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İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi
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    GRADUATE SCHOOL

    Political Science and International Relations (With Thesis)

    PSIR 552 | Course Introduction and Application Information

    Course Name
    Conventional Security in International Relations
    Code
    Semester
    Theory
    (hour/week)
    Application/Lab
    (hour/week)
    Local Credits
    ECTS
    PSIR 552
    Fall/Spring
    3
    0
    3
    7.5

    Prerequisites
    None
    Course Language
    English
    Course Type
    Elective
    Course Level
    Second Cycle
    Mode of Delivery face to face
    Teaching Methods and Techniques of the Course -
    National Occupation Classification -
    Course Coordinator -
    Course Lecturer(s)
    Assistant(s)
    Course Objectives This course aims at over-viewing and analyzing through enquiring lenses the more important issues and theoretical approaches pertaining to international security’s conventional dimension, which is also known by the names military security, strategic studies and national security studies.
    Learning Outcomes

    The students who succeeded in this course;

    • Identify various theoretical and conceptual approaches pertaining to conventional security,
    • Discuss principal issues and challenges of conventional security in international relations;
    • Analyze conventional security’s issues and challenges using critical lenses;
    • Compare and contrast the security perspectives and policies of leading international actors;
    • Identify the impact and reflections of technological progress on international security;
    • Make projections on new security challenges and risks likely to be encountered by the international community in coming years.
    Course Description The introduction to the course would be made through a brief overview of the conceptual foundations of international relations and the notion of security. Since the students are presumed to have already acquainted themselves with the theoretical assumptions and theoretical aspects during previous phases of their education, the focus of the course would rapidly shift toward some of the contemporary issues of international and conventional security.
    Related Sustainable Development Goals

     



    Course Category

    		Core Courses
    Major Area Courses
    X
    Supportive Courses
    Media and Management Skills Courses
    Transferable Skill Courses

     

