GRADUATE SCHOOL

Political Science and International Relations (Without 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 -
Teaching Methods and Techniques of the Course -
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.

 



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 Stephen M. Walt, “The World Wants You to Think Like a Realist”, Foreign Policy, 30 May 2018; Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., “The Eroding Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, 11 December 2018; Doug Bandow, “America’s Language of Mass Destruction Convinces Nobody,” Foreign Policy, 22 October 202; John J. Mearsheimer, “The Inevitable Rivalry,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2021; Stephen W. Walt, “An International Relations Theory Guide to the War in Ukraine,” Foreign Policy, 8 March 2022; Paul Poast, “A World of Power and Fear,“ Foreign Affairs,15 June 2022; Stephen M. Walt, “Why Do People Hate Realism So Much” Foreign Policy, 13 June 2022.
3 Theoretical Precepts-II: Liberalism, Constructivism, Levels of Analysis Stephen M. Walt, “How to Get B.A. in International Relations in 5 Minutes”, Foreign Policy, 19 May 2014; Shahin Malik, “Constructing security” in Hough (ed) International Security Studies; Graham Allison, “The Myth of the Liberal Order”, Foreign Affairs, 14 June 2018; Daniel Duedney and G. John Ikenberry, “Liberal World,” Foreign Affairs, 14 June 2018; G. John Ikenberry, “The Next Liberal Order,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2020; Walter Russel Mead, “The End of the Wilsonian Era,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021; Robbir Gramer and Anusha Rathi, “A Crisis of Faith Shakes the United Nations in Its Big Week,” Foreign Policy, 19 September 2022.
4 Weapons of Mass Destruction Melissa Gillis, Disarmament – A Basic Guide (3rd ed.), United Nations: 2012; Gregory D. Koblentz, “The myth of biological weapons as the poor man’s atomic bomb”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 10 October 2015; Amy E. Smithson, “London attack: Saddle Moscow with chemical weapons inspections,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 22 March 2018; Rebecca Brown, “Bioterrorism: Fear accidents more than attacks,” The Bulletin, 29 August 2018; Jeffrey Lewis, “Point and Nuke,” Foreign Policy, 12 September 2018; Gregory Kulacki, “Would China Use Nuclear Weapons First in a War With the United States?” The Diplomat, 27 April 2020; Emanuelle Maître and Lauriane Héau, Current Trends in Ballistic Missile Proliferation, HCOC Issue Brief, September 2020; Nikolai Sokov, “Russian military doctrine calls a limited nuclear strike de-escalation. Here’s why.” The Bulletin, 8 March 2022; Scott D. Sagan, “The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” Foreign Affairs, 16 March 2022; Jeffrey Lewis and Aaron Stein, “Who Is Dterring Whom? The Place of Nuclear Weapons in Modern War,” War on the Rocks, 16 June 2022; “Could the war in Ukraine go nuclear?” The Economist, 29 September 2022.
5 Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Doug Bandow, “Let Them Make Nukes,” Foreign Affairs, 26 July 2016; Eugene Rumer, “A Farewell to Arms … Control,” Carnegie US-Russia Insight, 17 April 2018; Nina Tannenwald, “The Vanishing Nuclear Taboo?” Foreign Affairs, 15 October 2018; Jeffrey Lewis, “Nuclear Deals and Double Standards,” Foreign Affairs, 2 October 2018; Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, “Taking Erdogan’s critique of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty seriously,” The Bulletin, 14 November 2019; Emanuelle Maitre and Lauriane Héau, The HCOC: A Small Yet Key Tool Against Missile Proliferation, HCOC Issue Brief, October 2020; George Perkovich, “Reinventing Nuclear Arms Control,” Carnegie, October 2020; Ernest J. Moniz and Sam Nunn, “Sleepwalking Towards the Nuclear Precipice,” Foreign Affairs, 15 December 2020; Ray Takeyh, “The Bomb Will Backfire on Iran,” Foreign Affairs, 18 October 2021; Julian Borger, “15 minutes to save the world,” The Guardian, 14 December 2021; Daniel Immerwahr, “Forgetting the apocalypse,” The Guardian, 12 May 2022.
