MA in Global Security Studies Degree Details and Courses

This course introduces students to foundational concepts of global security studies, including historical and disciplinary context, theories of international relations, global security actors, and central global security challenges. These issues range from misperception and strategic deterrence to non-state armed groups and global order, with theories drawing on realism and liberalism as well as a variety of social theories.

In the wake of the financial crisis, bank bailouts, and stimulus plans, the relationship between American economic power and national security is especially salient. In this course, students investigate core topics in international political economy, analyzing the security implications of each. Topics include trade relations, international finance, monetary relations, poverty, and development. (Core course for the MA in Global Security Studies. Recommended elective for MA in Public Management)

This course examines how states (primarily the United States) and other political entities harness military capabilities to pursue of policy objectives. It exposes students to levels of strategy—grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics—in a national security context. The course will then focus on the practical implications and unique characteristics of military strategy. Students will critically examine topics such as civil-military relations, land warfare, naval warfare, theories of airpower, insurgency and counterinsurgency, and nuclear warfare. The goal is to understand the embedded assumptions of the various theories, the characteristics of the military capabilities animated by them, and, through discussion and case studies, the strengths and limitations of each.

This course is the first in the Research Study sequence for the Global Security Studies program. The goals of this course are: 1) to help students be producers of scholarly knowledge, 2) to prepare students for later parts of the research study process, and 3) to prepare students to understand and critique others’ uses of various methods. The first part of the course will address fundamental issues, such as measurement, causation, and inference. The second part of the course will address research design, data collection, and analysis, focusing on specific methodological tools including case study analysis, interviews, content analysis, participant observation, survey research, etc.

This course provides an in-depth examination of how the effects of climate change could impact national security, international relations, and global stability. Students will begin by examining and discussing the current body of academic literature. As the semester progresses, students will learn and practice how to use cross-disciplinary resources and tools to envision potential relationships between climate change effects and security outcomes.

This course is a seminar-based overview of the role of energy in national security. Using a range of U.S. and non-U.S. case studies, students will review the roles of energy in grand strategy, the role of energy in conflict, and, finally, as a logistical enabler of military operations.

This course examines the nexus of energy, natural resources, and the environment with conflict, war, terrorism, crime, development, diplomacy, politics, and technology. Students critically examine the ways that increased competition for environmental and energy resources, strained resources, and changing conditions can threaten national security. The course also examines how such threats may be mitigated. (Core course for the MA in Global Security Studies)

Historians reclaim, recover, and revise what we know about the past. They enter a dialog with the dead to make sense of our world for the living, knowing full well that their hard-earned results may be overturned with new data, analysis, or insights. Yet questionable or flawed “history” is routinely to justify a range of experiences, policies, and events. In this course, we instill the key skills and analytical framework in which historians use to uncover and recreate the past, taking the journey from question, to research (onsite and online), to argument and revision (and revisionism). The importance of argument, objectivity, personal and temporal bias, evidence, narrative and cultural context are examined in detail, along with case studies of history being used, misused, and abused by historians and other actors.

The main purpose of this class is to train students to be informed consumers of quantitative studies, in addition to teaching the tools of basic statistical work. The emphasis in this class is on application and understanding of existing results, rather than on theory or derivations. The course material will cover basic descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and data collection. The key learning objective is for students to finish the class with a better understanding of the statistical and econometric results they may encounter, both in papers they read in other classes, as well as in the course of their work. The second key objective is for students to have the skills to employ basic quantitative tools in their own work in the fields of public policy and global security studies. As much as possible, assignments and readings used in class will be drawn from the public policy and security fields. There is no mathematical or statistical pre-requisite for the class. (Core course for the MA in Public Management and the MA in Global Security Studies.)

This course provides an overview of the manifold challenges and opportunities for United States security in the current disordered and changing world. It aims to help students assess why events occur and what policies are developed in response. In that endeavor, the course has three major objectives. First, the course will review the major perspectives on, and debates about, U.S. security and the institutions through which policy is made and executed. Second, the course will review some U.S. security issues through scholarly, policy, political, and historical lenses. Third, the course will help students write for both policy and academic audiences. This course is not open to students who have had 470.606 American National Security.

