Christoph Harig

1. PURPOSE Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) has an image problem from the last decades of expeditionary warfare. While many officers still equate CIMIC with " winning hearts and minds " by digging wells or opening schools, CIMIC is a key enabler for contemporary and future military operations. As military capacities cannot meet all the demands inherent in military operations, an effective cooperation with Non-Military Actors is vital. This not only concerns the use of technology, but also the synchronization with non-military actors in deterrence and resilience. Taking a closer look at CIMIC in Ukraine, this teaching note underlines the importance of CIMIC for the Danish Defence and in the education of officers. The Ukraine Observations presented here are relevant for all levels of military operations. At FAK, the findings are particularly relevant for the Grundmodul Militaere Operationer, but broader questions on how to cooperate with Non-Military Actors are also highly relevant across the entire MMS as well as the Flex Modul NATOPS. 2. RESUMÉ As NATO and its member states are rediscovering the relevance of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) for deterrence and the conduct of military operations, this short paper on Ukraine Observations will highlight some initial reflections on lessons from Ukraine. It will first briefly present CIMIC as a concept and its relevance for the contemporary military operations. Then it will discuss two main lessons from Ukraine: the lack of preparation for the wide array of CIMIC tasks that had to be performed after Russia's invasion, and the cooperation with commercial actors. Both require different approaches which need to be considered in the education of military officers. This will underline the necessity to update the still widely held misconception of CIMIC as a tool that would be mostly relevant for counterinsurgency operations.