Defense Statecraft (DIP 750)
Spring 2010
Tuesday 3:30pm-6:00pm
Dr. Robert
M. Farley
Office:
Patterson 467
Office
Hours: Tuesday, 1-3pm
Office
Telephone: 859-257-4668
E-mail: farls0@gmail.com
Introduction
Military organizations
are complex tools of statecraft. This course examines the role that military
force plays in U.S. foreign policy, and the capacity of the Army, Air Force,
Navy, and Marines to execute that policy. We will also study the
administrative, budget, and procurement aspects of defense policy. Students
should expect to gain familiarity with the key military policy issues that
confront government officials, and to become able to evaluate the claims of
journalists and advocacy organizations that confront informed American opinion.
Format
Student
discussion will take up the bulk of class time. I expect everyone to
attend, have studied the readings, and have a familiarity with current
events. Any major reputable newspaper will suffice for the latter, although
I prefer the New York Times.
Grading
Grading will
be based on class participation (20%), class blog participation (10%), and
three 4-6 page memos (15% each) and one final examination (25%).
Each student
is required to post at least once to the class blog, defensestatecraft.blogspot.com, in each of five weeks
during the course of the semester. The idea of the blog is to promote
serious discussions of the readings and of current events tied to military
statecraft. I will monitor blog postings and assign a grade based on quantity
and quality of participation. Postings should specifically integrate the
material from class readings and extend class debates.
Each of the
three 4-6 page memos must be typed and double-spaced. Please do not
exceed the page limit. The point of the assignment is to present
information in a cogent and concise manner. The topic is up to you, but
ideally will concern the convergence of a current event or situation with assigned
reading from the class day in question. Memos are due at the beginning of
class on the day of the relevant reading. You will be expected to turn in
one memo during each third of the course. Thus, the last day for turning
in your first memo is February 16, and the first day for turning in your last
memo is March 30.
You will be
required to make an oral presentation and defense of one memo during
class. You must indicate to me a preference for which week to present by
the second week of the course, such that I can stagger presentations. The
presentation should last about fifteen minutes, and will be followed by a
fifteen minute question and answer period. The presentation will make up
50% of your participation grade, or 10% of the total grade.
The memos
will be evaluated on both content and presentation. Information must be
accurate, arguments must be well thought out, and style must be
compelling.
Class Materials
Purchase of
the following books is recommended, but not required.
The rest of
the class readings are either online or will be made available in the computer
room. The latter are designated by italics.
Week 1 (1/19): Politics and Military Force
Samuel
Huntington, Soldier and the State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957; 7-58.
Week
2 (1/26): Politics and Military Force (II)
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars 1-50, 127-207, 251-262,
304-328
Week 3 (2/2): Conventional Ground Combat and Force Quality
Stephen Biddle, Military
Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2004; 1-107, 132-149.
Kenneth Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 1-148.
E.D. Swinton, The Defence of Duffer’s
Drift in Burgoyne, Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa
Week 4 (2/9): Low Intensity Warfare
FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency, December
2006; Chapters 1-8
Week
5 (2/16): Low Intensity Warfare (II)
Final
week to turn in first memo assignment.
David Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency
Era, 25-46
Michael L.
Burgoyne et al The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa
Gian Gentile, Population-Centric COIN and
the Army
Week 6 (2/23): Naval Warfare / Power Projection
Wayne Hughes, Fleet
Tactics and Coastal Combat, 2nd edition (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,
1999), pp. 1-44, 145-168, 266-309
US Naval Strategy in the 1990s, Chapter
3 “From the Sea”, Chapter 5 “Forward… From the Sea”.
Hoffman, Frank, The
Fleet We Need, Armed Forces Journal, August 2006
Week 7 (3/2): Air Power
Anthony Cordesman,
America’s Self-Destroying Air Power
Robert Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996; 55-136
Charles Dunlap, Shortchanging the
Joint Fight
Brian Mockenhaupt,
We’ve Seen the Future, and it’s Unmanned
Noah Shachtman, How the Afghanistan Air War Got Stuck in the Sky
Week 8 (3/9): Nuclear Theory
Lawrence Freedman, “The First Two Generations of Nuclear
Strategists,” in Peter Paret ed. Makers of Modern
Strategy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987; 735-778.
Lynn
Eden, Whole World on Fire. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; 15-62.
Jeffrey
Lewis, After the Reliable Replacement Warhead
Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, The Nukes We Need
Week 9 (3/23): Chemical and Biological Weapons
Richard Price, Genealogy of the Chemical Weapons Taboo
Albert Mauroni,
New Threat of Unconventional Warfare
Week 10 (3/30): The Military Services
Final week to turn in second memo assignment.
Carl H.
Builder, The Masks of War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press,
1989)
Week 11 (4/6): Organizations, Change, and Transformation
Adam Ciralsky,
Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy
David Ucko, the New Counter-Insurgency Era, 1-24, 47-182
Colin S. Gray, “How has War changed
since the end of the Cold War?” Parameters, Spring 2005.
Week 12 (4/13): Jointness and
Goldwater-Nichols
Clark
Murdoch et al, Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: Defense Reform for a New Strategic
Era. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005: Phase 1 and Phase 2
Christopher M. Schnaubelt,
After the Fight: Interagency Operations, Parameters, Winter 2005/2006
Week 13 (4/20): Strategic Planning Process
Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 2006
Michael C. Desch, "Planning War in Peacetime," Joint Forces
Quarterly (Spring 2002), pp. 94-104.
Week 14 (4/27): Defense Budget, Procurement, and the Defense
Industry
Final week to turn in third memo assignment.
Lawrence Korb
et al, Building a Military for the 21st Century: New Realities, New
Priorities