U.s. budgets for national security

Lectures: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session

Open to qualified graduate students and requires permission of the instructor.

This course is for students who want to know how the dollars we spend on national security relate to military forces, systems, and policy choices, and who wish to develop a personal tool kit for framing and assessing defense policy alternatives.

The course aims to familiarize students with budgetary concepts and processes; to examine relationships among strategy, forces, and budgets; to explore tradeoffs among the main categories of defense spending; and to develop frameworks for identifying the costs of new military policies.

Adams, Gordon, and Cindy Williams. Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home. New York: Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 9780415954402.

Don't show me this again

This is one of over 2,200 courses on OCW. Find materials for this course in the pages linked along the left.

MIT OpenCourseWare is a free & open publication of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum.

No enrollment or registration. Freely browse and use OCW materials at your own pace. There's no signup, and no start or end dates.

Knowledge is your reward. Use OCW to guide your own life-long learning, or to teach others. We don't offer credit or certification for using OCW.

Made for sharing. Download files for later. Send to friends and colleagues. Modify, remix, and reuse (just remember to cite OCW as the source.)

Learn more at Get Started with MIT OpenCourseWare