Your Ideas, Your NATO: 2012 Policy Workshop Competition - Europe & Transatlantic Relations

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January 27, 2012

We are excited to announce our newest policy workshop! We want you to tell us your ideas for promoting NATO values, building partnerships, and engaging members in the Smart Defense initiative. Winners receive a cash prize and a trip to Berlin to present their ideas to policymakers!

Atlantic-community.org is inviting students and young professionals to contribute their policy ideas on key issues of the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago in our new policy workshop, “Your Ideas, Your NATO”. We want to hear ideas from young people in all NATO Member and Partner countries on how the Alliance can build a sense of community, reach out to new partners in North Africa and the Middle East, and encourage participation in NATO’s Smart Defense initiative. Tell us what you’re looking for from “your NATO” and have a chance to discuss your ideas directly with decision makers, including US Ambassador Philip Murphy and a NATO representative, during the May 21 summit!

Our competition has two components: an op-ed article, where you propose your ideas in one of the three topic areas, and an online debate among the shortlisted entries, where you will work with your peers from throughout NATO Member and Partner countries to jointly develop a memorandum for policy makers. This means you’ll be actively involved in working with people from other countries to debate, compromise, and arrive at joint recommendations. As part of the next generation of decision makers, you’ll be asked to both defend your own position and arrive at a workable consensus, just like the real policy-making process.

We're open to new ideas and new perspectives. You don't have to be an expert on NATO or international security; you just need to have some good foreign policy ideas and be able to support your arguments. And when you register with atlantic-community.org, we'll help you get started with background resources, opportunities to ask questions of NATO officials, and other useful information to help you get started!

Click here to download the competition description (4 pages, pdf, 148KB)