The USAES sought to be more assertive, multi-dimensional and flexible by adopting some type of strategic philosophy. This allowed the organisation to apply its core training competencies to adjacent, similar missions, or to apply new technologies to its existing customers Ð soldiers. Addressing the problem and issues in this manner led the USAES to adopt a strategy to pursue the development of a new organisation with a dynamic, two-fold purpose.

In 1996 the USAES formed the Countermine Training Support Center (CTSC). Its initial mission was to serve as a training and information centre for countermine, demolitions and mine and UXO awareness. However, based on strategic analysis conducted by the CTSC it was determined that humanitarian demining was an extremely viable opportunity and a niche that could be developed and exploited. Based on this analysis and subsequent staff proposals, the CTSC expanded to form the United States Department of Defense (DoD) Humanitarian Demining Training Center (HDTC). The synergy of these centres is obvious and very effective. The USAES has organised a forward-thinking, outside-the-box organisation that has the vision of being the premier and holistic landmine training facility. Many allied militaries now are looking at the CTSC/HDTC as a benchmark of landmine training.

The expansion from the established USAES role in training combat countermine tasks to determining a training role in humanitarian demining operations (HDO) was a diversification strategy. McAslan (1996) demonstrates in Figure 1 the similarities and differences between combat countermine and HDO when he attempted to apply ISO9000 systems to mine-clearance standards. But expansion from combat countermine to humanitarian demining involves similar services and similar customers, making it a mission diversification.

The US DoD describes humanitarian demining as the complete removal of all landmines contained in a mined area within a geopolitical boundary. Demining is conducted after the armed conflict has been resolved (United States Army John F Kennedy Special Warfare Training Center and School, 1996). Countermining typically is defined as a combat operation with a focus on bypassing mined areas if possible. When a bypass is not feasible, the countermine operation will clear a hastily breached path through the enemy minefield. These breached paths will serve to pass the forces through the mined area and allow them to continue with their larger mission (United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1998). Demining is carried out to significantly higher clearance standards than countermining because of the different time and risk considerations.

Expanding the paradigm from the current state to include the desired, normative state was difficult because of the unfamiliarity with the normative state, humanitarian demining. Currently the US military services have no doctrinal mission for the normative state (United States Army John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, 1996).

Personnel qualifications and training are targeted towards the combat countermine operation where safe passages are made through minefields, not humanitarian demining where the minefield is removed in its entirety. There are variations in the speed, conditions and reliability standards used in combat countermine and humanitarian demining. But there are complementary aspects of the two operations and this is what makes it a viable diversification strategy.

Table I introduces the current state combat countermine performance parameters and the normative state humanitarian demining operation (HDO) performance parameters. The need to expand the engineer paradigm had become increasingly apparent since 1995. Since this time the army has become acutely aware of the threat that landmines pose to its soldiers. Also the commander in chief was providing directives that the army get more involved with the humanitarian plight caused by landmines.

Mine and UXO awareness
In a manner similar to training all soldiers on nuclear, biological and chemical warfare defence, the CTSC/HDTC is focused on integrating mine and UXO awareness training as a basic soldier knowledge. This ensures that new soldiers arrive in a unit with a basic understanding of mine emplacement indicators, self- extraction techniques, and how to report mine and minefield locations (United States Army Engineer School, 1997).

However, like all military training this is a multi-echelon effort. Because the current mine and UXO threat exists throughout the battlespace, it is imperative that mission planners take mines and UXO into consideration when developing various courses of action. As units are notified of a deployment to a mine-infested area, the CTSC/ HDTC is there to provide detailed mine and UXO training for the specific theatre to which the unit will be deploying.

Countermine training
The CTSC provides countermine sustainment training to engineers from all military services at Fort Leonard Wood. The training consists of lessons on threat mines, mine and minefield marking, booby traps, mine detection, probing, UXO recognition and identification, route sweep operations, area clearance operations, conventional demolitions and modern demolitions initiators.

The CTSC balances the training between classroom instruction and field training consisting of hands-on practical exercises. Engineer and explosive ordnance disposal units request this training as part of preparations for a specific deployment. In addition to training, the CTSC serves as a one-stop-shop for information on all countermine issues and activities. Although CTSC is not the leading agency on all countermine matters, its mission is to maintain up-to-date information on all countermine doctrine, combat developments, lessons learned and Combat Training Center issues.

Humanitarian demining training
The HDTC provides demining training to military forces assigned to the humanitarian demining training mission. The special operation forces (SOF) teams trained at Fort Leonard Wood deploy to different theatres around the world to train the indigenous population how to demine. The goal is for the HDTC students to become trainers of the indigenous population in accordance with US policy.

This course covers demining surveys, threat assessments, risk assessments, minefield analysis, sustainment analysis, demining procedures, demining documentation, demining supervision, quality-assurance methods, demolitions and minefield hand-off. The course is based on internationally accepted demining norms set by United Nations standards and encompasses the critical aspects of hazard area clearance. Just like countermine training, the HDTC serves as a one-stop-shop for soldiers deploying on a humanitarian demining mission.

In summary, the USAES has been successful in becoming more multi-dimensional and flexible by adopting a diversification strategy. This has allowed the organisation to apply its core training competencies to adjacent, similar missions or to apply new technologies to soldiers. This strategy was to form a one-stop- shop for landmine training and the resultant organisation is the CTSC/HDTC that has a dynamic, two-fold purpose. The mission of the new organisation is to provide premier training on mine and UXO awareness, countermine training and humanitarian demining training. This mission was an engineer paradigm expansion from a traditional combat countermine role to include a humanitarian demining role. Such a forward-thinking organisation has served as an international benchmark for individual, staff and unit training. What makes the organisation unique is its focus. It has one over-riding purpose, to educate the military on landmine defence and removal.