3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course describes the principal challenges facing the making of American Defense Policy and explains previous and current policies declared and practiced to meet them. The course is designed to inform students on the most pressing defense issues confronting the United States, and to present them a framework for defense policy analysis. It emphasizes understanding those defense policies, analyzing them, and considering and weighing alternative approaches to achieving national objectives of deterrence and defense. The course fosters an understanding of the array of U.S. military capabilities providing plausible responses to the use of military power in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives. It examines those policies in the areas of nuclear, conventional, and irregular forces, and weighs alternatives in shaping the size and structure of those forces to meet national objectives.