Technology and International Relations

Catalog description

This course provides an overview of the role advances in technology have played in forcing changes to traditional assumptions about international relations. Students will focus on how breakthroughs in transportation technologies (e.g., the railroad, flight, space travel) and communications technologies (e.g., radio, TV, the Internet) have enhanced social and economic interactions globally, and how the rise of weapons of mass destruction (e.g., chemical, biological, nuclear) have altered the balance of power militarily. Students will learn about how these weapons work, why states (and increasingly, non- state actors) seek to develop them, and attempts to prevent proliferation.