On a national level, ALLIES hosts several events throughout the year, with responsibilities shared between the Tufts, West Point, Naval, and Air Force chapters. Inter-chapter collaboration is an essential part of ALLIES in all these events, through Joint Education, Joint Research, and Joint Training between cadets and students.
Joint Education
Civil-Military Relations Conference (CMRC)
- Annual multi-day conference at Tufts University, exploring a functional aspect of civil-military relations. Recent topics have included:
- Security, Society, and the New Climate Regime (2018)
- Global Arms Trade and Foreign Intervention (2017)
- War in a Changing World (2016)
- Civil-Military Relations and Disaster Response (2014)
- Student-directed, bringing over thirty outside students from four other universities to Tufts
- Includes keynote speakers, panels, breakout sessions, and an extended simulation.
- Occurs over Veteran’s Day weekend, cooperating with Tufts Advocates for ROTC and Tufts ROTC students in their Memorial Service.
- Extended research project in a foreign country each summer.
- Civilian and military students investigate civil-military topics of shared interest in an integrated civ-mil setting.
- Past locations have included: Poland in the summer of 2015, South Africa in 2016 and Japan in 2017. Prior to that, JRP’s were led to Rwanda, Turkey, Indonesia and Poland.
The Summer 2018 JRP took participants from Tufts, West Point, and the Naval Academy to Tallinn where they conducted international security research in conjunction with Estonian defense officials.
- Annual multi-day conference examining various aspects of civil-military relations, rotates between the chapters.
- Keynote speakers, panels, breakout sessions, simulation
- In 2015, the topic was “Humanitarian Aid/Disaster Relief in the Event of a Catastrophic Typhoon and Tsunami in the Pacific” and was held at the United States Military Academy, West Point.
- Past topics have included:
- “The Changing Strategic Environment of the Middle East and North Africa and Evolving Civil-Military Relations” held at Tufts University, February 26-27, 2014. Keynote: Kathleen Hicks
- “A New Way Forward: Realigning America’s Identity and Strategy” held at Boston University, January 25-27, 2013. Keynotes: the Honorable Michèle Flournoy and Capt. Wayne Porter, USN
- “Picking Up the Pieces: Post Conflict Civil-Military Relations” held at Tufts University, December 2-4, 2011. Keynote: Col. William Ostlund, USA, and ALLIES INSPIRE Fellow.
Kinetic Simulations
- Interdisciplinary simulation planned by Tufts undergraduate and graduate students
- Conflict resolution simulation which exposes participants to decision-making difficulties during conflict
- Previous themes have included: water conflict, narcoterrorism, and national sovereignty
- This year’s scenario will be held April 5-6 and will involve religious extremism and military regimes.