35th Annual SIMULEX is Largest in Fletcher History
On October 30-31, over 200 students and guests gathered in the Cabot Intercultural Center for SIMULEX 2009, The Fletcher School's annual crisis management simulation. This year marked the 35th anniversary of the program, which is run by Fletcher’s International Security Studies Program, with the largest SIMULEX participation ever.
For the two-day exercise, participants assumed the roles of national policy makers and made critical decisions in a realistic international scenario. As usual, participants included students from the “Crisis Management and Complex Emergencies” seminar taught by Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., the Shelby Cullom Davis, Professor of International Security Studies. In designing this year’s scenario, Professor Pfaltzgraff explained, “My goal was to project an all too probable situation… and in doing so, I wanted to try to bring into play the very issues that we try to deal with in the crisis management seminar.” These issues include elements of uncertainty and imperfect information, slow or indirect communication, and confronting irregular or non-state actors.
This year’s scenario began in 2010 with Iran having recently acquired nuclear weapons. As the conflict scenario escalated, Israel launched preemptive missile strikes against Iran, and terrorists took advantage of the crisis to attack Western states. The SIMULEX participants were divided into seven teams—Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the US, EU/NATO, and a terrorist team including Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda—and attempted to resolve the crisis based on their nation’s or group’s interests.
Joseph Costa, a research assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School who participated on the Saudi Arabia team, thought that Professor Pfaltzgraff met his objectives. “[The exercise] helped illuminate the constraints and challenges that face decision makers in moments of crisis,” he said.
A difficult problem that participants faced initially was how to organize their teams, which varied in size from 12 to 50 people. Each team was assigned a leader and deputy, and had to establish a decision-making process that best addressed its needs. Syria team leader Stewart Kelly, F11, acknowledged that his team was not satisfied with its progress on the first day, but after discussing the problem, “we came in [on the second day] and hit the ground running.”
Another challenge was how to integrate visiting military personnel, who provided valuable real-world crisis management and technical expertise, with Fletcher students. Captain Ashraf Abusamak USAF, who participated on the Saudi Arabia team, observed that SIMULEX “really brought together people from different world views.” Team members proposed many good options, but narrowing them down to a specific course of action was difficult. Professor Pfaltzgraff noted that learning to deal with this inevitable frustration is an important component of the exercise.
In the debrief at the end of the simulation, Professor Pfaltzgraff acknowledged the outstanding support provided by outside wargaming experts, Boston-area military fellows, and technical staff who acted as “Controls” to approve teams’ actions, provide crisis updates, and ensure that the simulation reflected real-world constraints. A warm show of appreciation also went to U.S. Air Force National Defense Fellows Lt. Col. Dan Tulley and Lt. Col. Rob Bortree, who put an extraordinary amount of time and effort into organizing the event and ensuring that the team leaders and participants had the best possible experience.
Thanks to the dedication and support of these faculty, affiliates and friends, SIMULEX has been a successful component of the Fletcher experience for 35 years. This year’s version demonstrated that it will continue to be an important tool for training the next generation of world leaders.
Linnea Duvall, F10