    WEEKLY SUBJECTS AND RELATED PREPARATION STUDIES

    Week Subjects Related Preparation
    1 Introduction: Course objectives, content, methodology Presentation and overview of the course.
    2 Theoretical precepts - I: security, realism, deterrence Matthew Kroenig, “Realism In Unrealistic,” Foreign Policy, August 19, 2026; Constant Méheut, “Ukraine Pursues a Weapons Buildup More Potent Than Any Security Guarantee,” The New York Times, September 2, 2025; Jonathan Kirshner, “Trump’s America First Is Not Realism,” Foreign Affairs, January 22, 2025; Carter Malkasian, “America’s Crisis off Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs, September 20, 2024; Daniek W, Drezner, “How Everything Became National Security,” Foreign Affairs, August 12, 2024; Joseph Bosco, “Appeasement never works,” The Hill, May 14, 2024; Stephen M. Walt, “Why Do People Hate Realism So Much” Foreign Policy, June 13, 2022; Stephen W. Walt, “An International Relations Theory Guide to the War in Ukraine,” Foreign Policy, March 8, 2022; Paul Poast, “A World of Power and Fear,“ Foreign Affairs, June 15, 2022; Stephen M. Walt, “The World Wants You to Think Like a Realist”, Foreign Policy, May 30, 2018.
    3 Theoretical precepts-II: deterrence, liberalism, constructivism, levels of analysis Stephen M. Walt, “How to Get B.A. in International Relations in 5 Minutes”, Foreign Policy, 19 May 2014; Graham Allison, “The Myth of the Liberal Order”, Foreign Affairs, 14 June 2018; Walter Russel Mead, “The End of the Wilsonian Era,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021; Thomas J. Christensen and Keren Yarhi-Molo, “The Human Factor,” Foreign Affairs, January 7, 2022; Stephen G. Brooks, “The Trade Truce,” Foreign Affairs, June 18, 2024; Michael Doyle, “Why They Don’t Fight,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2024; Branko Milanovic, “To the Finland Station,” January 2025.
    4 Weapons of Mass Destruction-1: Balance of Terror Scott D. Sagan, “The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” Foreign Affairs, March 16, 2022; Nikolai Sokov, “Russian military doctrine calls a limited nuclear strike de-escalation. Here’s why.” The Bulletin, March 8, 2022; Andrew F. Krepinewich, Jr., “The New Nuclear Age,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022; Charles L. Glaser, James M. Acton and Steve Fetter, “The U.S Arsenal Can Deter Both China and Russia,” Foreign Affairs, October 5, 2023; Paul Avey, “When Nuclear Weapons Fail to Deter,” Foreign Affairs, March 6, 2025.
    5 Weapons of Mass Destruction-2: Arms Control, Non-proliferation Doug Bandow, “Let Them Make Nukes,” Foreign Affairs, July 26, 2016; Jeffrey Lewis, “Nuclear Deals and Double Standards,” Foreign Affairs, October 2, 2018; Michael Krepon, “The rise and demise of arms control,” The Bulletin, November 15, 2021; Ray Takeyh, “The Bomb Will Backfire on Iran,” Foreign Affairs, October 18, 2021; Daniel Immerwahr, “Forgetting the apocalypse,” The Guardian, May 12, 2022; Franziska Stark and Ulrich Kühn, “Nuclear injustice,” October 26, 2022; Ward Haye Wilson, “Yes, nuclear weapons are immoral. They’re also, practically speaking, useless,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 19, 2023; Kallenborn, “Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, the humanity,” The Bulletin, January 10, 2024; Zuzanna Gwadera, “Russia rejects US call for arms-control talks,” IISS/MDI, February 24, 2024; Doreen Horschig and Heather Williams, “The Crumbling Order,” Foreign Affairs, September 16, 2024; Olamide Samuel, “Once seen as a symbolic protest, the nuclear ban treaty is growing,” The Bulletin, April 3, 2025; Ankit Panda, “Nuclear-weapons risks are back – and we need to act like it,” Nature, August 2025; Robert Kelley, “Facts about nuclear materials trafficking,” SIPRI Topic Backgrounder, 2025.
    6 Arms Trade, Export Controls Lawrence Marzouk (et.al.), “Making a Killing”, BalkanInsight.com, July 27, 2016; Michael LaForgia and Walt Bogdanich, “Why Bombs Made in America Have Been Killing Civilians in Yemen,” The New York Times, May 16, 2020; Alper Coşkun, “Strengthening Turkish Policy on Drone Exports,” Carnegie Article, January 18, 2022; Stephen Biddle, “Arming Ukraine Is Worth the Risk,” Foreign Affairs, March 11, 2022; Cullen Hendrix, “Russia Boom Business Goes Bust,” Foreign Policy, May 3, 2023; Louisa Loveluck, “Biden’s weapons sales to Israel breach legal limits,” The Washington Post, May 10, 2024; “Hussian, “How top arms exporters have responded to the war in Gaza,” SIPRI Topical Backgrounder, 2024; The Economist, “Meet the world’s hottest upstart weapons dealers,” August 31, 2025; Darya Dolzikova and Daniel Salisbury, “Triple Threat: Russia, Iran, and North Korea trade arms to get around sanctions,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 28, 2022.
    7 Technology and Transformation of Warfare Mike Pietrucha and Mike Benitez, “Seductive Allure of Precision Weapons,“ War on the Rocks, November 30, 2016; Tanisha M. Fazal and Sarah Kreps, “The United States’ Perpetual War in Afghanistan”, Foreign Affairs, August 20, 2018; Margarita Konaev and Owen J. Daniels, “Agile Ukraine, Lumbering Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2023; The Economist, “The war in Ukraine shows how technology is changing the battlefield,” July 3, 2023; Edward Luttwak, “Why Ukraine’s offensive has stalled,” UNHERD, August 10, 2023; Franz-Stefan Gady, “Israel’s Military Tech Fetish Is a Failed Strategy,” Foreign Policy, October 26, 2023; “Raj M. Shah and Christopher M. Kirchoff, “The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare,” The New York Times, September 13, 2024; Adam Taylor, “Data shows global conflict surged in 2024,” The Washington Post, December 12, 2024.
