4.0

credits

Average Course Rating

What if warfare—the kind we see in World War II movies—never occurs again? The two great wars in Europe were total, unambiguous, and definitive. Warfare today appears ambiguous, murky, confusing, never ending and politically complicated—especially for the legalistic United States. Warfare today is a combination of low intensity conflict (often not violent conflict) and a fight over information via cyberspace – especially over ‘narratives’ that sway public opinion. The great powers specifically fight and stay in this early stage of warfare of cyberspace operations, information operations, and limited (or no) kinetic conflict, careful never to escalate to state-on-state war. This course will examine Russian hybrid warfare, Chinese ‘coercive gradualism,’ and how non-kinetic warfare (Information Operations, cyberspace operations) takes place and will likely remain the principal focus of national security policy today.