The Interagency and National Security

The course will analyze national security policy decision-making in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. Government. It will also include the roles of non-government actors like think tanks, the media, political lobbyists, and civil society as well as review the processes that other countries employ (e.g., Australia, Brazil, Canada, Sierra Leone, South Africa, UK). This will include gaining an understanding of whom the U.S. government national security-related interagency/whole of government actors are, how they are organized internally, how they function internally, whom they work with externally, and how to work with them from the perspective of an actor within the national security interagency community.

Students should have the desire to understand how the U.S. national security policy and strategy interagency/whole of government decision making process works from the perspective of both the academic analyst and the national security practitioner.