This course on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) will examine the non-violent approaches to countering violent extremism, such as prevention (preventing violent extremism, PVE), intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration programs. The course will also examine the pathways individuals take to extremism, with a focus on the myriad of push and pull factors that can contribute to radicalization. The course will also examine the various types of CVE/PVE programs developed by governmental and non-governmental entities. The course is experiential by design and the class will participate in the Invent 2 Prevent (I2P) program sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, the McCain Institute and EdVenture Partners. I2P is a national competition whereupon, specifically, students in the class will create a tool, product, or initiative to prevent targeted violence and extremism.

Current Trends in Terrorism Research

The course examines current themes and policy-relevant analytical questions regarding present-day terrorism. These topics include alternative conceptions of terrorism studies, including from the critical terrorism studies perspective; issues of gender and terrorism; media and extremism; terrorism in the cyber domain; conspiracy theories and their impact on extremism and terrorism. It will also discuss issues of terrorism research methods issues that have arisen in recent years. From a forecasting perspective, it will examine how David Rapoport’s waves of terrorism is applicable in assessing global extremism and terrorism today. Topics will also include the transnational nature of far-right extremism and terrorism, as well as recent research on psychological factors and online radicalization.

Syllabus topics:

1. Critical terrorism studies – theory and policy

2. Terrorism research methods. Debates in terrorism research

3. Terrorism and civil wars

4. Gender issues and terrorism

5. How terrorists use natural disasters for political influence

6. Psychology and contemporary radicalization; online radicalization and the
psychological basis

7. Fifth wave of terrorism and forecasting

8. Contemporary state-sponsored terrorism; risks for the state

9. The transnational nature of contemporary far-right terrorism

10. Media and terrorism; disinformation campaigns

11. Cyber terrorism

12. Conspiracy theories and terrorism/extremism

13. Competition amongst terrorist groups

Seminar: Deterrence and Influence Terrorism and WMD Proliferation

This seminar examines deterrence and other strategies for responding to security threats, with a focus on how those strategies might be adapted to deal with the dangers posed by terrorism and WMD proliferation. The course will survey existing research on deterrence and various alternative policy tools such as coercive diplomacy, assurance, positive incentives, and soft power. It will introduce some of the latest thinking about whether these tools are useful for influencing actors away from support for terrorism or WMD acquisition or use.

Throughout the nuclear age – from the Manhattan Project to our own challenge of assessing with Iran’s nuclear program – the history of nuclear proliferation intelligence has been largely an history of failures. No doubt, intelligence about nuclear proliferation is a tricky business. And yet policy makers do need intelligence to make decisions on proliferation matters.

The seminar is both a study of one generis problem, and also a story of a history of that problem. Understanding the complexity of the problem defines our historical survey, while history will be also an aid to appreciate better the problem. In a way, the seminar’s overall interest is to narrate and revisit the history of nuclear proliferation from the perspective of problem of intelligence.

The course examines the problem of nuclear intelligence by revisiting key cases in the history of nuclear proliferation: Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union in the mid-late 1940s, the early NIEs on proliferation, Israel in the late 50s and the 1960s, India in 1974, Pakistan in the 1980s, South Africa in the late 1970s and 1980s, Iraq (twice) in the 1980s, India (second time) in 1998, and Iran today.

The idea of security is experienced or defined very differently in different quarters of the Middle East. If you are, say, in Mosul or Baghdad, in Damascus or Aleppo, in Gaza or Hebron, in Jerusalem or Kfar Etzion or Tel Aviv, in Amman or Beirut, in Cairo or El Arish, in Doha or Riyadh. Each of those places stimulates a different sense of security, in the personal or collective sense, and yet their overall security discourse is interconnected. The overall discourse on security in the Middle East is influenced, affected, interrupted, and shaped by what is going on in the region. They represent different facets of the larger issue and discourse of security in the Middle East.

The seminar will address the issue and the discourse of security in the Middle East, with stress on the two sides of the spectrum, from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to acts of terrorism. We will look at the issue of security from both the national and the regional levels.

The seminar’s fundamental starting point is that to understand the issue of security in the region one must examine the broader historical fundamentals of the region. Religion, ethnicity, ideology, identity and, of course, politics are all closely related to the broader issue of security. Those issues are at the core of all regional conflicts as well as global terrorism; those issues shape the making of the modern Middle East. For this reason the seminar begins with a broad introduction on the making of the modern Middle East. Among the basic themes to be discussed in that introduction are:

• the idea of the “Middle East” as a distinct geo-political region;

• the fundamentals of the region: the religious, ethnic, and linguistic composition of the Middle East;

• The split Sunni versus Shia

• Islam as the major religion of the Middle East;

• the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as the cradle of the modern Middle East;

• the formation of the state system in the Middle East;

• the rise of political Zionism,

• the birth of the Arab-Israeli conflict;

• the rise of modern Iran;

• the creation of Modern Saudi Arabia and the Gulf;

Then, and against this introductory background, the seminar will examine the issue of contemporary security in the Middle East from both national and regional perspectives. We will look at the issue of security in the cases of the major states in the Middle East: Egypt, Iraq, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Israel. As it turns out, those countries –each in its unique way -- struggle now with issues of national identity and ideology that shapes their sense of security or lack therein.

