This past week, a team of students and alumni from The Institute of World Politics participated in the South China Sea iteration of the US Army War College-created International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise. This marks the second year that an IWP team has taken part in this program with the Center for Strategic and International Affairs and the Army War College.
Acting as the delegation from India, the IWP team worked to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the escalating conflict in the South China Sea.
Over the course of the two-day event, the team worked toward a diplomatic solution using skillsets taught at the Institute. The students and alumni worked to incorporate public diplomacy and political warfare, intelligence, and military strategy into their diplomatic efforts, demonstrating a firm grasp on the concept of integrated strategy taught in all IWP classes.
The team was organized by student Katrina Klaus and the delegation was led by alumni Sam Gross.
“It was a great weekend,” IWP student Jaime Loizzo stated. “Our team consisted of students and alumni from all different specializations, making it hard at times to come to a consensus. However, it gave us a wide range of insight to all of the different options we had as a delegation. Although the exercise focused on traditional diplomacy methods, our team used a variety of forms of statecraft to work toward a solution.”
The week prior to the event, Ms. Loizzo spent a week at the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA to participate in the International Fellows Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise, which brings together 90 international army officers for the purpose of practicing diplomatic skills.
Acting as the Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations, Ms. Loizzo led negotiation sessions to broker a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh. She was chosen to join the exercise based on her performance during her participation in the 2014 in CISIS-US Army War College International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise.
Photos courtesy of CSIS.