Initiative in Times of Crises: The First Model NATO in GU-Q

“Initiative is to success, what a lighted match is to a candle.” - OA Battista

During a time in which actions are hardest to hide, due to the technological eyes of the world, it is often I ask myself the opposite question of, “Why aren’t you doing anything?” The volatile political landscape of the world has caused many to doubt international organizations and their ability to perform actual change. Even then, if these organizations do put in the effort towards a goal, it is often generally perceived as out-of-touch and missing the point— intensifying doubts alongside a sense of mistrust. In hindsight of a recent interview with Ranneme Abu-Hajar, a transfer student from Pasadena City College, currently at Georgetown University in Qatar, I realized that this question at its core is about initiative. In a world frozen by doubt and mistrust, how can anyone muster the courage to move? In light of this question, I interviewed Ranneme to get her insights on the significance of international organizations in GU-Q. 

She recently spearheaded the first Model NATO event in GU-Q, which was held back on Feb. 6 and 7. This was achieved in collaboration with NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT), which is “NATO’s Strategic Warfare Development Command.” 

When asked about what led to her managing this event, she answers by explaining her experiences outside of the Georgetown campus. “Over the summer, I was in a U.S. State department program called the ‘Charles B. Rangel’ scholar program, a diplomatic preparation program for aspiring diplomats of color.” During that program, she had the opportunity of joining the 2024 NATO Public Forum which sparked her interest in security, specifically in terms of representation for partner nations. She comments, “Obviously it's the North Atlantic—so it's going to be composed of a white majority—but NATO is not just member nations across North America and Europe, but NATO also includes partner nations from the Middle East, Central Asia and other parts of the world. But I didn’t see many participants or conference topics representing them.” 

She mentions that students she met throughout the event  shared their experiences of doing Model NATO. “They told me about how they did Model NATO at their universities— I was like, ‘Hey that's interesting,’ how these students are exposed to how security discussions are navigated. I think it's important for our students, who come from partner nations, to get that exposure as well.” Ranneme also expressed her concern with the lack of security studies conducted in GU-Q. “We have Prof. Rory Miller, he’s great, but it’s all on him. We have no hands-on diplomatic experience. We have Model UN, we have the Crisis Simulations by Dean Schiwietz, Diplomat for a Day and that's it.” In her opinion, as a School of Foreign Service, GU-Q should be investing in more hands-on diplomatic preparation initiatives to ensure that GU-Q students have some level of exposure and understanding of applying international political theories to current modern day crises. Ranneme believes this way, GU-Q can live up to its goal of creating international leaders. 

As an organizer, Ranneme noted that the event achieved this exposure due to the presence of NATO themselves in the crisis simulations. “NATO, themselves, were coming. So it wasn’t just me navigating the crisis simulations. We had Dr. Vlasta, who was a former  Croatian military general and former NATO military commander as well as LTC Jaime Benitez, also a former military commander and Luisa Fruetel, NATO Education and Outreach Officer. So these were actually security personnel bringing their decades of security experience.” She argued that this exposure allowed students to apply knowledge as opposed to sitting in lectures. 

On the other hand, when asked about the challenges she faced during the preparation for the event, she stated the following. “I talked with Jibin Koshy, and because it was a completely new thing, there was no budget, no coordinator, nothing. So it was an exciting opportunity for me to pilot this initiative” She followed by mentioning that she had to schedule a stakeholder meeting, with department heads, which addressed all the concerns such as budgeting, logistics, and other things. “Almost everyone—a lot of the department heads here—loved the idea.” Ranneme emphasized how crucial  it was to link the event back to how GU-Q, as an institution, can benefit. “When I presented [the idea], I always brought it back to how this benefits all their departments: Career Services, CIRS, Academic affairs… So during that meeting, I spoke to each department and how they can benefit from this collaboration. If students are interested in hosting events at GU-Q,  they should  center on relevance to both the student body and institution, as well as a concrete plan to bring their event to life.” 