This course examines the changing character of modern war and the role played by technology. Specifically, we will explore why some militaries are able to successfully learn, adapt, and innovate while others fail to do so. We will then examine specific technologies and the implications for military strategy and national security policy. These technologies include precision munitions, space capabilities, networks, artificial intelligence, drones and autonomy, and cyber weapons. Through lecture, case studies, discussion, and writing, the goal is to equip students to understand how and why military innovation occurs, its impacts, and considerations for strategists and policy makers.

The South Asian region, with its complex historical context, a large and diverse population, and contested national borders, especially between nuclearized countries, poses some of the toughest security challenges facing the world. This course highlights salient security challenges in South Asia, and draws out their implications for U.S. strategic interests. It examines the sources and implications of the rivalry between nuclearized India and Pakistan, and how it fuels Sino-Indian security competition. Attention is drawn to the sources of militancy in India, and to the threats to international and regional security arising from the conflict in Afghanistan. The Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger insurgency and its eventual defeat in 2009 are also discussed, alongside the rising Islamist militancy threats in Bangladeshi, and the history of Maoist insurgency in Nepal. Finally, some of the climate-based threats to which no South Asian country is immune will also be discussed.

Transnational organized crime often is not well understood because crime is most often conceptualized as a domestic legal concern. However, transnational organized crime is more than that. It is crime ordered into complex clandestine networks that operates transnationally with little regard for the borders of states. The gravity of the problem lies not only in the increasing complexity of these organizations, but more importantly, with the serious challenge they pose in their ability to penetrate and operate with relative impunity in several states simultaneously. These illegal enterprises not only threaten aspects of state sovereignty and security that traditionally have been taken for granted, but they prove the permeability of national borders and the vulnerability of state institutions. This course will examine a variety of transnational organized criminal groups, their modus operandi, and their illicit activities. It also will focus on some domestic organized crime groups both to provide a depth of understanding of the operations of organized criminal activity in different countries, as well as to show how international groups can make inroads into domestic markets if they cooperate with local groups.

This course examines how states and non-state actors use propaganda and disinformation campaigns across the continuum of conflict. Students will gain a detailed understanding of the strategic goals, objectives, and tactics that comprise information warfare campaigns. The course will examine a variety of case studies to include German propaganda during World War II, Russian active measures during the Cold War, extremist propaganda, and modern grey zone disinformation activities. The detailed exploration of these rich historical examples will also help students become more-astute consumers of social science information, big-data analytics, and open source intelligence.

This course focuses on transnational security issues and considers how many of these myriad challenges constitute threats to global peace and security. The combined effects of issues such as drug, weapons, and human trafficking, piracy, terrorism, infectious diseases, and deliberate environmental destruction, along with such critical enablers as corruption, and money movements, are not strangers on the world stage. What is new is their global reach and destructive potential. As a result, these issues have made policy makers consider different conceptions of security and, at times, to move beyond sole considerations of state sovereignty into the realm of human security. Not only are transnational security issues varied in nature and scope, but their effects often are obscured by the fact that many are nascent with gradual and long-term consequences. Further, while some transnational issues may not constitute direct threats to global security, they may threaten the world economy, and quality of life of its citizens. Still others compound and reinforce each other, generating mutations of the original threats. This course will examine a small number of these transnational security issues and relevant policy-making efforts.

The multiple crises plaguing the world today make evident the mutual inter-dependence and vulnerability of people and nations. The idea of human security has gained increasing significance within this increasingly complex and interconnected world. Human security places emphasis on the security needs of individual citizens, rather than being preoccupied by traditional, state-centric conceptions of security. It takes into account the impact of security threats such as economic crises, pandemics, and climate change on the lives of individuals within and across national boundaries. The course thus draws attention to alternative interpretations of what constitute security threats and how to contend with the underlying causes of volatility and human insecurity that prevail around the world.

This course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental principles and techniques necessary for effective analysis and evaluation of wargames. Wargaming is a vital tool in security studies, military strategy, international politics, business, and foreign policy. We will explore the history and evolution of wargames and examine the different types of wargames such as tabletop, computer-based, and live-action simulations, and understand the unique characteristics and purposes of each. Students will learn about game design and setup; data collection and analysis; scenario development; and adjudication and resolution. This course delves into the core concepts and methodologies that underpin the wargaming process, equipping students with the knowledge and skills required to critically assess, interpret, and make informed decisions based on the outcomes of wargames.

