David Kinsella
Hatfield School of Government
Office: Urban Center Building, room 650K
Phone: 503.725.3035 | e-mail: kinsella@pdx.edu
Office Hours: MW 11:30-12:30
 

Description

The foremost function of the state is to provide for the security and well-being of its people. The pursuit of security involves governments in a wide range of both domestic and international activities -- political, economic, and military. How do governments promote national security? What challenges do they face, and what tools have they developed to meet those challenges? How secure can states expect to be in the modern world, and at what cost?

The course explores these and other questions related to national and international security policy in contemporary world politics. We examine the role of national power, strategy, and the use of military force; the workings of the American national security establishment, including the intelligence community; cooperative security systems like NATO and the United Nations; and the tradeoffs between homeland security and civil liberties. On all these topics, the course will emphasize both theoretical and practical issues.

Learning Objectives

The general objective of this course is to develop the student's capacity to critically examine problems in national and international security, consider the range of possible solutions to those problems, and communicate this analysis to others. This is to be accomplished by exposing students to relevant literature from the fields of international politics and foreign policy. By the end of the term, students should be able to:

• show a familiarity with a wide range of substantive issues in security studies;
• articulate normative positions on a key ethical dilemmas arising from the quest for national security; and
• design and execute a research project on some security-related problem, and communicate the findings to others.
   

Requirements and Evaluation

Readings

There are no required textbooks for this course. All assigned readings are available online (via the PSU library website) and in the Political Science Division's reserve reading area (650P Urban Center). In addition to the assigned readings, you should be reading, on a regular basis, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or some other newspaper with thorough international coverage. Your performance in the course will reflect your familiarity with current national security issues, and not just an understanding of lecture material and course readings.

CLASS SCHEDULE

• Wednesday, Guest speaker: Dr. Peter Bechtold, "U.S. Foreign Affairs Agencies: Structure and Career Opportunities."
• J. Mohan Malik, "The Evolution of Strategic Thought," in Contemporary Security and Strategy, ed. Craig A. Snyder (Routledge, 1997).
• John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Yale, 2004), chaps. 3-4.
• slides

• Sam C. Sarkesian, John Allen Williams, and Stephen J. Cimbala, U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics, third ed. (Rienner, 2002), chaps. 5-7.
• William Michael Treanor, "The War Powers outside the Courts," in The Constitution in Wartime: Beyond Alarmism and Complacency, ed. Mark Tushnet (Duke, 2005).
• Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (Oxford, 2005), chaps. 1-2.
• slides

• Abram N. Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt, Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence, third ed. (Brassey's, 2002), chaps. 2-4.
• Gabriel Schoenfeld, Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law (Norton, 2010), introduction, chaps. 1, 14.
• slides

• William H. Rehnquist, All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime (Vintage, 1998), chaps. 2, 7, 9-10, 14-18.
• Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Princeton, 2004), chaps. 1-2.

• Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House, 2005), chaps. 1-5, 12.
• Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (Yale, 2002), chap. 4.
• slides

• John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (Chicago, 2005), chaps. 5-6.
• John F. Murphy, The United States and the Rule of Law in International Affairs (Cambridge, 2004), chap. 4.
• slides

• Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton, 2008), chaps. 2, 7.

• P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (Penguin, 2010), chaps. 2, 10, 11, 20.
   

• Deborah D. Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security (Cambridge, 2005), chap. 3.
• R. T. Naylor, Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld Economy (Cornell, 2002), chaps. 2-3.

• Robert Kagan, "Power and Weakness," Policy Review, no. 113 (2002).
• Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, "Varieties of Cooperation: Government Networks in International Security," in Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, ed. Miles Kahler (Cornell, 2009).
• James Igoe Walsh, The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing (Columbia, 2010), chap. 5.