Joint Research Project: Civil-Military Relations for a Better World

In June 2007, ALLIES conducted its inaugural Joint Research Project (JRP) in Amman, Jordan with four students from Tufts University and three cadets from West Point. Over the course of the spring semester and during a two-week trip to Jordan, the students and cadets researched Jordanian counterterrorism strategy. In June 2008, six Tufts undergraduate students, one graduate student from Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, two cadets, and two midshipmen are spending approximately four weeks in Jordan, building on the work of the first JRP. This Second Annual JRP represents a crucial transition. First, it leverages and expand an already established network of Jordanian contacts from 2007. Second, it enhances last year’s post-research dissemination so that the JRP delegation’s findings are shared more widely and have greater resonance in the growing inter-institution ALLIES community, and it will set a logistical and institutional framework for the 2009 JRP trip, projected to take place in Asia (most likely in Japan). This year, the ALLIES delegation will explore Jordanian politics and society from multiple perspectives, meeting with government officials, NGOs, academics, journalists, UN agencies, and think-tanks via formal and informal interviews, organizational site visits, and dialogue sessions. The delegation will expand on the 2007 JRP by making new contacts, in particular with Jordanian university students, and by exploring collaboration on a civil-military dialogue concept with the United Nations University’s International Leadership Institute in Amman. IGL INSPIRE Fellow Gregg Nakano and Lt. John Hoy from the US Naval Academy will accompany the group.