Current Programs

DSF’s current programs focus on advancing peacebuilding, artificial intelligence policy, and strengthening congressional engagement. Click Each Program for more information.

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DSF’s premiere program is the Peace Game. DSF has partnered with the U.S. Institute of Peace and the University of Maryland ICONS Project to continue advancing the quality and capacity of the exercise.

​What is the Peace Game? 

​The Peace Game brings together representatives from various U.S. departments and agencies that comprise a country team and challenges them to solve a complex crisis simulation. The simulation scenario centers around Ikhaya, a fictional country created for this initiative that has the national characteristics resembling various African nations. Each Peace Game runs as a two-day exercise in which participants play the country team and are challenged to develop a response to a variety of complications. The participants’ responses must consider all the U.S. government assets available to help mitigate the crises. The exercise also includes participation from senior retired officers who play on the control team, which simulates Washington leadership responses to the country team and dictates the pace at which new plot lines are released to the country team. Overall, the Peace Game allows government officials to confront these complications in a simulation before they are faced with similar challenges at post, ensuring they are better prepared to craft effective solutions. 

Why Peace Games? ​

The United States consistently practices winning wars. For many years, the uniformed services have conducted wargames as an integral part of training their personnel. Unfortunately, there has historically been no equivalent practice of winning the peace. Thus, the Peace Game focuses on building the prevention capabilities of our civilian and military officers working abroad who are facing various, sometimes competing, crises. The exercise also seeks to build the cross-departmental relationships necessary to facilitate long-term resolutions. Overall, U.S. government officials across the various departments and agencies that execute foreign policy and maintain national security rarely train together, hindering proper de-escalation and stabilization of challenges abroad. The Peace Game seeks to fill this detrimental gap.

Specifically, Peace Game participants gain:

  • Exposure to the stress and uncertainty of an actual crisis;

  • Practice prioritizing the various demands on officers’ time during a crisis;

  • Insight into the requirements for planning and executing an all-of-Embassy response to address a rising threat;

  • Better understanding of the interplay of various Embassy sections and agencies in action, with emphasis on the critical value of interagency collaboration; 

  • Familiarization to the role of Washington in a crisis; the State Department, NSC, Pentagon, USAID, etc.;

  • An opportunity to form a better network with interagency colleagues; and 

  • Mentorship by retired senior foreign policy leaders who participate in the exercise.  

History 

DSF and ICONS launched the first Peace Game in October 2021 and ran a second exercise in April 2022. In September 2022, June 2023, and April 2024 they ran exercises in partnership with USIP. Representatives from the State Department Bureaus of African Affairs, Conflict and Stabilization Operations, Consular Affairs, and Diplomatic Security, USAID, the intelligence community, and the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade all participated on the country teams. Past control teams have included former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, Ambassadors (ret.) Dawn Liberi, Thomas Pickering, and Makila James, Major General (ret.) Mark Hicks, former CIA Deputy Director of National Clandestine Service, Charlie Gilbert, and former Senior USAID Mission Directors Jim Bever and Karen Freeman, among others.

State Department Participant

“Bringing together interagency representatives to play country team roles was exceptionally educational for someone with little or no experience working with a country team. The added benefit of having true experts to participate and conduct mentoring made this a very positive experience.”

USAID Participant

“All of the USAID players praised the Game as a ‘great learning opportunity’, for exposing them to the USG Interagency at work at an Embassy, for exposing the GS officers to the nuances of a US diplomat’s work politically and bureaucratically in a foreign country and what ‘a day in the life of an FSO—and their families’ looks like.”

Intelligence Community Participant

“The exercise offered the opportunity to both witness and practice interagency collaboration. The simulation was very realistic, especially with respect to Africa and the types of likely challenges in the region.”

DSF partnered with Meridian International Center to create an A.I. Policy & Diplomacy Seminar Series. The inaugural Seminar Series launched in March 2024. Participants included State Department officers, congressional staff, and private sector experts. Overall, the goal of the series is to allow participants to glean a deeper understanding of artificial intelligence and its interplay with foreign policy directly from scientists, academics, and industry experts. The series also fosters desired engagement and connections across sectors of American diplomats, policymakers, and the private sector.