United States special operations forces have become a core element in the nation's response to transnational terrorism and other complex security challenges. These units have trained and advised foreign military and paramilitary forces; captured or killed thousands of insurgent leaders and foot soldiers; and conducted a variety of operations around the globe. This course will focus on the ways in which United States special operations forces have been incorporated into national security strategy and policy since the Second World War. Topics will include how special operations forces are recruited, organized, trained, resourced, and utilized. Using a series of historical case studies, participants will investigate the differences between special operations forces and other elite units; scrutinize the roles, missions, and culture of these organizations; and probe the influence of bureaucratic politics and organizational relationships between the special operations community and international allies, Congress, the interagency community, and conventional military forces.

This class examines the phenomenon of irregular warfare—of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in particular—through a historical lens. The course will give you students insight into the origins, objectives, strategies, and tactics of irregular wars, as well as the principles of counterinsurgency theory and practice. Through the course, you will analyze current irregular wars, understand what caused them and whether they are likely to be successful or unsuccessful, and see how they can be combated.

This course examines the phenomenon of modern warfare through both a theoretical and historical lens. It will provide insight into the definitions, origins, objectives, strategies, and tactics of modern conflict. Throughout the course you will analyze recent and ongoing conventional, irregular, and hybrid wars and understand what caused them, how they were conducted, and why they ended the way they did. Through a combination of lecture and online discussion, students will analyze these conflicts from a variety of perspectives to include state security and military forces, insurgents, criminals, and terrorists.

The field of security studies, while a relatively recent development as its own subfield, is quite broad, continues to evolve, and draws on multiple disciplines. This course will first introduce students to some theories used in critical approaches to security such as Critical Theory, securitization, interpretive relationalism, poststructuralism, feminist and gender approaches, and postcolonialism. The course will then employ these different lenses to look at central security challenges facing multiple levels of analysis (individual, local, state, regional, international, global). Sample security challenges include identity and insecurity (to include issues of gender, race, and nationality), terrorism and political violence, border security, human trafficking, climate change and the environment, and food security. A key focus of the course is challenging ourselves to not take dominant paradigms and assumptions for granted, and deliberately connect theory with practice, with an overarching goal of minimizing insecurity in academic and practitioner environments.

This course offers an overview of power and politics through the study of the government of the United States. All governments combine coercion and legitimacy. In a stable and legitimate system of government, coercion is hardly noticed. Government comes to be seen as a source of benefits. The purpose of the course is to look behind institutions, practices, and benefits to appreciate how, for what, and for whom we are governed. We shall examine some of the major institutions of American government, some of America's political processes, and some of the key forces competing for power in the U.S. to see how decisions in the areas of economic, social and foreign policy are reached. This is a core course of the Government Program but is open to all students.

In this course, students will develop expertise with tools necessary to collect, analyze, and visualize large amounts of text. The course begins with a hands-on introduction to the programming concepts necessary to collect and process textual data. The course then proceeds to cover key statistical concepts in machine learning and statistics that are used to analyze text as data. Throughout the course, students will develop a research project that culminates in the display of results from a large-scale textual analysis.

Much of international politics in the last century can be described as a conflict between liberal democracy and its modern critics. During this period the values and political structures of liberal democracy have been extended to more parts of the world than ever before. Yet the same era has seen the emergence of powerful challengers to liberal democracy from both the right and the left. The resulting clash of ideologies defined such conflicts as World War II and the Cold War. And in our time critics of liberal democracy in Russia, China, and political Islam are central opponents of the American-led world order. In this course, we will survey both the intellectual roots of Fascism, National Socialism, and Communism, as well as contemporary critics of liberal democracy in Russia, China, and the Islamic world. Among those whose ideas we will examine are Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, Benito Mussolini, Carl Schmitt, Syed Qutb, Ayatollah Khomeini, Alexander Dugin, Wang Huning, Jiang Qing, and Zhang Weiwei This course counts towards the Security Studies concentration.

