UW Faces on Current Events: Task Force on Terrorism

Terrorism. Sept. 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda. Iran. Iraq. Afghanistan. At the dawn of the 21st century, the ramifications of these and other international issues dominate the headlines. Many may feel powerless to do anything about these burning topics, but in one class offered through the UW's Jackson School of International Studies, a small group of students have taken on the challenge.

1The White House's National Security Council page: [HTML_REMOVED]www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/[HTML_REMOVED]

2 The current National Security Strategy: [HTML_REMOVED]www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html[HTML_REMOVED]

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Since winter quarter of 1982, the Jackson School has offered a senior capstone course for their majors: the "task force," an intense, student-led research class that forces students to apply theoretical concepts to real-world issues.

"The task force has given students a very different learning experience from all their other courses," said Joel Migdal, professor of international studies. "For many, it has been the most memorable course they have taken at the UW."

In the SIS 495 task force class, U.S. National Security Policy: War on Terror, students role-play as members of the National Security Council (NSC) as they write a hypothetical National Security Strategy (NSS) policy for the president.

The real-life NSC is chaired by the president and is attended by the vice president; the secretaries of state, treasury and defense; the director of national security and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The NSC serves as the primary foreign policy decision-making forum of the executive branch.

In this particular SIS 495 section, the UW's diplomat-in-residence, Ambassador Ron Woods, plays the role of the president and evaluates the 20 - 30-page policy report the class writes.

Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Peter Soverel serves as the class facilitator, speaking up only to clarify issues or provide context. Soverel, a Vietnam veteran, graduate of the United States Naval Academy and an alum of the UW's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, is more than qualified for his role, having served as the chief of staff for the special counsel to President Ronald Reagan on Iran-Contra (1986-1987), special assistant to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown (1977) and professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College (1975-1977).

"Much of [the] task force is ... like real life," said Soverel, who has been leading task forces at the UW since 1987. "The National Security staff has a limited amount of time to come to terms with a very complicated issue, so they've got to divide up their task."

After hammering out their own individual papers on key aspects of the War on Terror, the students work together on their large position paper, ultimately reaching an agreement on what will function as the national strategy for how the United States plans on dealing with terrorism throughout that upcoming year. The authors of these papers become the "in-house experts" for the task force as they write their collective policy paper. Although the individual members may not agree with each other on the interpretations of the issues at hand, they still have to work as a team to reach a consensus.

"Just as in real life, you don't get to present the president with a bunch of dissenting papers," Soverel said. "There'll be a consensus document that forces the students to work together, but the first thing they have to do is decide what the world's supposed to look like when they're successful. As in real life, this is absolutely the hardest thing to do."

Although it is a five-credit course, Soverel said the efforts of the students amount more to a 20-credit class. Students meet regularly outside of class time to engage in oft-times passionate debates, and there is no room for vague terms of fuzzy notions.

"Typically, the task force [HTML_REMOVED] just like real strategy [HTML_REMOVED] tends to, at first blush, have a lot of words like 'must,' 'should,' 'promote,' 'encourage,' [and] so on and so forth, and those really aren't adequate words," Soverel said. "You can't just say you're going to 'promote democracy' in Iraq; you have to outline what are the elements that are essential to securing a democratic future in Iraq."

At the end of the quarter, the class members will present their research at a dinner attended by their peers and Jackson School faculty. The policy paper is then published and made available through the UW Libraries for research purposes.

The class has to be reactive to world events and flexible when it comes to dealing with divergent opinions.

"Each member of the task force has to be open to and respectful of the analytical abilities of their classmates, just the way it is in real life ... and that is a very different dynamic than what typically occurs in an academic setting," Soverel said.

Junior Kimber Schlegelmilch, one of the students in the course, agrees.

"It isn't designed so that you can learn or take from the instructor. It is focused on getting the students to contribute, to educate the others on how your research has yielded a particular policy," she said. "You learn to educate yourself in this class, and when you have a problem, you go to your classmates; you talk it out with them."

This give-and-take process is both a positive and a negative, students say.

"The hardest part of this class is coming to a concise agreement regarding overall policy with other task force members," senior Peter Arendt said. "However, it has allowed us to understand the big picture of security issues better."

The students were particularly appreciative of the "real world" aspects of the course.

"Everybody has good ideas and unique perspectives on issues, and finding ways to incorporate those into a clear and concise strategy is a valuable tool to have ... and task force gives us a real chance to deal with a real policy situation and come up with something that affects us in the real world," senior Christopher Toomey said. "The toughest aspect is having to sift through all the information, arguments and perspectives to come to some kind of answer, and then having to defend that answer. Particularly since these issues like Iraq, Iran, Israel, etc., are so complicated and protracted, there is no silver bullet, but we have to develop solutions that can get things done because the status quo just isn't working."

Senior Jonathan Noda, a member of the U.S. Navy's (ROTC) detachment, appreciates the perspective the class brings.

"In my mind, it is important for military officers, and really all Americans, to be well educated about current events, and although this is much more in depth than most will go, this class provides a great basis for understanding international security affairs," he said.

From Soverel's vantage point as the class facilitator, the development of this informed, global perspective on the United States' conflict with terrorism is the key to beginning to understand how the world works.

"The war in Iraq is not going well [HTML_REMOVED] anyone can pick up the paper and see that," he said. "But how did we get there? What are we going to do about it? In task force it changes the dynamics, because in most academic courses, frequently it's [a] sort of critical analysis, [a] 'what went wrong?' But you're not responsible for devising a strategy for dealing with [it].

"Most of the students have never had to think in those kinds of terms," Soverel said. "To me, watching that process in all the task forces I've done has been a very, very rewarding experience because every time I've been extremely impressed with the maturity of their discussion and the sensibilities of the recommendations [and] the policies that they propose."

Reach reporter Will Mari at features@thedaily.washington.edu.