More specifically, the series topics include:

Session 1 – Understanding A.I. Essentials

Session 2 –  Geopolitical Impact of A.I. Today

Session 3 – Exploring the Future of A.I. in Foreign Policy

Session 4 –  A.I. Governance and Multisector Cooperation

The foundation recognizes engaging with the Hill is critical for ensuring continued governmental adoption of new, innovative program ideas and for heightening congressional attention towards the training and education needs of the State Department. DSF’s Hill engagement to date has led to tangible results, with both the House and Senate introducing bills (H.R. 8012, S. 3492) seeking to improve State Department education and training. DSF also helped secure the inclusion of a section addressing Foreign Affairs Training (Sec. 9205) in the FY2023 NDAA. The foundation’s reputation on the Hill as a trusted voice on training and education issues was further exemplified by a Senate subcommittee’s request that DSF President David Miller testify on State Department education and training in a November 2021 hearing.

Past Programs

DSF’s past programs have addressed political-military training, commercial diplomacy, senior officer development, and State-Congressional relations. Click Each Program for more information.

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DSF worked with the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) to adapt the larger Peace Game exercise into a smaller, more targeted exercise for the Political-Military Capstone course. Specifically, DSF and ICONS worked with the Pol-Mil staff at FSI and the Pol-Mil Bureau to take the Peace Game and adapt the scenario to more specifically challenge Pol-Mil officers to use the “Pol-Mil toolkit” they spent the week learning about. The resulting exercise runs for half a day during the Pol-Mil capstone course at FSI. This adaptation provided proof of concept that the Peace Game is a flexible model that can meet the needs of different audiences.

DSF worked in partnership with the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business to create a Commercial Diplomacy Initiative. DSF and SMU hosted two Roundtables on Commercial Diplomacy in Dallas. The first roundtable, held in September 2021, convened a group of senior corporate leaders from the Dallas business community to discuss how the U.S. government uses commercial diplomacy to advance their interests as well as areas they wish they received better government support. The second roundtable, held in February 2022, convened senior corporate leaders and senior U.S. government officials from various departments and agencies. In this roundtable, the government attendees presented the plethora of resources they offer corporations. 

In December 2022, DSF and SMU convened U.S. government officials and business leaders for a “Five Days in Dallas” program aimed at jump-starting creative collaboration between the American private sector and government. During the weeklong conference, USG officials engaged with panelists and speakers across a variety of topics related to American business initiatives and visited four companies to better understand how American companies “do business.”

DSF supported FSI’s efforts to expand its senior training curriculum by funding a Visiting Fellow to conduct a needs assessment from Fall 2019 through Fall 2020. The fellow selected was Nancy Powell, a former Ambassador and Director General of the Foreign Service. The assessment revealed significant gaps in training and professional development opportunities for senior officers, supporting the DSF premise that sufficient training for civilians in the foreign policy community is lacking. The needs assessment ultimately paved the way for the implementation of more advanced and rigorous course offerings.

The State Department and Congress have a history of tension and frequent ineffective communication. To address this issue, the Foundation partnered with the Council on Foreign Relations to conduct a pilot seminar series for mid-level Foreign and Civil Service officers and congressional staffers. The objective of the series was twofold:

(1) provide education on the roles of Congress and the State Department in foreign policy, particularly where the two roles intersect, and

(2) offer State and Hill employees the opportunity to form relationships and foster working-level relationships.

The first series was launched in February 2020. The series included four seminar sessions for thirteen State and thirteen Hill employees. Topics covered include oversight, nominations, treaties and international agreements, responding to crises, and budget. At each session, a group of three former senior State and Hill leaders spoke to a specific topic in the context of their own vast experiences. While the series was placed on hold due to Covid-19 constraints, DSF is currently working with Meridian International Center to revamp the program, this time with an A.I. focus. 

DSF began a Fellowship Program with FSI in August 2019. Through the Program, the Foundation retained and gifted retired ambassadors to FSI to help update curriculum and augment instruction in revised Area Studies courses. This Area Studies Fellowship Program was a remarkably successful. The June 2020 enrollments in Area Studies courses saw an 180% increase over the previous year, including an increase in Civil Service enrollments of 114%. This program is the perfect example of DSF’s commitment to support pilot programs that, if successful, can then be included in the FSI budget and become a sustained program. FSI requested funding for this program in their FY22 budget to make permanent the revised curriculum developed with assistance from DSF.

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