On September 13, 2014, the Center for Civic and Global Leadership partnered with Tri-Arach Consulting to produce an extraordinary day-long foreign policy exercise for the International Relations Fellows and the Global Health Fellows.  Organized primarily by Tri-Arach President Taylor Beattie (LTC, USA SF [Ret.]), the “DIME Seminar” brought together an extraordinary collection of foreign policy experts to share their expertise and experiences with the Fellows.  Collectively our guests represented every “DIME” element of “national power”: diplomacy/development, information/intelligence, military, and economics:

• Representing “diplomacy” was retired Foreign Service Officer Ms. Susan Zelle.  During her distinguished career Zelle had served as, among other roles, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to Gambia and Deputy Chief of Mission to Burundi.
• Representing “development” was Secretary J. Edward Fox.  Fox served in numerous roles within the U.S. Government during his career, including Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security and Assistant Administrator for Legislative and Public Affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
• Representing “intelligence” was former clandestine Central Intelligence Agency officer Ms. Lindsay Moran.  Ms. Moran is author of Blowing My Cover: My Life as a Spy.
• Representing “military” was David Maxwell (COL, USA SF [Ret.]).  Maxwell is currently the Associate Director for the Center for Security Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
• Representing “economics” was Mr. Brian Kurtz.  A pioneer in the field of “expeditionary economics,” Kurtz established a $300 million USAID Banking and Business Development Program for Bosnia in order to aid its rebuilding effort following the Yugoslav Civil War.  Kurtz also served, among other roles, as a USAID consultant in Afghanistan.

After a morning spent learning from these distinguished panelists, IR Fellows and Global Health Fellows were divided into three embassy “country teams” and assigned individual roles within each team.  They were then presented with a realistic, real-world scenario for which they had to prepare a response proposal to forwarded back up to “State Main.”  The day concluded with each group presenting its solution to the problem to the panel, which then offered insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each proposed solution.

“Deputy Chief of Mission” Thomas Ferguson (IRF ’16) briefs the panel on his country team’s proposed solution to the problem they had been presented with.

It was truly an extraordinary day!