This course covers the politics of Latin America from 1945 to the present. It is designed to introduce students to the academic study of contemporary Latin American politics. Students are required to apply comparative methods of analysis to contrast regimes and political phenomena beyond governments. Students are expected to compare the institutions, policies and development models of different governments and regimes, as well as the ideology, program, organizational structure and support base of different social movements and political parties. These comparisons enable students to explore both similarity and difference. Students may identify broad commonalities in the politics of a region that shares many cultural features and important structural constraints. However, they should also be aware of distinctions; including the important differences between Central America, the Andean region and the Southern Cone, as well as significant variations between neighboring states.

Federalism the division of power and sovereignty between a central authority and local governments has emerged as one of the most important themes of contemporary Western politics in both the United States and Europe. For the United States the division of power between the Federal and State governments lies at the very heart of the American Constitution. At the same time disputes over the precise balance of Federal and State power has been a major fault line in American politics since Federalists and anti-Federalists at the time of the founding. For Europe the destruction of two World Wars showed the destructive side of nationalism and acted as an impetus to leverage Europe’s common history and cultural inheritance to forge a supranational political and economic union dedicated to peace and prosperity. Since the end of the Cold War and the Treaty of Maastricht the process of European integration has speeded up rapidly resulting in a common European currency as well as common legal and political institutions. At the same time concerns about the perceived loss of sovereignty, national identity, and democratic accountability have led in some places to backlashes against Brussels and resurgent nationalism. There is also the broader question of the European Union’s goals and identity is it principally an economic union or is it a super-state in the making? In this course we will explore Federalism in its institutional, legal, philosophical, and historical aspects in both America and Europe.

Many of the ideas which shape today´s world- democracy, liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism, nationalism - have their roots in a "great conversation" (Robert Hutchins) that spans some 25 centuries from ancient Greece until today. The conversation motivating the Western tradition has included a set of perennial questions such as: Who ought to rule - and how do we decide? What is the purpose of politics? What is the best form of constitution? What makes political authority legitimate? What is political justice? What is citizenship? This course is intended as a broad survey of some the most influential political thinkers in the intellectual tradition of Europe and America. Among the many who will be examined are : Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire, Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Nietzsche, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt.

Nationalism and democracy have been two of the most significant forces shaping the contemporary world. The sense of nationality has provided peoples with a strong sense of shared belonging based around the ideas of a common language, land, and heritage. It has sometimes fuelled the demand for collective freedom and democratic self-determination. At the same time it has been a volatile force generating conflicts within and between nations across the globe. In Europe, the effort at forging a common European identity must confront the challenge of resurgent nationalism in traditional countries like Britain, France, and Austria. Meanwhile traditional states like Britain and Spain must themselves confront secessionist nationalism in Scotland, Catalonia, and elsewhere. The modern Middle East has been shaped in part by the conflicting goals of two major nationalist movements - Arab nationalism and Zionism. In Asia, nationalism is emerging as a dominant theme as countries like China and India rise to political and military power. In spite of economic globalization and the development of international laws and institutions, it is pivotal to understand nationalism if we are to understand world politics today.

This course will introduce computational modeling and demonstrate how it is used in the policy and national security realms. Specifically, the course will focus on agent-based modeling, which is a commonly-used approach to build computer models to better understand proposed policies and political behavior. Agent-based models consist of a number of diverse "agents,'’ which can be individuals, groups, firms, states, etc. These agents behave according to behavioral rules determined by the researcher. The interactions with each other and their environment at the micro-level can produce emergent patterns at the macro-level. These models have been used to understand a diverse range of policy issues including voting behavior, international conflict, segregation, health policy, economic markets, ethnic conflict, and a variety of other policy issues. The course will consist of two parts: First, we will examine the theoretical perspective of computational modeling. Second, you will be introduced to a software platform that is commonly used to develop computational, and, in particular agent-based modeling. No prerequisite

Social media is now present globally in everyday life, and in conflicts. With its reach, social media has also become an increasingly meaningful information source for scholars, advocacy groups, intelligence agencies, and others who are interested in shaping public discourse. This course introduces students to social media as part of present day open source information gathering, and how to plan collection and conduct analysis of information from social media. The course covers the operations security considerations, monitoring real time events, verification of online material, basics of social network analysis, and how to work with imagery sourced from social media, including geolocation of imagery. Automation and the limits of it in different phases of the process, and future developments in social media exploitation will also be discussed. During the course, students will conduct a hands-on investigation using social media data.

