3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

War practitioners, policy makers, and security studies scholars study asymmetric warfare to understand why poorly armed insurgents effectively resist and even defeat technologically advanced and materially stronger armies. This course studies a perfect asymmetry in nonviolent warfare where unarmed ordinary people are able to effectively challenge and eventually defeat a fully armed, resource-rich regimes. In fact, historically, nonviolent movements have been twice as effective against violent regimes as armed insurgencies. This course will consider skills of organized populations in inter-state and intra-state conflicts, including anti-dictatorship, anti-occupation, anti-corruption, anti-violence struggles and analyze how disciplined civilians use nonviolent strategies and tactics to galvanize large and diverse participation, place their violent opponents in dilemma, make repression backfire and cause defections among adversaries' pillars of support.