Time Schedule:
Christopher D Jones
SIS 421
Seattle Campus
Major military aspects of contemporary international politics. Uses and limitations of military capabilities for sustaining a stable international order and national security. Processes by which states detect and assess threats to their security; practice of deterrence; transfer of arms among states; pursuit of arms control. Recommended: one SIS or international relations course.
Class description
SIS 421studies how democracies since 1945 have linked security policies from the level of domestic politics to the level of alliance politics to the global level at which democracies confront non-democracies. Examines the applicability of 'realist international relations theory' and other conceptual approaches. Examines case studies, such as the evolution of the US-Japan security relationship and its impact on Japanese domestic politics; the impact of the US alliance system on the civil rights movement in the US; the relationship between the “norms” of the NATO alliance system and the NATO decisions to intervene in the ethno-nationalist wars of Yugoslavia; the relationship between the US military alliance system and non-proliferation regimes in Europe, East Asia, the zone encompassing the mid-east and south Asia; the domestic and alliance politics of the Bush Administration’s doctrine of pre-emption as applied to Iraq as a ‘non-proliferation’ policy and an 'anti-terrorism' policy.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
lecture, discussion
Recommended preparation
some background in one or more of the following: US politics, Eurasian politics, international political economy
Class assignments and grading
200 pages of reading per week weekly short papers long final paper no midterm exam, no final exam
scores on papers