Critical thinking involves the methods and principles of correct reasoning and argumentation. Students will apply a combination of logic, critical thinking skills, and structured analytical techniques to identify biases, promote self-reflective reasoning, and improve the quality of intelligence analysis. Using a selection of empirical case studies and operational exemplars, students will conduct a comparative assessment of analytical outcomes based on the application of course learnings versus outcomes derived in their absence.

This class will examine the interplay between the laws and the practices and policies of the United States’ Intelligence Community and national security system, both foreign and domestic. While discussion of the history of intelligence activities and laws dating from the origins of our colonial days will necessarily shape the framework of the class, the focus shall particularly be on current debates and challenges faced by the United States in the 21st Century.

This course will address the ethical dilemmas and issues that challenge intelligence and government decision makers in an increasingly complex operational and technological environment. We will examine basic moral, ethical and privacy considerations at several key points in intelligence operations from collection to covert action. The course will analyze the evolving nature of privacy concerns worldwide, with an emphasis on the balance between individual rights and national security. Students will examine the policy implications inherent in seeking to address these tensions. The readings will include diverse and opposing viewpoints as well as practicums and simulations to allow debate of the key positions. Prior enrollment in 473.600 The Art and Practice of Intelligence is strongly encouraged.

Intelligence exists outside of government, and its application in the private sector is rapidly expanding. This course introduces students to private sector intelligence, exploring how intelligence tradecraft is applied in corporate environments to mitigate risks to people, assets, and operations, and to support better corporate decision-making. Looking beyond government outsourcing to intelligence applied within the private sector, for the private sector, this course examines security and geopolitical intelligence, including travel security, protective intelligence, and strategic intelligence in support of business decision-making. Students will come away from the course with a broader picture of potential career paths for intelligence professionals outside of traditional national security roles, a nuanced understanding of private sector intelligence, and an appreciation for the similarities and contrasts between the practice of intelligence in the private sector and in the intelligence community.

This course covers the application of technologies to intelligence collection. It includes remote sensing technology as applied in geospatial intelligence (GEOINT), measurements and signatures intelligence (MASINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT). It examines the tradeoffs associated with the use of different imaging, radar, and passive radiofrequency sensors and collection platforms. It also addresses a number of specialized but increasingly important collection methods such as cyber intelligence, materials and materiel collection, and biometrics. The methods for processing, exploiting and analyzing raw intelligence are discussed. The final segment of the course investigates the management issues associated with technical intelligence collection.

This course describes and assesses the role played by intelligence in the formation of national security policy, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between intelligence and policy. It is important to understand that this relationship pervades the entire intelligence process, from requirements through collection, analysis and also operations. Policy makers are broadly defined to include the Executive Branch, Congress and, on occasion, the courts. The course reviews the steps of the intelligence process in detail, assessing the roles played by policy makers and intelligence officers. This course is designed to give students an appreciation and understanding of the role played by intelligence in support of policy, as well as the stresses and strains that exist between intelligence and policy, and within intelligence itself.

This course provides students with an intellectual foundation for understanding the concepts underpinning homeland security intelligence, as well as an overview of the US national homeland security framework including organization and policies. It examines the underlying intellectual constructs used to frame the comprehension of security issues, intelligence based on those issues and the development of policies and strategies that lead to implementing programs that protect the United States infrastructure and its people from attack. Over the term, students will be challenged to examine the various paradigms that shape homeland security intelligence and critically apply them to contemporary homeland security challenges and examine how well or poorly these paradigms are reflected in current responses, organizations and policies.

This course provides an overview of the manifold challenges and opportunities for United States security in the current disordered and changing world. It aims to help students assess why events occur and what policies are developed in response. In that endeavor, the course has three major objectives. First, the course will review the major perspectives on, and debates about, U.S. security and the institutions through which policy is made and executed. Second, the course will review some U.S. security issues through scholarly, policy, political, and historical lenses. Third, the course will help students write for both policy and academic audiences. This course is not open to students who have had 470.606 American National Security.

