New King’s College Course on Intelligence and National Security
Posted by neftimiades on March 31, 2013
This is a new graduate course I will be teaching for King’s College War Studies Department beginning autumn, 2013. The course is called Intelligence & National Security in the Undiscovered Country . It will be a 20 credit Master’s Degree course on the future of intelligence and national security. The course description is DRAFT.
Module Description:
Consider for a moment the words of William Shakespeare who characterized our fear of the future in Hamlet. “The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of” Hamlet tells us that it is better to suffer the ills of the day than to travel to the Undiscovered Country. What will the future bring for intelligence and national security and are we prepared for it?
The concept of a nation state is changing. Globalization, regional alliances, global and regional environmental and economic issues, telecommunications, changing demographics, and integrating social value systems are altering the nation state. The idea of what it means to “defend ourselves” decades from now will be dramatically different from what it is today. New constructs for national security necessitate new intelligence and military capabilities. Defending a nation may become an exercise in cyber warfare, global policing functions, nation building and support, small unit combat operations, and exerting diplomatic, political, and economic influence. As the emphasis in national security capabilities changes so too will the intelligence functions supporting them.