    8 Midterm Exam In Class
    9 Cyber Warfare Page Stoutland, “Growing threat: Cyber and nuclear weapon systems,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 18, 2017; Tarah Wheeler, “In Cyberwar, There Are No Rules,” Foreign Policy, September 12, 2018; Sydney J. Freedberg and Theresa Hitchens, “Calling SolarWinds Hack Act of War Just Makes It Worse,” Breaking Defense, December 21, 2020; John Mueller, “The Cyber-Delusion,” Foreign Affairs, March 22, 2022; The Economist, “Why Russia’s cyber-attacks have fallen flat,” December 1, 2022; Elizabeth Dwoskin, “”Sy vs. spy: How Israelis tried to stop Russia’s information war in Africa,” The Washington Post, October 21, 2023; David E. Sanger, Madeleine Ngo, and Jack Ewing; “Biden Administration Proposes Ban on Chinese Software in Vehicles,” The New York Times, September 23, 2024; Bruce Schneier, “Israel’s Pager Attacks Have Changed the World,” The New York Times, September 22, 2024; Adam Segal, China Has Raised the Cyber Stakes,” Foreign Affairs, January 21, 2025.
    10 Unmanned Vehicles Franz-Stefan Gady, “How an Army of Drones Changed the Battlefield in Ukraine,” Foreign Policy, December 6, 2023; Marc Santora, et.al., “A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine,” The New York Times, March 3, 2025; Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin, “Ukrainian attack on Russian bombers show how cheap drones could upset global security,” The Bulletin, June 5, 2025; Chrisitan Carlyl, “The Ukrainians’ New Way of War,” Foreign Policy, June 6, 2025; Lin-Greenberg, “Ukraine’s smart munitions deliver a punch – and a warning about the future of warfare,” The Bulletin, June 13, 2025; Michael C. Horowitz, Laureen A. Kahn, and Joshua A. Schwartz, “What Drones – and Cannot – Don on the Battlefield,” Foreign Affairs, July 4, 2025; Maximillian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco, “Hybrid air denial: The new gray zone battleground raging above Europe,” Defense News, October 2, 2025.
    11 Artificial Intelligence Kania, “The critical human element in the machine learning age of warfare,” The Bulletin, November 15, 2017; Tyler Rogoway, “Drone Warfare’s Terrifying AI-Enabled Next Step Is Imminent,” The War Zone, February 5, 2024; Simon Frankel Pratt, “Israel’s Algorithmic Killing of Palestinians Sets Dangerous Precedent,” Foreign Policy, May 2, 2024; Marcus, “Unready for war, AI may already be causing deadly mistakes,” The Bulletin, March 12, 2026; Türkiye Today, “US AI framework puts Türkiye among restricted nations,” January 18, 2025; Adam Satariano, et.al., “Where A.I. Data Centers Are Located,” The New York Times, June 23, 2025; Lara Cress, “OpenAI says its AI went rogue and launched unprecedented cyber-attack,” BBC, July 22, 2026.
    12 Russia John J. Mearsheimer, “Why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis,” The Economist, March 11, 2022; Dominic Lieven, “Empires eventually end amid blood and dishonour,” The Economist, April 16, 2022; Paul Sonne, “How Vladimir Putin got Ukraine wrong,” The Washington Post, April 11, 2022; Natalia Antonova, “Putin’s War Was Never About NATO,” Foreign Policy, May 7, 2022; Dara Massicot, “What Russ Got Wrong?” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2023; “Tatiana Stanovaya, “Putin’s Age of Chaos,” Foreign Affairs, August 8, 2023; Anton Trolanovski, “Putin Lowers Russia’s Threshold for Using Nuclear Arms,” The New York Times, November 19, 2024; Linden, “Russia’s shrinking world,” World and New World Journal, February 2025; Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, “Arsonist, Killer, Saboteur, Spy,” Foreign Affairs, March 30, 2025.
    13 NATO and Europe The Economist, “Can Europe defend itself without America?” February 8, 2024; Benjamin Rhode, “Europe Without America,” Survival, April 9, 2024; Phillips P. O’Brien and Edward Stringer, “Planning for a Post-American NATO,” Foreign Affairs, September 6, 2024; Norbert Röttgen, “Europe Has Run Out of Time,” Foreign Affairs, November 22, 2024; Jo Inge Bekkevöld, “The Cost of Ignoring Geopolitics,” Foreign Policy, March 14, 2025; Ivo H. Daalder, “NATO Without America,” Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2025; Adam Tooze, “The emperor has no tanks,” Financial Times, June 5, 2025; Michael E. O’Hanlon, “NATO Is Doing Just Fine, Thank You,” The New York Times, June 19, 2025;
    14 United States Charles A. Kupchan, “The Clash of Exceptionalisms,” Foreign Affairs, February 13, 2018; Daniel W. Drezner, “The End of American Exceptionalism,” Foreign Affairs, November 12, 2024; Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, “The Price of Trump’s Power Politics,” Foreign Affairs, January 30, 2025; Ishaan Tharoor, “s Putin Sees Ukraine ... Trump Sees Canada?” The Washington Post, March 2025; Celeste A. Wallander, “Beware the Europe You Wish For,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2025; Michael Kimmage, “Trump’s Power Paradox,” Foreign Affairs, December 8, 2025.
    15 China Kevin Rudd, “How Xi Jinping Views the World,” Foreign Affairs, 10 May 2018; John J. Mearsheimer, “The Inevitable Rivalry,” Foreign Affairs, November / December 2021; Jo Inge Bekkevold, “China Is Not Ready for Global Leadership,” Foreign Policy, July 4, 2025; C. Raja Mohan, “Is Ukraine the Future of Asia?” Foreign Policy, August 20, 2025; Jeffrey Prescott and Julian Gewirtz, “China Goes on Offensive,” Foreign Affairs, September 29, 2025; Sam Reggeven, “China’s Military Is Now Leading,” Foreign Policy, September 3, 2025; Keith Bradsher and River Akira Davis, “China and Japan, With Trump in the Middle, Are in a Showdown,” The New York Times, November 225, 2025.
    16 Final Exam

