Course Syllabi

Baylor University | The Development of International Relations Thought

Professor David Clinton’s course examines the underlying nature of international politics.  That is, it asks what the basic reality is at which we look when we try to describe the forces that drive international relations.  Is that reality fundamentally conflictual or not?  Is it ultimately governed by any rules? Who or what are its most important participants?  Is it best described as a society, a community, or an anarchy?  In trying to answer these questions, the course will also necessarily deal with specific aspects of international politics, such as the balance of power, the causes of war, international law, nationalism, and globalization.  We shall examine three views of what constitutes international relations, illustrating these schools of thought by examining the writings of analysts who may be said to exemplify each tradition over a wide span of time.  Therefore, although the implication of our attention to these authors is that their thoughts have relevance to contemporary issues, the course will not be limited to currents in today’s international relations.  Indeed, the grounding assumption of the course is that what has been written about international relations over centuries continues to have relevance in the present.

 

Clinton_Development of IR Thought Fall 2017 | Read More

Hillsdale College | Greek History; Case Studies in the Origins of War; Thucydides & the Peloponnesian War

Paul Rahe, Greek History Spring 2019 | Paul Rahe, Case Studies in the Origins of War Spring 2015 | Paul Rahe, Thucydides & the Peloponnesian War Fall 2018 Read More

Institute of World Politics | IWP 628, Military Strategy: Theory and Practice

This course takes a more traditional view of grand strategy than that currently found in academic debates, emphasizing the role and importance of military power for war-fighting, coercion, and deterrence.

Strategy is about interaction, as adversaries seek to frustrate the best-laid plans in war, overturn the peace imposed upon them, or reshape the international environment to their advantage.  A good strategic leader must anticipate the dynamics of interaction in a contest against determined foes.  A skillful enemy that employs asymmetric strategies or an adversary from an unfamiliar culture may prove especially difficult to defeat. The interaction among adversaries and allies greatly complicates strategy and constitutes a theme running through the course’s diverse case studies.

 

 

 

 

 

Harmon, IWP 628 Military Strategy: Theory and Practice Summer 2020 Read More

Johns Hopkins University, Global Securities Studies Program | Grand Strategy: Interests, Choices, Decisions, Consequences

This course address the subject of grand strategy as the expression of a nation’s understanding of its interests, the choices it faces in securing those interests, the decisions required to implement the choices made and the consequences of having done so on the putative interests in whose name action was taken. Following an introductory section on the theory and literature around the concept of grand strategy the course examines the derivation and practice of grand strategy by the US and the PRC and considers the consequences of grand strategy as they are made manifest in military campaigns. The course will rely heavily on historical experience to assist theory in framing a definition of grand strategy to be employed by students in preparing for class discussion and in writing the required papers.

Cambone, Grand Strategy Spring 2016 Read More

Yale University, Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy | Studies in Grand Strategy

The Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy seeks to revive the study and practice of grand strategy by devising methods to teach that subject at the graduate and undergraduate levels, by training future leaders to think about and implement grand strategies in imaginative and effective ways, and by organizing public events that emphasize the importance of grand strategy. “Studies in Grand Strategy,” a two-semester, calendar-year interdisciplinary graduate-level seminar offered jointly by the Yale Departments of History and Political Science and the Yale School of Management, is the flagship course of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. The class investigates methods and materials for teaching and understanding grand strategy, and attracts a select group of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students who, upon completing the course, plan to pursue their own research and career agendas in grand strategy.

This rigorous two-semester course begins in January with readings in classical works from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz to Kissinger as well as more contemporary works from the post-Cold War era. Students will identify principles of strategy and examine the extent to which these were or were not applied in historical case studies from the Peloponnesian War to the post-Cold War period. During the summer, students will undertake research projects or internships designed to apply resulting insights to the detailed analysis of a particular strategic problem or aspect of strategy, whether of a historical or contemporary character. In the fall, the seminar will turn its attention to fundamental contemporary grand strategic issues.

 

Studies in Grand Strategy, Spring 2016 | Studies in Grand Strategy, Fall 2015 Read More

Baylor University | PSC 4316 Grand Strategy

Richard Jordan S21 Grand Strategy Read More