Ellen Pirro, a senior lecturer at Iowa State, took a group of seven Iowa State students to a two-day conference in Omaha hosted by U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) to talk about deterrence strategies for national governments.

“Iowa State students learn a tremendous amount,” Pirro said.

The first day involves a table-top exercise where the students are randomly assigned to a group within NATO and are given a hypothetical situation to discuss with the other students.

“They give you a packet with your group’s objectives,” Jacob Wilson, a political sciences graduate student, said. “Then they basically set you free to go negotiate for an hour.”

During the exercises, only students are allowed to participate. The faculty and members of the US military who help put the conference on, sit outside of the room and watch what happens.

“The generals are writing like mad,” Pirro said. “They get lots of good ideas this way.”

The situations, while fictional, always mirror real-life events. This year’s situation involved Russia invading Lithuania and how should NATO respond to it.

“I was assigned to the Baltic States so basically it was my state that was invaded,” Wilson said. “The main object of our group was to implement Article 5…which means that the other NATO states should come to our defense.”

During the second day, there are various activities, involving five keynote speeches and panels throughout the day. All the speakers had various specialties allowing for a range of topics to be talked about.

“They had graduate students, law students, even undergraduates, presenting research that they were doing on topics of international security,” Wilson said. “It was really fun.”