Course 5604, the Geostrategic Context, focuses on the international security context. This course draws on the major conceptual frameworks studied in the first two courses of the college's core curriculum, Fundamental of Statecraft and Fundamentals of Military Thought and Strategy, and an understanding of the U.S. policy process developed in Course 5603. In turn, Course 5604 provides the international security context for the consideration of military strategy and operations, which will be studied in Course 5605.
The principle objective of this core course is to enhance our understanding of the global and regional contexts in which challenges to U.S. interests arise and in which the country's foreign and security policies operate. The Geostrategic Context course focuses on: U.S. national interests both globally and regionally; trends and developments in various regions that affect these interests as well as transnational or non-traditional challenges; views and motivations of key countries, particularly where those perceptions differ from ours; and current and alternative global and regional strategies and policies that the United States pursues or might productively follow.
The purpose of the course is not to create regional experts, but to develop a working knowledge of the international security context that is essential for creating, analyzing and carrying out national security strategy and policy. Students will be expected to analyze critically regional trends and developments, to compare and contrast regional contexts and foreign perspectives, and to prioritize among U.S. interests in a particular region and among regions.
As noted above, a sophisticated understanding of global and regional contexts is essential for the development and implementation of effective strategy and policy. It was the U.S. government's lack of such a comprehension of "the context" that was the primary reason for failures in U.S. policies toward Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. To paraphrase both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, to use power effectively, statesmen and military officers must understand what kind of a war or foreign affairs situation they are engaged in and know the motivations and capabilities of both friends and foes. One can argue that many wars as well as missed opportunities result from the lack of knowledge of the perspectives of the state and non-state actors we are dealing with. Understanding the importance of such contextual information is the essence of this course. Therefore, we will devote considerable attention to the views and perceptions of others. As such, Course 5604 provides an essential underpinning for your study of the development and analysis of U.S. defense policy and military strategy in the following core course.
Finally, this course is aimed at increasing awareness of linkages among regions of the world and of contemporary global trends and issues. Technology, global communication and transportation make it increasingly likely that developments, trends and problems in one country or region will spread across national and regional boundaries. The course will begin with a consideration of some of these transnational or non-traditional security issues.
Course Objectives.
The objectives of the Geostrategic Context course are to:
- Identify political, social, economic, cultural, and historical trends and issues in key regions and nations that determine the context and, thereby, constrain or enhance U.S. policy options. (PJE)
- Understand and then assess U.S. interests and goals toward major regions and states. (PJE)
- Analyze opportunities, challenges, and threats to U.S. interests and goals. (PJE)
- Examine the major global and transnational issues that present important challenges for strategists, including:
- Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
- Ethnic and national conflict;
- Migration and refugee pressures;
- Environmental concerns;
- International terrorism; and
- Organized crime and narcotics trafficking. (PJE)
- Demonstrate the ability to craft national security objectives and formulate national security strategy.
Course Methodology
As in your earlier core courses, we will use a mix of teaching and learning methods. You will hear a wide range of views from speakers -- U.S. government officials and government critics, ambassadors, journalists, policy analysts and academic specialists. The seminar will remain the principle instructional method, informed by readings and guest lectures, complemented by a regionally focused group project, and culminating with a course-end national strategy exercise. In this strategy exercise, each seminar will develop its own forward-looking national strategy. In addition to the general syllabus and reading packages assigned for each component of the course, there will be several differentiated reading assignments where groups of students will pursue specific topics in depth, and share their findings with their seminar mates.
All students will cover three major regions of the world: Northeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. These core regions were chosen because they have been and continue to be the major foci of U.S. foreign policy. They are the regions in which vital U.S. interests are involved, in which the major challenges to U.S. security are likely to arise, and in which large contingents of U.S. forces are stationed.
Each student will also study another region of the world through a week-long concentration on that area. Then, as part of a two or three-person team, students will develop a regional strategy analysis and brief their analysis to their seminar mates. The purpose is to enhance students' knowledge of the process of strategic analysis in a specific regional context. It also gives each student the opportunity to develop greater understanding of a single region of the world than would be possible if the entire class studied each and every part of the world. Each student will choose a region different than that of the student's Regional Studies seminar, with the objective of expanding our knowledge of various regions rather than focusing more narrowly on familiar areas. The five regional areas are the Western Hemisphere, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and Africa.
Course 5604 will conclude with a National Security Strategy Exercise (NSSE). In this exercise, each seminar will develop a national security strategy for the U.S. looking toward the year 2010 and beyond. Separate syllabi will be provided for the regional analysis block and for the NSSE.
In this course we will employ a "Concept for Analysis" comparable to and consistent with the frameworks you have used in Courses 5601 and 5602. This framework presents a set of structured questions that are intended to help students analyze various regions in a consistent, comparative way, both in terms of regional contexts and with respect to prioritization of U.S. interests. As in the previous core courses, this framework is intended to help students organize their thoughts and address strategy development and evaluation in a logical and coherent manner.
Course Requirements.
As with all National War College courses, learning requires preparation. The required readings listed for each topic should be read and analyzed before the seminar meets or the lecture is held. The faculty has selected the readings for their relevance, quality of ideas, readability, and timeliness. Generally, these readings are listed in an order reflecting the logical development of the topic and can be most profitably read in that order. For some topics, notably in the Middle East section, country-specific readings are listed for individual assignment as faculty may choose. The reprinted readings include a number of documents (such as the "Shanghai Communique" and U.N. Resolution 1199 on Kosovo) and Department of State fact sheets for student reference. Supplemental readings are listed for background reference and for those who might wish to pursue a particular topic in greater depth, but are neither required nor reprinted.
The course writing requirement is an outline or point paper to accompany student briefings on their regional analyses. These briefings and the accompanying paper will be a group project prepared during the regional analysis block and presented to the student groups' "home seminars" at the beginning of the National Security Strategy Exercise block. In cross-briefings to home seminars, the regional teams will be expected to: identify U.S. interests in the region, examine threats to those interests, identify opportunities for U.S. policy in the region, evaluate current U.S. policy and strategy in the region, and provide policy recommendations.
Acknowledgements
The development of Course 5604, as with all NWC core courses, was a collaborative effort incorporating ideas from across the faculty and suggestions from previous student critiques. The syllabus and readings reflect recommendations from a number of faculty, in particular Bud Cole and Marvin Ott for Asia; Roy Stafford for Europe; Bard O'Neill for the Middle East; and Cynthia Watson for South America. Trish Laszczak provided invaluable support in securing copyright permissions and reprints. Angela Parham made numerous suggestions for reading assignments and prepared the timelines that appear in the syllabus. Joyce Whiting cheerfully and expertly prepared the syllabus for printing and took care of the many administrative details that accompany such an undertaking.
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