IR 488 Security and Strategy

Security and strategy here means thinking seriously about how political aims get translated into military force, and what that translation costs when systems, technologies, and adversaries keep shifting. You start with Clausewitz and the conceptual scaffolding of strategic studies, then move into the harder, more concrete material: weapons systems, military doctrines, defense industries, diffusion of military innovation, and the conduct of conventional and unconventional warfare. Expect heavy reading from primary strategic texts (On War, Biddle, Horowitz) alongside policy-oriented analyses, with a midterm anchoring the theoretical half before the technology and warfare half. It's an upper-level IR elective that pays off if you're heading toward security studies, defense policy, or any track where you need to read a conflict beyond headlines.