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December 12, 2005

Jebsen Center Holds Crisis Management Program in Tbilisi, Georgia

Staff of the Jebsen Center for Counter Terrorism Studies at The Fletcher School recently conducted a crisis management program for officials from the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Held in the country’s capital of Tbilisi from November 28 to December 1, 2005, the Jebsen Center brought together a team of eight security experts to train participants on terrorism, counterterrorism measures, nuclear preparedness, communications, and overall crisis management.

“The Jebsen Center was honored to have the opportunity to put the team together,” said Brigadier General (Ret.) Russell Howard, the center’s director. “I think we learned as much as the participants did, and the feedback we received was really good.”

General Howard, who founded the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and was instrumental in the creation of the new Jebsen Center, led the Georgian Crisis Management Program. As an expert on terrorism and counterterrorism strategies and author of several bestselling textbooks on the subject, he opened the program with an overview of modern terrorist threats and the effect of 9/11 on global counterterrorism efforts.

The team of experts assembled by the center also included a former Scotland Yard official, an expert from the U.S. Department of Energy, two representatives from the Combating Terrorism Center, and three Fletcher graduate students. The 20 participants were mid-to-high-level members of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, an agency that is charged with the country’s crisis management and counterterrorism operations.

“We brought a really good and experienced team of professionals there, and they had a comparable group on their side,” said Mike Hartnett, a Jebsen Center graduate research assistant and second-year MALD student. “It was a really interesting exchange between the two groups.”

The four-day program, which was a part of Georgia’s process of developing capabilities across counterterrorism and crisis management operations, included an overview of terrorist threats, inter-agency cooperation and nuclear preparedness, as well as case studies and strategies for crisis communications and management.

Hartnett, who spent six years in the Marine Corps and nine years in private-sector telecommunications, led the specialized crisis communications module, drawing upon the interdisciplinary training and the unique Georgian environment.

“As Georgia develops its communications, it will be a combination of business drivers, regulatory rules, and approaches to encourage development,” Hartnett said. “What will crisis managers actually require from the communications structure, and how do they understand what those requirements are and explain those to the communications providers? Our discussions helped to flesh out and inform what the communications strategy needs to look like.”

The program ended with an extended crisis simulation authored and led by Kristina Jeffers, a second-year MALD student who had prior work experience in Georgia.

“We broke the participants into groups, had them look at the situation and develop a plan as an official in the Ministry of the Interior would have to,” said Colleen Traughber, a Jebsen Center graduate research assistant and second-year MALD student who also facilitated the program.

She added, "This is the first crisis management program the Center has done, and we hope to be able to do more of this in the future."

The Jebsen Center for Counter Terrorism Studies was established at The Fletcher School in September 2005. Its mission is to increase the understanding and competency of counterterrorism professionals. To accomplish this mission, the Jebsen Center funds a robust research and analysis program, hosts conferences and a visiting fellows program, and conducts outreach activities. Predicting, preventing and preempting terrorist activity will be important early research topics at the Center, as will the role of women and business in the campaign against terrorism.

By Stacy Reiter Neal, MALD '07

Posted by jessica at December 12, 2005 08:57 AM