Central Challenges of American National Security, Strategy, and the Press - Harvard University

edX

Course

Online

Free

Description

  • Type

    Course

  • Methodology

    Online

  • Start date

    Different dates available

In this course, students analyze some of the hardest national security challenges the United States will face in the decade ahead.

Facilities

Location

Start date

Online

Start date

Different dates availableEnrolment now open

About this course

None.

Questions & Answers

Add your question

Our advisors and other users will be able to reply to you

Who would you like to address this question to?

Fill in your details to get a reply

We will only publish your name and question

Reviews

This centre's achievements

2017

All courses are up to date

The average rating is higher than 3.7

More than 50 reviews in the last 12 months

This centre has featured on Emagister for 8 years

Subjects

  • Ethics
  • American National Security
  • Strategy
  • Press
  • US

Course programme

How can Iran be stopped from getting a nuclear bomb—negotiations, sanctions, or military action? As a participant in this course, you will advise the president in deciding whether, and how, the U.S. should act. Once you’ve made your assessment, you will move on to wrestle with other scenarios preoccupying policy makers. Between the Assad regime and ISIS, civilians in Syria and Iraq face unimaginable atrocities. Should the U.S. intervene? China’s rise is rattling capitalist economies and a half-century of Pacific peace. What counterbalancing actions should Washington take? Leaks are a fact of life — but why do they happen? Who gets them, and why? Should journalists publish or withhold them? Does legal accountability lie with the leaker—or the journalist?

This six-week course casts you as advisors on the hardest decisions any president has to make. We will go behind the veil to see the dynamic between the press and the U.S. government, to explore these dilemmas. We will also have to contend with the reality that government secrets rarely stay that way. Participants will learn to navigate the political landscape of an era in which private remarks become viral tweets, and mistakes by intelligence agencies become front-page stories.

Weekly assignments require strategic thinking: Analyzing dynamics of challenges and developing strategies for addressing them. Students will learn to summarize their analyses in a succinct “Strategic Options Memo,” combining careful analysis and strategic imagination with the necessity to communicate to major constituencies in order to sustain public support. They will also examine how policymaking is affected by constant, public analysis of government deliberations.

What you'll learn
  • Issues in international affairs from a “policy perspective”
  • How to think strategically about feasible interventions
  • Effective communication of issue analysis in policy memorandum format
  • How to operate within current national security policymaking processes surrounded by an intrusive, inquiring press
  • An appreciation for the complexities of communicating national security policies to multiple audiences

Additional information

Graham T. Allison, Jr. As “Founding Dean” of the modern Kennedy School, under his leadership, from 1977 to 1989, a small, undefined program grew twenty-fold to become a major professional school of public policy and government. Dr. Allison has served as Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense under President Reagan and as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans under President Clinton, where he coordinated DOD strategy and policy towards Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of the former Soviet Union. 

Central Challenges of American National Security, Strategy, and the Press - Harvard University

Free