Students Simulate 2006 NATO Summit

From February 22-25, 2006, more than 170 students from sixteen U.S. and Canadian schools simulated the workings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the annual National Model NATO. Sponsored by Howard and Kent State Universities, the simulation celebrated its 21st year with one of the most successful conferences yet.

Upon their arrival in Washington, each delegation was briefed by ambassadors and other representatives of the country it represented and, in many cases, took home pins, flags, and more national paraphernalia. Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, and Brigadier General Antonello A. Vitale , Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, officially opened the conference by discussing NATO’s operational transformation and its changing role in the world. Carmen K. Iezzi, Education Coordinator for the Atlantic Council, also provided remarks on “NATO and the Successor Generations”

Students represented the members of the Alliance on the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the Political Affairs Committee, Defense Planning Committee, the Nuclear Planning Group, and a special “Working Group on NATO Operations Post-2008,” which included select Partnership for Peace nations. Each committee was assigned a variety of issues, including NATO-EU relations, NATO's role in Afghanistan and Iraq, and defense against terrorist or small-state nuclear threats for which they had to prepare draft language to be used in a final communiqué from the NAC. While the NAC proved unable to reach consensus on the communiqué, students grappled with the same issues which will face the Alliance at the November 2006 NATO summit in Riga.

During the course of the conference, participants also had to deal with a crisis exercise which pretended terrorists had struck a chemical plant in the Netherlands, thereby endangering citizens in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Representatives of the Atlantic Council, National Defense University, and other universities created the crisis scenario to reflect the political and operational challenges facing the Alliance and its members. At the end of the final session, the NAC was able to pass a response to the crisis and deployed the model NATO Response Force to support national civil emergency response teams.

Converse College in Spartanburg, SC presided over each of the Committees and the Working Group as members of the International Staff, including Holly Jordan ’06 who represented the Secretary General.

More information on the conference, as well as information on how to get involved next year, is available on the National Model NATO Website. For a look at the methods behind the conference, please consult “Learning by Being: A Look at Model NATO in the United States” by Carmen K. Iezzi.