Defense Policy and Analysis

Catalog description

The United States has been a world superpower for over 75 years, in a bipolar world alongside the Soviet Union after the end of World War II, as the sole superpower in a unipolar world after the collapse of communism in the 1990s, and today in a world that increasingly looks like it will become multipolar. America must contend with numerous risks to its national security: ongoing wars overseas, terrorist threats, rogue nations, a rising China, and the effects of climate change. Can the United States, through its military, retain primacy? How? In this class we will explore these challenges facing the country and consider possible solutions. The course begins with an overview of U.S. grand strategy and the structure and implementation of defense policy. Throughout the course, students will become familiar with issues, cases, data, institutions, actors, trends, and options in the strategic implementation of defense policy. The primary focus of the course is on the Department of Defense (DoD) as well as key actors in the White House, committees in Congress, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).