From the rise of China and its impact on a ruling USA and resurgence of Russia to North Korea’s nuclear challenge, America’s longest war in Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Africa, and the emergence of cyber conflict, this course examines the central challenges to American national security. Through a series of mini cases, students address these issues as if they were professionals at the National Security Council working for the President. In response to specific assignments, students write Strategic Options Memos that require analyzing the challenge, assessing the current strategy, and identifying alternative strategies for protecting and advancing national interests.
Assignments require strategic thinking: analyzing dynamics of issues, formulating key judgements, and developing feasible strategies. In the real world of Washington today, this means thinking clearly about what the US is attempting to achieve in the world in the midst of a swirl of a government whose deliberations are often discombobulated by leaks, press reports, tweets, and fake news. A sub-theme of the course explores ways in which pervasive press coverage intrudes, sometimes informing, sometimes distorting, national security decision making.
The course will meet once a week for two class sessions (three consecutive hours with a break in the middle). One of the two sessions each week will focus on a specific, real-world case that crystallizes one of the central challenges. The second session will provide an opportunity to consider additional central challenges, as well as host occasional guests.
Participants must come to class each week prepared to discuss the readings (approx. 150 pages per week) and must submit a one-page outline of a strategic options memo for each case. In responding to one of the cases, a full strategic options memo (three pages long) will be required. The final exam will be take-home and will require submitting a strategic options memo plus answering questions that cover the readings.