shortened?  Yes, the controversial “Stuttgart 21 Project” will more speedily link both cities via high speed rail.

But the other connection between these two cities, though less divisive, is they both now have “J9” Staff Directorates at their main military headquarters.  In Stuttgart the U.S. European Command’s J9-Interagency Partnering Directorate was established in November 2009, while the multinational Response Forces Operations Command – Ulm, just established a “J9” within the last year.

One of our meetings with the Ulm "J9s"

Recently members of the EUCOM J9 -- LTC Figueroa-Seary, Col Roberts, and I -- visited Ulm and both J9s agreed to establish an informal partnership which is meant to share best practices, information and lessons learned – smart defense.

The J9s are joint, similar in size (12 in Ulm and 32 at EUCOM), both call Baden-Wuerttemberg home, and each is charged with enhancing Civil-Military cooperation and promoting interagency collaboration.  

Together they also endure a kind of “Rodney Dangerfield” treatment from their fellow staff directorates. Given their small sizes, the non-traditional partners they work with (academia, interagency, business sector), and the general conservative reluctance of military commands to embrace change (i.e. “new” directorates) they can claim that they ‘don’t get no respect’. Both agreed that this is motivation to them to work doubly hard to prove their value to their leaders and their commands.

We agreed to cooperate together and to use the very short distance between them as a good reason to periodically visit each other’s headquarters. The Ulm J9 team is due to visit Stuttgart next. 

Stuttgart is renowned as the birthplace of the automobile and Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein.  Now Stuttgart and Ulm are the birthplaces of another bright idea… a J9-to-J9 partnership!

Mike Anderson
Acting Director, J9-Interagency Partnership