This course examines the changing character of modern war and the role played by technology. Specifically, we will explore why some militaries are able to successfully learn, adapt, and innovate while others fail to do so. We will then examine specific technologies and the implications for military strategy and national security policy. These technologies include precision munitions, space capabilities, networks, artificial intelligence, drones and autonomy, and cyber weapons. Through lecture, case studies, discussion, and writing, the goal is to equip students to understand how and why military innovation occurs, its impacts, and considerations for strategists and policy makers.

This course presents an overview of the principal areas important to global terrorist groups and organizations. The study of terrorism is complex and multi-disciplinary and offers a variety of academic and practitioner perspectives. Students will investigate diverse models, theories, and concepts to explain individual, group, and organizational dynamics. Through this exploration of ideology, motivation, recruitment, media strategies, leadership, and inter- and intra-group dynamics, students will be able to identify patterns of behavior and strategic intervention approaches. Through case studies, students will step into the perspective of terrorist groups and apply what is learned to individual creative projects.

Transnational organized crime often is not well understood because crime is most often conceptualized as a domestic legal concern. However, transnational organized crime is more than that. It is crime ordered into complex clandestine networks that operates transnationally with little regard for the borders of states. The gravity of the problem lies not only in the increasing complexity of these organizations, but more importantly, with the serious challenge they pose in their ability to penetrate and operate with relative impunity in several states simultaneously. These illegal enterprises not only threaten aspects of state sovereignty and security that traditionally have been taken for granted, but they prove the permeability of national borders and the vulnerability of state institutions. This course will examine a variety of transnational organized criminal groups, their modus operandi, and their illicit activities. It also will focus on some domestic organized crime groups both to provide a depth of understanding of the operations of organized criminal activity in different countries, as well as to show how international groups can make inroads into domestic markets if they cooperate with local groups.

This course examines how states and non-state actors use propaganda and disinformation campaigns across the continuum of conflict. Students will gain a detailed understanding of the strategic goals, objectives, and tactics that comprise information warfare campaigns. The course will examine a variety of case studies to include German propaganda during World War II, Russian active measures during the Cold War, extremist propaganda, and modern grey zone disinformation activities. The detailed exploration of these rich historical examples will also help students become more-astute consumers of social science information, big-data analytics, and open source intelligence.

This course focuses on transnational security issues and considers how many of these myriad challenges constitute threats to global peace and security. The combined effects of issues such as drug, weapons, and human trafficking, piracy, terrorism, infectious diseases, and deliberate environmental destruction, along with such critical enablers as corruption, and money movements, are not strangers on the world stage. What is new is their global reach and destructive potential. As a result, these issues have made policy makers consider different conceptions of security and, at times, to move beyond sole considerations of state sovereignty into the realm of human security. Not only are transnational security issues varied in nature and scope, but their effects often are obscured by the fact that many are nascent with gradual and long-term consequences. Further, while some transnational issues may not constitute direct threats to global security, they may threaten the world economy, and quality of life of its citizens. Still others compound and reinforce each other, generating mutations of the original threats. This course will examine a small number of these transnational security issues and relevant policy-making efforts.

Corruption is ubiquitous. It is a universal phenomenon that has always been around and that can be found almost anywhere. Recent years have seen much focus on the relationship between it and democratic governance. Indeed corruption and politics more generally, are inextricably and universally entwined. In this seminar we will take an in-depth look at the relationship between the two. We will ask: What is Corruption? Is it always the same thing everywhere, or does it vary depending on context or place? Do pork barrel politics and political clientelism count as corruption? What are the implications of corruption? Is it necessarily always a bad thing or can it be beneficial? Is the corruption experienced in developed countries qualitatively different from that in developing ones such that democracy suffers more in developing countries? We will seek to answer these and other questions by taking a critical look at the politics of corruption. We will look at the origins, extent, character and significance of corruption from both a developed and developing country perspective. We will cover various theories relating to corruption as well as look at a number of empirical cases.

