Learning International Negotiation

In the spring of 2012 - PEACE TALKS RADIO attended a training exercise put on by the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC. It's called SENSE - which stands for Strategic, Economic Needs and Security exercise. Forty to sixty people participate by taking on roles of business leaders, govt officials, security officers, non-governmental representatives and the like and, in three days, they work in a fictional world Akrona- a struggling state emerging from years of war and still vulnerable to violence. ( as some of the paraticipants have said, not unlike Afghanistan in the early 2000's.) A sophisticated computer program sets up the parameters of resources and circumstances. When one player makes one move in the game, it effects others. Parties have to negotiate to bring economies and quality of life into balance. Suzanne Kryder talked with some of the players to learn how it works and what they hope to learn and apply to their regular lives when they return from the exercise. She also has a conversation with Omar Samad, former Afghani Ambassador to both Canada and France.