International Security Studies (ISS)

This course provides an introduction to the study of international relations. It covers several approaches to and issues in the field, including theories of international politics, war, nuclear weapons, terrorism, trade, finance, globalization, international law and human rights, and the environment.

The United States is the most powerful state in the world today. Its actions are important not just for US citizens, but they also affect whether others go to war, whether they will win their wars, whether they receive economic aid, whether they will go broke, or whether they will starve. What determines US foreign policy? What is the national interest? When do we go to war? Would you send US soldiers into war? If so, into which wars and for what reasons? How do our economic policies affect others? Does trade help or hurt the US economy and its citizens? We first study several theories about foreign policy. We then examine the US foreign policy process, including the President, Congress, the bureaucracy, the media, and public opinion. To see how this all works, we turn to the history of US foreign policy, from Washington's farewell address through the World Wars and the Cold War to the Gulf War. We then study several major issue areas, including weapons of mass destruction, trade and economics, and the environment. Finally, we develop and debate forecasts and strategies for the future.

This course serves as a gateway for subsequent coursework in international security. It is a required course in the Notre Dame International Security Center's undergraduate certificate program requirements, but it is also appropriate for, and open to, any Notre Dame students interested in U.S. national security policymaking. It will begin with an account of the history and development of U.S. national security policy from the Founding through the present. Next, it examines the current state of the primary institutions involved in U.S. national security policymaking. Finally, it explores the tools and instruments of military statecraft as applied by the United States. The course culminates with a simulation exercise in which students will role-play key participants in the U.S. national security policymaking process. At a minimum, that students will gain from it the analytical tools, historical knowledge, and current-events background to become more informed citizens, particularly with respect to important national debates about when and how our country should use military force. At a maximum, the course may lead some students to become interested enough in the topic to pursue a career in either the practice or the study of U.S. national security policy. The current draft version of the syllabus is posted at https://www3.nd.edu/~dlindley/handouts/ND_NDISC_cert_gateway_syl.pdf.

In the wake of the Holocaust, the German author Gunther Grass concluded that we now finally knew ourselves. The Holocaust changed everything. Nazi Germany murdered more than six million men, women, and children in a systematic effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Its shocking and spectacular barbarism shattered comfortable ideas about European civilization and called into question the essential goodness of humanity. It compelled scholars to search for new ideas about evil, new words like "genocide" simply to place and comprehend the scale of the slaughter and devastation. Politics, art, culture, and even religions would be fundamentally and irrevocably transformed by the Holocaust. This course will investigate why Nazi Germany attempted to systematically exterminate the Jews of Europe, explore why so many Germans either participated in or accepted this act of mass violence, and consider why other Europeans so often assisted them. It will investigate the legacies of the Holocaust; how survivors and their families attempted to rebuild their lives in the wake of horror, how Germans variously struggled to come to terms with what they, their countrymen, or their ancestors had done, and how various understandings of the Holocaust have shaped political, cultural, and social discourses around the world. Along the way, students will practice the skills of historical literacy. They will digest, analyze, and criticize scholarship (secondary literature). They will discern the relevance of particular interpretations for important debates. They will use sustained analysis of primary sources to develop, articulate, and defend their own historical interpretations and arguments.

This one-credit experiential course will familiarize students with the interagency at work in an embassy country team. Bridging classroom learning with policy application in the real world, students will learn how to manage competing priorities and friction in the American foreign policy bureaucracy. This course will include 13 hours of instruction, including on site experiential learning over Fall Break.

This course explores the myriad of national security policy challenges facing the United States and the policy options to address these challenges. The course will explore security issues with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as well as climate change, global health/pandemics, cyber threats/security and terrorism/extremism. The course will include lectures by policy experts and student engagement with these experts to explore policy options and their potential for success. Students will conduct research of primary source policy documents to develop a policy memorandum for the US National Security Council that will outline a policy challenge for the United States and recommend policy options for consideration.

Description: In this one-credit seminar, students will learn about the US Intelligence Community and its key roles: collecting and disseminating intelligence, providing all-source analysis of foreign developments and threats, and undertaking covert action at the request of the President. They will develop a deep understanding of how senior US policymakers and military officials use intelligence collection and analysis, as well as covert action, in shaping US foreign policy. Students will focus on driving discussions through an in-depth understanding of the course materials, respectful discourse and debate, and concise writing in the manner US policymakers prefer.

This seminar explores the phenomenon of moral injury and psychological trauma in combat and related high-stakes operational environments. We will examine definitions, conceptual frameworks, assessment tools, treatment and repair pathways, and the ethical, policy, and institutional challenges of moral injury in military and intelligence settings. Students will engage with interdisciplinary scholarship, case studies, and debates over the role of institutions and policy in mitigating moral injury. The course will include a discussion connecting moral injury frameworks with intelligence-community decision-making.

This course is intended as the ISS crosslist for the HIST 35751 summer course and experiential learning program, which we aim to develop in partnership with the US Military Academy, explores operations and strategy during the final sixteen months of the Second World War in Europe. Tracing the key strategic, operational, and tactical decisions from Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge, students will actively participate throughout the program through the course’s staff ride component. The summer course itself will proceed in three parts: pre-staff ride preparations and group integration, where students will begin work on their role assignments for the staff ride, completed preparatory reading, and spend time getting to know one another before the staff ride itself begins. The second portion will consist of the staff ride itself, beginning on June 21 in London and concluding in Belgium on June 30. The final portion of the trip will involve reflection and a writing assignment following the experiential learning component’s completion.

This course is a one-credit, three week examination of the intelligence community's role in national security policymaking. See section notes for more information.