Aims

By the end of this course, students will have assimilated and understood the particular features of the strategic approach to international relations. They will also be able to analyse a historic event or a topical issue, and demonstrate that they can handle the data and essential concepts of strategic analysis.

Main themes

To provide the training that is needed for an understanding of the diplomatic and military aspects of the strategic dimension of contemporary international relations.

Content and teaching methods

Content
(1) Introduction: The strategy in question: definition, semantic acceptances and levels, strategy and international relations (debates, schools and doctrines). (2) Military matters: The Ancients, Clausewitz and Liddel Hart. Present-day issue: the revolution in military affairs. (3) Nuclear power: Origins, strategic doctrines and technological development, and international regulation (e.g. the ABM treaty, SALT, INF and CTBT. Present-day issue: NMB and the change in American nuclear policy. (4) Crisis management: Armed conflicts vs war, peacekeeping, and coercive diplomacy. Present-day issue: Strategies for managing crises in the Balkans.
Methodology
The course will be organised as a sequence of modules whose compound logic will facilitate an alternation between theory and reality, and between concepts and concrete examples. Each module will initially be based on a historical fact chosen for its exceptional strategic dimension, and the strategic theories and doctrines developed on the basis of this event will be presented and criticised. Lastly, a topical issue will be analysed, and an attempt will be made to reveal the virtues and limitations of the theories studied, and present-day doctrinal debates.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Pre-requirements: Students will ideally have already attended the course on "International relations from 1815 to the present day", or equivalent.
Written work + an oral examination.
Course notes, reading file and an indicative bibliography.

Other credits in programs