     

    Course Notes/Textbooks

    This course does not have specific course book.
    Suggested Readings/Materials

    Instead of a specific course book, there will be weekly reading assignments comprising book chapters, articles, manuscripts, reports and news stories drawn from a large variety of books, journals, periodicals, magazines and newspapers. Assigned readings for each week would be available on the course’s IEULearn page few days before lectures. 

     

    EVALUATION SYSTEM

    Semester Activities Number Weigthing
    Participation
    1
    30
    Laboratory / Application
    Field Work
    Quizzes / Studio Critiques
    Portfolio
    Homework / Assignments
    Presentation / Jury
    Project
    Seminar / Workshop
    Oral Exams
    Midterm
    1
    30
    Final Exam
    1
    40
    Total

    Weighting of Semester Activities on the Final Grade
    2
    60
    Weighting of End-of-Semester Activities on the Final Grade
    1
    40
    Total

    ECTS / WORKLOAD TABLE

    Semester Activities Number Duration (Hours) Workload
    Theoretical Course Hours
    (Including exam week: 16 x total hours)
    16
    3
    48
    Laboratory / Application Hours
    (Including exam week: '.16.' x total hours)
    16
    0
    Study Hours Out of Class
    16
    7
    112
    Field Work
    0
    Quizzes / Studio Critiques
    0
    Portfolio
    0
    Homework / Assignments
    0
    Presentation / Jury
    0
    Project
    0
    Seminar / Workshop
    0
    Oral Exam
    0
    Midterms
    1
    27
    27
    Final Exam
    1
    27
    27
        Total
    214

     

    COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES AND PROGRAM QUALIFICATIONS RELATIONSHIP

    #
    		 Program Competencies/Outcomes
    * Contribution Level
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    1

    To be able to improve theoretical and conceptual proficiencies on Political Science and International Relations and use them competently.
    -
    X
    -
    -
    -
    2

    To be able to evaluate critically the relationships between various factors in the field of Political Science and International Relations such as structures, actors, institutions and culture.
    -
    -
    X
    -
    -
    3

    To be able to determine and question the theoretical and empirical gaps in Political Science and International Relations literature.
    X
    -
    -
    -
    -
    4

    To be able to identify the political and cultural conditions that generate discrimination mechanisms based on race, ethnicity, gender and religion at national and international levels.
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    5

    To be able to gather and analyze data by using scientific research methods.
    -
    X
    -
    -
    -
    6

    To be able to analyze and evaluate the historical continuity and changes observed in the relations between the actors and institutions of national and international politics.
    -
    -
    X
    -
    -
    7

    To be able to present individual research and contemporary developments in Political Science and International Relations in written, oral, and visual forms.
    -
    -
    -
    X
    -
    8

    To be able to take responsibility in generating solutions to the problems that arise in relation to the politics in daily life.
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    9

    To be able to determine the institutional and political instruments for conflict resolution in domestic and international politics.
    X
    -
    -
    -
    -
    10

    To be able to prepare a thesis/term project about Political Science and International Relations based on scientific criteria.
    -
    X
    -
    -
    -
    11

    To be able to follow new research and developments in Political Science and International Relations and participate the debates in academic meetings through a foreign language.
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    12

    To be able to have ethical, social and scientific values in the stages throughout the processes of gathering, interpreting, disseminating and implementing data relevant to Political Science and International Relations.
    X
    -
    -
    -
    -

    *1 Lowest, 2 Low, 3 Average, 4 High, 5 Highest

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