Curriculum

This course is designed to introduce key concepts, awareness, and critical thinking around a consistently evolving threat landscape. It will provide historical and contemporary case studies pertaining to three major areas that are key to national and global security: environmental, national security, and cyber-based challenges. The course will focus on class interaction and dialogue on understanding historical threats, the evolution of them, and how the understanding of a changing threat environment will enable students to apply critical thinking, analysis, and heightened awareness to develop and apply potential strategic mitigation solutions. Students will have the opportunity to interact with subject matter expert guest speakers who are current or former U.S. government practitioners. Given that class will be conducted in a remote environment, online content (articles, streaming video, podcasts, social media) will be routinely included; students will also be regularly asked to self-identify relevant content for discussion and presentation. There will be an emphasis on real-world application such as developing high level policy positions and tabletop exercises.

Incomplete data, mission information, or rapidly changing scenarios requires a pragmatic approach to reach an optimal solution. This course will introduce students to a decision process usable in any scenario. Students will learn to identify, gather, and process available information for use in a set yet flexible process to identify and reduce risk, protect people and property, and maintain optimal business operations.

This course is designed to introduce students to the functioning of U.S. bureaucracy, particularly in the context of real life political and ethical dilemmas students are likely to face in a rapidly changing world. Through analytic frameworks, case studies, presentations, and class exercises, students will learn about the wide range of bureaucratic stakeholders, how bureaucracies are held accountable, and how to influence bureaucratic outcomes. Course topics will include changes in national security bureaucratic structures and policy following the attacks of September 11, 2001, data privacy, whistleblowers, ethical dilemmas in artificial intelligence policy, and bureaucratic responses to technological threats.

This course is designed to introduce students to threat response planning, management, and crisis communications, using real-world examples to analyze the most effective strategies for effective crisis response. The class will assess and analyze recent crisis responses, and then apply the knowledge learned from those case studies to develop and execute crisis response plans during tabletop exercises. Students will have the opportunity to interact with subject matter expert guest speakers with expertise in effective crisis response and communications, as well as gain tangible communications skills to prepare for engagement in a diverse media landscape.

This course teaches students key principles of Business Continuity, Contingency, Resilience and Sustainability(CCRS) and how to develop CCRS strategies using battle-tested frameworks and data-driven methodologies. The course will review noteworthy events of the past that created significant challenges for key industry verticals, participants, and service providers. The instructor will bring use-cases from both the public and private sector and will create discussion forums about what happened, what worked, what did not work according to plan, lessons learned and expectations for preparedness (operational, tactical, and strategic). Naturally, there are many factors that every organization must consider in planning for localized and systemic crises and threats, this course will consider both general and specialized issues associated with various verticals of critical infrastructure and assets, such as: organizations, people, operations, systems, and delivery of services and products. In particular, reviewing systemic implications of highly complex interconnected and interdependent systems under crisis.

The goal is to use the historical experiences as well as forward looking analysis and assumptions as a backdrop for identifying the key factors of a Continuity, Contingency, Resilience and Sustainability enabled enterprise. The course will enable the students to develop and/or evaluate a CCRS plan and corresponding tools for industry-wide and firm-specific adoption. A deep dive of operational, infrastructure and enterprise risks and contingency plans for each risk type will be emphasized.

Managing cyber risk requires avoiding the mistakes of the past, understanding how to navigate within a layered security environment, and an appreciation of when best practices are likely to fail. This course develops a firm understanding of cybersecurity concepts and recent history through case studies of cyberattacks and responses. Students will develop an appreciation for how the U.S. government's approach to cybersecurity has changed over time. Students will apply analytical tools to the policy problems created by that system, such as how the current system leads to gaps between the Federal and state governments, government and the private sector, and various nations. Given the ever evolving nature of cyber risk, this course will examine how these policies are playing out against current attacks highlighted in unclassified sources.

Energy is a perennial policy issue and political concern for cities, states/provinces and countries around the world. Motivated by the challenges of energy security, economic prosperity and environmental sustainability, politicians and the public are seeking a lower carbon energy future fueled by cleaner, more efficient energy technologies. Changes in energy resources and their attendant critical infrastructures bring changes in economic, political and social power and the energy transition currently sweeping the globe brings with it the disruptive forces that are unsettling vested economic interests, extant political alliances and individual and institutional habits. This course will examine the current energy transition through the multiple lenses of economic prosperity, political stability, and critical infrastructure. The course will provide the student a thorough understanding of the various dimensions of the energy-socio-political dynamic as well as the skills necessary to critically evaluate domestic and international policy debates surrounding our energy technology choices and the critical infrastructure networks the form around our energy choices.

This course is designed to introduce students to the global threats that impact the national security of the United States. The course will explore the origins of the threats and how these threats impact national security policy development and implementation for the United States. The course will provide an in-depth discussion of the origins and threats posed by Russia, China, emerging regional threats like Iran and North Korea and other non-State Actors. Themes that we expect to be prominent include national security, cyber security, economic policy, climate change, global conflict, terrorism, and military operations.

In this course, you will complete the proposal for your capstone project.

This course will guide you through researching and implementing your capstone project.

In this course, you will write up the findings from your capstone project and prepare to present them.