Russia plays a key role in most international issues and openly campaigns to realign the international system away from what it sees as American domination. This course considers the substance and process of Russian national security policy. It acquaints students with the main instruments and mechanisms available to Russian leaders to advance the country’s national interests and key policy priorities. The course considers how Russia formulates and conducts its national security policy, the history that informs it, the political culture that sustain it, the ideas and interests that drive it, and the people and institutions responsible for it. The course addresses Russia’s role in key global and regional issues and its relations with major powers. It places special emphasis on the wars in Ukraine and Syria, Russian concepts of information war, and on Russian military reform.

This course will explore some of the most contested and controversial aspects in contemporary security studies. There are a number of contentious and wide-ranging debates around ideas like radicalization not least concerning its definition, causes, and effects. This course will also prompt you to consider broader issues, such as whether there is a causal link between extremism and violent extremism? Why do some radicalized individuals to embrace terrorism, when other don’t? And should security officials concern themselves with radicalization, or only with its violent offshoots? This course will unpack many of these debates, exploring academic and theoretical literature surrounding the issues of radicalization, recruitment, and deradicalization in modern terrorist networks. It will focus primarily on cases in Europe and the United States, while also exploring new phenomena such as homegrown, self-starter, and lone wolf terrorism.

The multiple crises plaguing the world today make evident the mutual inter-dependence and vulnerability of people and nations. The idea of human security has gained increasing significance within this increasingly complex and interconnected world. Human security places emphasis on the security needs of individual citizens, rather than being preoccupied by traditional, state-centric conceptions of security. It takes into account the impact of security threats such as economic crises, pandemics, and climate change on the lives of individuals within and across national boundaries. The course thus draws attention to alternative interpretations of what constitute security threats and how to contend with the underlying causes of volatility and human insecurity that prevail around the world.

Drawing on the social movement literature, this course examines the emergence of irregular armed groups and their decisions to use violence. It explains how social movements turnviolent, how violence dictates their nature, and what this nature can tell us in terms of group strengths and weaknesses. It provides the students with the analytical tools needed to distinguish between terrorism, insurgency, and crime – by focusing and understanding group strategies, behavior, and capabilities. Students will thus be familiarized with the theory on armed group formation and evolution – but the course goes further, by counterposing such theory to the complexities of practice through the consideration of key case studies. The course ends with an overview of state strategies intended to counter a wide variety of threats. Particular attention is paid to the notion of operational art and lines of effort to underline the potential and meaning of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.

United States special operations forces have become a core element in the nation's response to transnational terrorism and other complex security challenges. These units have trained and advised foreign military and paramilitary forces; captured or killed thousands of insurgent leaders and foot soldiers; and conducted a variety of operations around the globe. This course will focus on the ways in which United States special operations forces have been incorporated into national security strategy and policy since the Second World War. Topics will include how special operations forces are recruited, organized, trained, resourced, and utilized. Using a series of historical case studies, participants will investigate the differences between special operations forces and other elite units; scrutinize the roles, missions, and culture of these organizations; and probe the influence of bureaucratic politics and organizational relationships between the special operations community and international allies, Congress, the interagency community, and conventional military forces.

This class examines the phenomenon of irregular warfare—of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in particular—through a historical lens. The course will give you students insight into the origins, objectives, strategies, and tactics of irregular wars, as well as the principles of counterinsurgency theory and practice. Through the course, you will analyze current irregular wars, understand what caused them and whether they are likely to be successful or unsuccessful, and see how they can be combated.

War practitioners, policy makers, and security studies scholars study asymmetric warfare to understand why poorly armed insurgents effectively resist and even defeat technologically advanced and materially stronger armies. This course studies a perfect asymmetry in nonviolent warfare where unarmed ordinary people are able to effectively challenge and eventually defeat a fully armed, resource-rich regimes. In fact, historically, nonviolent movements have been twice as effective against violent regimes as armed insurgencies. This course will consider skills of organized populations in inter-state and intra-state conflicts, including anti-dictatorship, anti-occupation, anti-corruption, anti-violence struggles and analyze how disciplined civilians use nonviolent strategies and tactics to galvanize large and diverse participation, place their violent opponents in dilemma, make repression backfire and cause defections among adversaries' pillars of support.