The final part of the seminar will deal with regional issues involve regional security, WMD and ISIS. We will review not only the formation of the nuclear order in the Middle East where is Israel maintains a “benign monopoly” but also the history of the efforts to constrain and control the spread of WMD in the region, and why those efforts turned out not to be successful. The seminar will end by discussing the history as well as the desirability and feasibility of the efforts to establish the Middle East as WMD free zone.

The MANPTS Honors Thesis is a highly selective program through which a limited number of students will design and conduct individual research projects of professional length, scope, and quality under the guidance of a faculty advisor. Applications for the honors thesis will be accepted in the Spring from students in their second or subsequent semesters in the NPTS MA program who are currently maintaining a GPA of 3.7 or higher. Applications will require a personal statement, academic transcript, sample of research writing, proposal for the thesis, and recommendation from a member of the faculty or research staff. In recommending a student for the honors thesis, a faculty or staff member must agree to serve as the student’s thesis advisor if the student is selected for the program. The NPTS Program Chair will appoint a selection committee composed of NPTS faculty and staff from the appropriate MIIS research centers to review applications. Students will be selected for the honors thesis on the basis of GPA, demonstrated proficiency in research and analytical writing, and any other relevant criteria as determined by the selection committee. Throughout the Fall semester, thesis advisors will provide students enrolled in NPTG 8662 with individualized supervision of their thesis projects in a manner similar to a directed study. Thesis advisors will set a schedule for research and writing of the thesis and will meet with students as needed to review progress and provide comments and advice. At the end of the Fall semester, students will present their projects to the Monterey Institute community in a symposium at which invited experts will provide comments and suggestions for further development and publication of research.

The MANPTS Honors Thesis is a highly selective program through which a limited number of students will design and conduct individual research projects of professional length, scope, and quality under the guidance of a faculty advisor. Applications for the honors thesis will be accepted in the Spring from students in their second or subsequent semesters in the NPTS MA program who are currently maintaining a GPA of 3.7 or higher. Applications will require a personal statement, academic transcript, sample of research writing, proposal for the thesis, and recommendation from a member of the faculty or research staff. In recommending a student for the honors thesis, a faculty or staff member must agree to serve as the student’s thesis advisor if the student is selected for the program. The NPTS Program Chair will appoint a selection committee composed of NPTS faculty and staff from the appropriate MIIS research centers to review applications. Students will be selected for the honors thesis on the basis of GPA, demonstrated proficiency in research and analytical writing, and any other relevant criteria as determined by the selection committee. Throughout the Fall semester, thesis advisors will provide students enrolled in NPTG 8662 with individualized supervision of their thesis projects in a manner similar to a directed study. Thesis advisors will set a schedule for research and writing of the thesis and will meet with students as needed to review progress and provide comments and advice. At the end of the Fall semester, students will present their projects to the Monterey Institute community in a symposium at which invited experts will provide comments and suggestions for further development and publication of research.

The MANPTS Honors Thesis is a highly selective program through which a limited number of students will design and conduct individual research projects of professional length, scope, and quality under the guidance of a faculty advisor. Applications for the honors thesis will be accepted in the Spring from students in their second or subsequent semesters in the NPTS MA program who are currently maintaining a GPA of 3.7 or higher. Applications will require a personal statement, academic transcript, sample of research writing, proposal for the thesis, and recommendation from a member of the faculty or research staff. In recommending a student for the honors thesis, a faculty or staff member must agree to serve as the student’s thesis advisor if the student is selected for the program. The NPTS Program Chair will appoint a selection committee composed of NPTS faculty and staff from the appropriate MIIS research centers to review applications. Students will be selected for the honors thesis on the basis of GPA, demonstrated proficiency in research and analytical writing, and any other relevant criteria as determined by the selection committee. Throughout the Fall semester, thesis advisors will provide students enrolled in NPTG 8662 with individualized supervision of their thesis projects in a manner similar to a directed study. Thesis advisors will set a schedule for research and writing of the thesis and will meet with students as needed to review progress and provide comments and advice. At the end of the Fall semester, students will present their projects to the Monterey Institute community in a symposium at which invited experts will provide comments and suggestions for further development and publication of research.