Syllabus
(a) Monday (29 April):
(i) Introduction to the course, review course readings, explain expectations, and define the subject of strategic and defense studies
(ii) Philosophy of ‘war’
(b) Tuesday (30 April):
(i) Understanding the defense institution
(ii) What is defense policy (and what does it look like?)
(c) Wednesday (1 May):
(i) Linking defense plans to war plans and CONOP
(ii) Nuclear weapons and deterrence theory
(d) Thursday (2 May):
(i) Defense economics
(ii) Defense industry
(e) Friday (3 May):
(i) Lessons from the Russo-Ukraine war
(ii) Oral presentations of individual student papers (~5 minutes for each student)
Annotation
This course is a graduate-level introductory course on the subject of strategic and defense studies. It is envisaged to introduce students to the major topics and themes that run through this discipline. The aim of the course is to equip students with a basic understanding of some of the key concepts in strategic and defense studies through a review of some general literature, and the study of the key works of some of the major theoreticians in the field. With this understanding of the subject students should be able to understand better contemporary events, as well as apply this knowledge to other aspects of international politics. As the course is organized over only 10 contact sessions with the instructor, and given the breadth of these subjects, topic selection has been limited to the most key elements of the discipline.