POL 346 American National Security Policy

3 Credit(s) HP

Nuclear war-planning is back. With the reemergence of rival great powers and the return of historical great power competition and possibly even great power war, there is now an ongoing debate concerning the future direction and priorities of U.S. national security and defense policy. This course will join this debate within the context of U.S. national interests, national power, and the emerging new global security environment. The course is organized along four substantive areas of study: an introduction to American national security and defense policy, American grand strategy in the contemporary world, America’s global and regional security agendas, and America’s increasingly diverse and complex homeland security concerns. At the end of the course, students should have a good understanding of the institutions and processes of U.S. national security policymaking and be able to identify and specify U.S. national security interests around the world, determine actual and potential threats to those interests, and propose and critically analyze policy options for addressing those threats. Three lecture hours per week.