This course will provide an overview of current issues in the cyber realm, focusing on policy and conflict from a U.S. and international perspective. We will begin with an understanding of the power inherent in cyberspace and consider the policy issues facing the civilian, military, intelligence and private business sectors in dealing with offensive and defensive cyber activity. Through the use of case studies, we will examine previous and ongoing cyber conflicts to understand their impacts on international relations. We will analyze the roles of several different types of cyber actors including state actors, non-state actors such as criminal and terror groups and private sector/business responses. This course will also examine the issue of cyber deterrence, and the unique aspects of offensive and defensive cyber activities by all cyber actors. A technical background is not required and basic aspects of cyber operations will be discussed and demonstrated as part of the introductory class sessions.

The course examines how terrorist groups finance their operations. It also explores current policy approaches to curb financial support to terrorists through the application of U.S. and international sanctions, in particular how multilateral fora, such as the United Nations and the Financial Action Task Force, disrupt and deter terrorist financing. At the completion of this course, students will have a better understanding of the key tools, including law enforcement, diplomacy, and intelligence, that are used to counter terrorists’ financial networks and activities. Through this course, students will develop proficiency in a series of analytic methods used to study terrorist financing and counter financing. Students will use structured analytic tools such as weighted ranking methods, scenario trees, causal flow diagramming, hypothesis testing, and utility analysis, as well as game theory and logic to form analytic judgments. Prior coursework or professional experience in intelligence, (counter) terrorism, or finance recommended.

This course will provide the analytical and contextual skills required to understand the current political and security situation of Iran. After laying out the context of the Iranian Revolution through a brief examination of the Pahlavi years, the course then weaves together Iran’s political, military, diplomatic, social, economic development during the turbulent years between Iran’s 1978-1979 revolution and the 2015 nuclear agreement—covering a time period of roughly 1941 to the present day. This course covers three main inter-related topics: the history and development of the modern Iranian state; the interaction between state and society in modern Iran; and Iran’s diplomatic history in the 20th and 21st centuries. The course concludes with a discussion of Iran’s present-day foreign, security, and defense structures and processes.

This course examines the phenomenon of modern warfare through both a theoretical and historical lens. It will provide insight into the definitions, origins, objectives, strategies, and tactics of modern conflict. Throughout the course you will analyze recent and ongoing conventional, irregular, and hybrid wars and understand what caused them, how they were conducted, and why they ended the way they did. Through a combination of lecture and online discussion, students will analyze these conflicts from a variety of perspectives to include state security and military forces, insurgents, criminals, and terrorists.

"Warfare" today is often ambiguous, constant, and non-violent: a combination of low intensity conflict and struggles over information via cyberspace, especially over "narratives" that sway public opinion. Warfare has always included these elements, but our adversaries today fight and stay in this early stage of cyberspace operations, information operations, and limited or no kinetic conflict, careful never to escalate to state-on-state violence. This course will examine how "non-kinetic" warfare (information operations, cyberspace operations, non-violent resistance) takes place today. Students will learn how the control and manipulation of information shapes national security and creates new political realities. Focus will be on Russian hybrid warfare and "information confrontation," Chinese weaponization of business and cyberspace and "coercive gradualism," and terrorist's use of the internet.

The field of security studies, while a relatively recent development as its own subfield, is quite broad, continues to evolve, and draws on multiple disciplines. This course will first introduce students to some theories used in critical approaches to security such as Critical Theory, securitization, interpretive relationalism, poststructuralism, feminist and gender approaches, and postcolonialism. The course will then employ these different lenses to look at central security challenges facing multiple levels of analysis (individual, local, state, regional, international, global). Sample security challenges include identity and insecurity (to include issues of gender, race, and nationality), terrorism and political violence, border security, human trafficking, climate change and the environment, and food security. A key focus of the course is challenging ourselves to not take dominant paradigms and assumptions for granted, and deliberately connect theory with practice, with an overarching goal of minimizing insecurity in academic and practitioner environments.

This course covers the art and practice of human intelligence, with a special focus on human intelligence operations (HUMINT), counterintelligence (CI) considerations, spy motivations, covert action, and how it contributes to United States policymakers’ decision-making. It will review the authorities behind these actions and the tools (tradecraft) involved in these essential intelligence activities. The course will feature relevant case studies based on practitioners' experiences and interviews with selected former CIA and intelligence officers.