NS3028 Homeland Security: Global Threats and Lessons

Offered by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, this course provides students with an understanding of global threats impacting homeland security and the manner in which other countries are dealing with similar threats. U.S. homeland security is increasingly interconnected with national security and there is a growing overlap between “foreign” and “domestic” threats. To defend the U.S. homeland properly, homeland security professionals must understand the nature of these threats, their potential impacts, and when and where these threats could adversely impact our country. A better understanding of these global threats also allows students to explore and asses how other countries are coping with similar threats. The United States can accordingly learn from some of the strategies and practices of these countries at the federal, state, and local levels. Prerequisite: None.

Lecture Hours

4

Lab Hours

0

Course Learning Outcomes

• Critically examine foreign homeland security strategies, policies, and practices through analysis of the historical, political, economic, and legal factors that underpin homeland security policy in a range of countries. Students will consider the role and interplay of institutions in other countries and assess the risks and consequences of homeland security policies in those countries. Additionally, students will understand homeland security threats and challenges facing these countries and assess preparedness and resilience in these countries.
• Using an interdisciplinary range of sources, ideas, and practice, and employing a comparative methodology, students will apply creativity and critical-thinking skills to analyze and evaluate foreign institutions, missions, capabilities, interests, equities, and limitations of the homeland security enterprise in a range of countries.
• Students will consider how historical, political, social, and ethical factors can affect homeland security policymaking in a range of foreign countries. Students will consider a range of models of leadership that exist in these countries and derive lessons from institutional dynamics and communication with diverse constituencies as evident in these countries.
• Students will build on their existing research and writing skills as they learn and apply the comparative method to analyze the degree of applicability of various successful foreign strategies, policies, and/or practices to agencies in the United States. Students will refine their abilities to identify, evaluate, and integrate source materials; assess and address their own analytical biases, and analyze how complexity and change define the homeland security discourse in other countries. Students will create knowledge that has academic and/or practical value, informing policy discussions and enriching the literature on homeland security.
• Students will develop innovative approaches to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the homeland security enterprise by using the comparative methodology to understand diverse frames of reference overseas and assess practicality and utility of applying foreign approaches to implement US homeland security goals and objectives. Students will assess novel concepts and ideas based on foreign practices in order to prompt informed discussions among homeland security and defense policymakers and professionals about strategy, policy, resource management, and operational constraints.