Synergy Across the Curriculum: Simulating the Institution of Postwar Iraqi Government

ABSTRACT

This article describes an undergraduate simulation that formulates Iraqi regimes following the removal of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. This exercise reinforces student comprehension and awareness for a range of legal and political topics—including group decision making, international law, diplomacy, and human rights—by actively engaging the students in policy formulation and group to group negotiations. In addition to presenting individual course concepts, this activity presents the advantages of multidisciplinary approaches by integrating related disciplines at the United States Air Force Academy. Contemporary social problems, foreign or domestic, require multifaceted solutions presented by particular specializations. Concerning the question of postwar Iraqi justice, political science students use their class expertise to design political institutions and legal studies. Students design the main legal apparatus as students from these respective disciplines then join together to execute the simulation. The four key components of active learning approaches—educational objectives, design parameters, procedures, and assessment and debriefing—are employed providing a full understanding of the goals, set-up, process, and advantages to synergizing across the curriculum for the issue of post-war Iraqi justice. The simulation has been successfully implemented three times with United States Air Force Academy cadets with feedback indicating positive results and providing inputs that modified the initial construct of the simulation.

Keywords:

• simulation
• Iraq reconstruction
• war crimes tribunal
• diplomacy

Acknowledgments

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States Government. The order of the authors is alphabetical and indicates only that. We would like to thank Erica Richards Austin, John Hertel, Tom Mowle and the reviewers and editors for their valuable insight and the cadets at the United States Air Force Academy who made this article possible.

Notes

*Results include 5 upper level students who participated in initial simulation, not reflected below.

*One student did not answer Q 1, 6, 7.

Total: 26.

Total: 12.

Total: 12.

1. Students have not necessarily taken both classes.

2. As a rule, random selection is best for role assignment. However, we took liberties to assign roles that would challenge the existing beliefs of certain individuals. We gain valuable information in daily instruction that seems to be wasteful to not use.

3. A list of reading material is available from the authors.

4. The survey results from five independent study students who participated in the simulation are included in the overall survey data but are not broken out separately in Appendix C since they only played a role in the initial simulation role and functioned more as mentors for the more junior students in the participating classes. These records are on file with the authors.