Complete Course Listings, Evaluations, and Syllabi can be found here. Strategy and Policy
Course Number: 660.740
Provides an overview of strategic studies, which deals with the preparation and use of military power to serve the ends of politics. Discusses the development of warfare from the mid-19th century through the present, and addresses major theoretical concepts, including those found in Carl von Clausewitz’s On War. In the fall semester, enrollment preference is given to Strategic Studies concentrators and to MIPP students focusing in this field. Required of all students in Strategic Studies. Limited to 40 students.
Offered Both Semesters
Instructor: Thomas Keaney
Thucydides and Machiavelli
Course Number: 660.780
The problem is the imperial democracy or republic, the cases are Athens and Rome, the texts are Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War, Polybius’s Histories, Tacitus’s Agricola, Montesquieu’s The Grandeur of the Romans and Their Decline and Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy. Emphasizing close reading and historical analysis, examines whether and to what extent these classic works retain their value as analyses of strategic behavior. Limited to 20 students - Strategy & Policy required
Instructor: Jakub Grygiel
The American Military
Course Number: 660.750
Examines the evolution of American military’s organization and planning for warfare as developed in the course of the Twentieth Century. Explores the interaction of military organizations and the making of policy and military strategy during war and peace, the interaction of technology and doctrine, and the patterns of civil-military relations. The focus is on how the American military operates today and those factors that continue to influence doctrine and decision making.
Instructor: Thomas Keaney
Course Number: 660.776
Asks, "Why bother with quantitative analysis?" and answers, "Because in policy debates some numbers beat no numbers every time." Explores the connection between quantitative analysis and policy formulation. Covers many types of analysis, not only the classic kinds -- cost-effectoveness and combat models -- but also investment, cost and manpower analyses. Althought geared towards students going into national security positions, the methods and approaches apply more broadly. Aims to make students not quantitative analysts, but intelligent consumers of analytic products. Strategy & Policy required
Instructor: Mark Cancian
A History of Irregular Warfare
Course Number: 660.787
By studying the history of asymmetric conflict from the Napoleonic Wars through the “global war on terrorism,” examines when it is possible to win wars against guerrillas, insurgents and terrorists. Discusses both how and why irregular warfare developed during this time period and why it became so common in the 20th century. Then looks at responses to irregular warfare and the development, successes and failures of counterinsurgency methods. Limited to 40 students.
Instructor: Mary Habeck
Decision Making During Wartime
Course Number: 660.749
During any war policy-makers, political leaders and military commanders make decisions to intervene, escalate, innovate and, in some cases, to end the war without total victory. This course will critically examine the problems of decision-making in wartime by comparing and contrasting the factors that influenced decisions made during both the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq. Factors such as bureaucratic obstacles, groupthink, imperfect intelligence, the role of history, and much more will all be examined. By the end of the course, the student will understand the critical factors that affect policy policy-making during time of war and be able to use the Vietnam and Iraq examples to better analyze, assess and draw conclusions about current events.
Instructor: Mary Habeck
Seminar in Crisis Simulation (one semester credit)
Course Number: 660.816
Explores the literature and concepts surrounding simulated crisis enactments, leading to a voluntary schoolwide exercise in the spring. Seeks to develop scenarios and use them to uncover the dynamics of national decision-making and policy response. This is a one-semester credit course, although it meets across both semesters. Enrollment limited to 10 students, who design and manage the simulation in early March. An additional 25–30 non-seminar students from all fields of concentration may participate in the spring crisis-simulation exercise. (Also listed under the Conflict Management Program.)
Instructor: Andrew Hoehn
The following courses are also cross-listed with Strategic Studies: 640.751 - IR/Conflict Management 755.712 - Asia Regional Strategy and Policy
Course Number: 660.740
Provides an overview of strategic studies, which deals with the preparation and use of military power to serve the ends of politics. Discusses the development of warfare from the mid-19th century through the present, and addresses major theoretical concepts, including those found in Carl von Clausewitz’s On War. In the fall semester, enrollment preference is given to Strategic Studies concentrators and to MIPP students focusing in this field. Required of all students in Strategic Studies. Limited to 40 students.
