Special Topic: Military History

Catalog description

This course examines, through case studies and hypotheticals, specific Special Operations missions. The initial focus will be World War II and several of its more famous clandestine actions. The course will then progress to the Vietnam War, through the 1980s, and into the shaded world of the War on Terror. After the Second World War the primary focus is the components of what is now called the Special operations Command. Through an analytic essay, a formal decision brief, and weekly forums students will contemplate the factors behind the decision to employ Special Operations forces and discern why missions both succeed and fail.