Summer 2013

This course examines the origins and evolution of modern terrorism, the challenges posed by terrorist groups to states and to the international system, and strategies employed to confront and combat terrorism. We assess a wide variety of terrorist organizations, and explore the psychological, socioeconomic, political, and religious causes of terrorist violence past and present. We also analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various counterterrorism strategies, from the point of view of efficacy as well as ethics, and look into ways in which the new threat of global terrorism might impact the healthy functioning of democratic states.

This course explores the unique and distinct foreign policy behavior of different states in the international system. Explanations of state behavior will be drawn from many overarching international relations frameworks including but not necessarily limited to realism, liberalism, and constructivism. The effects of power, culture, institutions and history will be examined.

This course examines the foundations, decision-making processes, and substance of American foreign policy, particularly as it has developed over the past fifty years. We explore the role of American political culture, the presidency, Congress, and the foreign policy bureaucracy in helping to determine America's relationship with other states and international organizations. We pay particular attention to the recurring tensions that run through American foreign policy: isolationism v. internationalism, security v. prosperity, diplomacy v. military power, unilateralism v. multilateralism, and realism v. idealism. Each week we will explore a broad theoretical/conceptual theme and then focus on a specific topic that exemplifies a practical application of the theme.

This course, Special Operations and National Security, offers a comprehensive analysis of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF), highly trained units that perform selected military activities, frequently high-risk missions, often for the purposes of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. For much of its existence, SOF has operated in the shadows, a closed community for reasons of security and ethos, neither advertising its actions nor seeking recognition for them. That has recently changed, for a number of reasons, including the shifting methods and dispersions of global conflict, and the expansion of instant and networked communications. The height of SOF's public visibility came in the May Day raid of 2011, in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad, when Usama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special operators. That operation was even described in real time, by a local resident who alerted his Twitter followers, "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1am." Taking that raid as a launching point, Special Operations and National Security provides a rigorous analysis of SOF's strategic implications and its potential uses in twenty-first century global and national security. This course examines its core missions and activities as well as its most contested domains of strategic force-including economic warfare, biological warfare, psychological operations, electronic surveillance, irregular warfare, denied-area capabilities, and security force assistance.

Through a review of major academic literature, lectures, and class discussion, this course examines many of the central concepts, theories, and analytical tools used in contemporary social science to understand international affairs. The theoretical literature is drawn from fields including comparative politics, international relations, political sociology, and economics. The course is designed to enhance students' abilities to think critically and analytically about current problems and challenges in international politics.