Offered Both Semesters
Instructor: Thomas Keaney American Defense Policy
Course Number: 660.701
This inter-disciplinary course draws on different intellectual traditions to inform the study of defense issues and current policy choices. The first phase of the course focuses on three structural constants around which most conversations about defense policy transpire. These three structural constraints, American foreign policy, American political institutions, and military power, will be explored in relation to past, present and future policies of American defense. The second phase of the course analyzes contemporary issues such as the role intelligence in policymaking, relations with the media, outsourcing defense roles to contractors, and organizational adaptation to a changing strategic environment.
Instructor: Thomas Griffith American Intelligence: Its Role, Practice and Impact
Course Number: 660.779
Offers an introduction and overview of the discipline of intelligence. Structured around three themes: the policy context in which U.S. intelligence services perform their missions, the professional techniques of intelligence collection and analysis and the enduring issues, such as counterintelligence, that have characterized the field for centuries. Features a combination of lectures, discussions, field trips and practical exercises designed to give students experience in intelligence writing and briefing. No prerequisites, but Strategy and Policy is recommended. Limited to 25 students.
Instructor: John McLaughlin Anthropology for Strategists
Course Number: 660.890
What relevance does anthropology have for the formulation and execution of national security strategy? This course acquaints students who have a background in strategic studies with anthropological concepts and modes of thinking. Helps students map a social system, identify how power is apportioned within a society, interpret the system of communicative symbols that transmit meaning within a culture, appreciate how and why adversaries fight, identify how cultural forms express and transmit meaning and evaluate social change. Uses a series of case studies to examine how culture affects warfare and the effect of warfare on culture. Limited to 20 students.
Instructor: Brady Cusick Combating the Finance of Transnational Threats
Course Number: 660.739
Explores the little understood efforts to combat the financing of transnational threats, from terrorism to WMD proliferation. Investigates how subnational terrorist groups, proliferation networks or other illicit actors finance their activities and conduct financial transfers, and analyzes choke points to control the flow of funds. Examines the tools available to states, international organizations and the private sector to follow the money and stem the flow of illicit funds. Includes case studies and group work to provide students hands-on exposure to the course themes. Limited to 20 students.
Instructor: Matthew Levitt History of the War on Terror
Course Number: 660.789
Examines the “global war on terrorism,” looking at the roots of the conflict, the reasons for 9/11 and the current course of the war. Introduces students to the evolution of extremist Islam, jihadist ideology and groups such as al Qaeda, while not neglecting the influence of U.S. policy in the Islamic world. Also examines in detail the strategies and tactics that both the jihadis and the United States have adopted to fight the war. Limited to 30 students.
Instructor: Mary R. Habeck Net Assessment
Course Number: 660.756
Net assessment is a novel approach to long-term, strategic, national security analysis developed by Andrew Marshall. The course explores how to analyze and integrate historical and emerging competitive dynamics, institutional and social behavior, innovation studies and technology trends in order to bring fresh, diagnostic insight to senior-level decision-makers. Uses case studies from World War II, the Cold War and the Revolution in Military Affairs. Graded material consists of executive-level, interactive issue papers and a final briefing. Prerequisite: Strategy and Policy. Limited to 15 students.
Instructor: Thomas Erhard The following courses are also cross-listed with Strategic Studies: Current Asian Security Issues 755.704 - Asia Regional European Security in Transition 700.706 - European Studies India: Defense, Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction 790.717 - South Asia Studies The Politics of Bases: The Comparative Politics of Forward Deployment 760.811 - Asia Regional The United Nations and International Security 650.752 - Conflict Management Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation in the Post-Soviet States 880.797 - Russian and Eurasian Studies |
