The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
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IMTD CHANGES SOLDIER’S STRATEGY IN WAR
The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy teaches the first conflict resolution course offered by the United States Military.
In January of 2007, Ambassador McDonald was approached by the U.S. military to instruct a class at the National Defense University that would focus on resolving conflict through non-coercive means. The unique integration of a military institution and a nonviolent NGO is in keeping with NDU’s mandate to “prepare military and civilian leaders from the US and other countries to evaluate national and international security challenges through multidisciplinary educational and research programs, professional exchanges and outreach.” NDU was established in 1972 in order to consolidate the nation’s security and defense intellectual resources under one umbrella. NDU now has five military universities operating under its auspice. However, IMTD’s class (NDU-6505) is the first in the university’s history to focus on peaceful alternatives to violence.
In relation to IMTD’s mission, the class is track five in the multi-track system by providing peacemaking through education and training.
The goal of the class is to show students methods other than direct-armed military intervention to resolving conflicts. “If I knew in Iraq what I know now, I would have done things totally different,” states a former student and returning Marine colonel from Iraq. For that reason, the class is uniquely comprised of decision making military officials (Captains, Colonels, Brigadier-Generals) and civilians from the State Department capable of implementing new strategies for war.
For 12 weeks students learn about conflict, negotiation and peaceful resolution from Ambassador McDonald and a variety of esteemed guest lecturers:
- Dr. Brian Polkinghorn from Salisbury University
- Dr. Mohammud Abu-Nimber from American University
- Dr. Eileen Borris, clinical psychologist and IMTD’s Director of Training
- Major General William Nash, Council on Foreign Relations
- Dr. Lynn Kahn
The multi-dimensional curriculum covers new issues of peacemaking, trauma, reconciliation, forgiveness, peacebuilding and shaping democracy among others. The course’s curriculum is modeled after graduate-level conflict resolution courses taught in universities and traditional military training from West Point.
The course is distinctively interactive by utilizing both the field experiences of conflict resolution practitioners and military commanders in teaching the course. Lecturers engage in intense dialogue with students about their own pass successes and failures in conflict resolution and combat.
Practically, the class guides students in how to translate their learning experiences into future strategies in the field. The spring 2010 class will be the seventh class since its inception in 2007. The course is tentatively offered through IMTD as an elective every fall and spring semester at NDU. However, according to one military official and former student, “the class should be a required course rather than an elective.”
Source: “National Defense University.” Online. History, 26 February 2010. Web site.
Prepared by Ashley Bubna, SIS, IPCR, AU, February 2010