However, she expressed that, “...there was no push back from the student body. Which I’m gonna be honest, I was expecting due to international crises around the world today.” She touched upon the general distrust the GU-Q student body has on international organizations due to recent events. “I feel like Georgetown students aren’t really open minded to western institutions which I understand due to western nations colonial legacies. I thought of the NATO Crisis Simulation as a way for students to gain insight into how such security discussions are conducted from security professionals themselves to make an informed opinion.”

On that note, when asked about the significance of this event in the Middle East context, she expressed that, alongside NATO, she wanted to make this relevant for GU-Q students. “These simulations are usually composed of 32 member nations, but for this simulation, they decided to incorporate the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative—which is Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. This was the first time NATO ACT was incorporating partner nations into simulations.” She stressed that her goal was to not only provide GU-Q students the ability to be exposed to the functions of NATO, but to also use this opportunity to amplify representation of the MENA region in these discussions, even if it was only the GCC. “Our whole simulation was focused on Oil security in the Strait of Hormuz. It was about Hybrid Threats and Maritime Security in the Strait of Hormuz, but specifically centered on questions about establishing joint military operations with the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and so on.” 

On the topic of how students can benefit from participating in Model NATO, Ranneme stresses the uniqueness of Model NATO procedure which is pivotal for diplomatic learning. “NATO is different from other international organizations, in a sense that they all need to come to a unanimous decision. It’s not really a ‘Yes, No, Abstain’ format, they need to compromise to all agree on a final resolution” Interestingly, she notes that, “At first, students treated it more like Model UN…everyone was debating for their point, but that was only at the beginning. As time went on, students had to learn to compromise to address their concerns and needs, and of other nations in the room.” She emphasized that this unique debating format allowed students to, “debate, but you can’t just debate for you. At the end of the day NATO is an alliance.” Ranneme believed that this was a unique way for students to see how diplomacy works in real life. 

Unfortunately, Ranneme points out that, “NATO only offers internships from member nations.” However, she also mentions other student opportunities provided by NATO. “There’s a NATO student challenge, which is open to member and partner nations…you submit an essay and the winners get to attend the NATO public forum.” She notes, “That was kind of a challenge in terms of planning, because I wanted it to appeal to career opportunities as well. It's quite hard when a majority of the students don’t belong to member nations. But you’re still developing really crucial research and negotiation skills that you can use in your own countries—not only in NATO.” 

Going back to the topic of global crises, many students have voiced their concerns regarding international organizations. Ranneme emphasized, “in no way was I trying to force feed NATO’s objectives. It was purely just a way for the students to learn how a security organization like NATO functions.” Especially in the current events in Gaza, Sudan, and other parts of the world, she shared that, “This is speaking to more of my experience as a Palestinian-American. As an American citizen, I have the ability to work in  the U.S. State Department, and that's very controversial. I’m not defending the U.S. Foreign Policy, but  there’s a villainization of people going to these fields—and I understand where these viewpoints come from as a result of the U.S.’ past and current foreign policies.” However she proposes that, “It doesn’t mean that people trying to do work within are ill-intentioned as well. One of my mentors was a GU professor, she's also a Palestinian-American U.S. diplomat, and I’ve also talked to other US ambassadors, and they don’t approve of what’s going on in Gaza…I think it is important to for people to understand that it is much more difficult to carry out change without support from people from within.” She ends this note by stating, “...if I do want to work in the U.S. congress, or the U.S. State Department, it's important that I, as a Palestinian-American, am there in these discussions; if not me then who?” 

In a world frozen by doubt and mistrust, how can anyone muster the courage to move? Through my interview with Ranneme Abu-Hajar, I feel as if an answer to this question is forming piece by piece. For her, initiative was in the form of conducting the first Model NATO event in Georgetown-Qatar. This allowed students to expose themselves with NATO personnel, but more importantly, with the security processes that occur day to day to address urgent crises. The success of Model NATO can be attributed to the initiative of students, in this case Ranneme Abu-Hajar, to expose an experience of growth in times of crises.

Photos by: The NATO Team