6 Arms Trade, Export Controls Bruce Pilbeam, “The international arms trade in conventional weapons”, in Hough (ed), International Security Studies, Chapter-10; Lawrence Marzouk (et.al.), “Making a Killing”, BalkanInsight.com, 27 July 2016; “For Gulf states, diplomacy involves buying weapons they don’t need,” The Economist, 1 March 2018; Adam Rawnsley et.al., “The Messaging App Fueling Syria’s Insurgency,” Foreign Policy, 6 November 2017; Michael LaForgia and Walt Bogdanich, “Why Bombs Made in America Have Been Killing Civilians in Yemen,” The New York Times, 16 May 2020; Jordan Smith et.al., “Arms transfers to conflict zones: The case of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Sipri Backgrounders, 30 April 2021; Alper Coşkun, “Strengthening Turkish Policy on Drone Exports,” Carnegie Article, 18 January 2022; Stephen Biddle, “Arming Ukraine Is Worth the Risk,” Foreign Affairs, 11 March 2022; Ruchi Kumar, “Afghan Guns Are Rearming Regional Insurgents,” Foreign Policy, 8 July 2022; Jennifer Kavanagh and Frederic Wehrey,”Russia Can’t Fight a War and Still Arm the World,” Foreign Affairs, 12 August 2022.
7 Technology and Transformation of Warfare Mike Pietrucha and Mike Benitez, “Seductive Allure of Precision Weapons,“ War on the Rocks, 30 November 2016; Amos Fox, “Precision Fires Hindered by Urban Jungle”, AUSA, 16 April 2018; Tanisha M. Fazal and Sarah Kreps, “The United States’ Perpetual War in Afghanistan”, Foreign Affairs, 20 August 2018; Audrey Kurth Cronin, “The Future of America’s Frone Campaign,” Foreign Affairs, 14 October 2021; Lawrence Freedman, “Why War Fails,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022; Lauren Kahn, “How Ukraine Is Remaking War,” Foreign Affairs, 29 August 2022.
8 Midterm Exam
9 Cyber Security David A. Sanger, “U.S. and China Seek Arms Deal for Cyberspace,” The New York Times, 19 September 2015; Martin Belam “We’re living through the first world cyberwar,” The Guardian, 30 December 2016; Alper Başaran, “Turkey Under Cyber Fire”, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Spring 2017; Page Stoutland, “Growing threat: Cyber and nuclear weapon systems,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 18 October 2017; Tarah Wheeler, “In Cyberwar, There Are No Rules,” Foreign Policy, 12 September 2018; Sydney J. Freedberg and Theresa Hitchens, “Calling SolarWinds Hack Act of War Just Makes It Worse,” Breaking Defense, 21 December 2020; Eric Rosenbach, et.al., “The Limits of Cyberoffense,” Foreign Affairs, 11 August 2021; Bruce Schneider, “Why NSA Makes Us Vulnerable to Cyberattacks”, Foreign Affairs, 30 May 2017; John Mueller, “The Cyber-Delusion,” Foreign Affairs, 22 March 2022; Rid, “Why You Haven’t Heard About the Secret Cyberwar in Ukraine,” The New York Times, 18 March 2022; David E Sanger, Julian E. Barnes, “Many of Moscow’s Cyberattacks to Fortify War Were Thwarted,” The New York Times, 23 June 2022; Gordon Corera, “Inside a US military cyber team’s defence of Ukraine,” BBC, 31 October 2022.
10 Emerging and Disruptive Technologies Yuval Harari, “Who Will Win the Race for AI?” Foreign Policy, January 2019; Christian Brose, “The New Revolution in Military Affairs,” Foreign Affairs, 16 April 2019; Madeline Zutt and Michal Onderco, “How emerging technologies impact the future of nuclear risk and arms control,” European Leadership Network Commentary, 1 September 2020; The Economist, “A Russian satellite weapon shoes danger of hazy rules in space,” 9 August 2020; Andrew Futter, Explaining the nuclear challenges posed by Emerging and Disruptive Technology, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Paper No.73, March 2021; Marina Favaro, “Emerging Technologies and Nuclear Stability,” APLN Commentaries, 19 July 2021; Gary Anderson, “Is War Too Important to Be Left to Robots?” military.com, 15 November 2022.
11 Russian Factor Fyodor Lukyanov, “Putin’s Foreign Policy,” 18 April 2016; Nick Danforth, “Russia and Turkey Make Nice,” Foreign Affairs, 11 August 2016; Julia Ioffe, “The End of the End of the Cold War,” Foreign Policy, 21 December 2016; Akın Ünver, “Russia Has Won the Information War in Turkey,” Foreign Policy, 21 April 2019; Angela Stent, “The Putin Doctrine,” Foreign Affairs, 27 January 2022; Christopher Bort, “Putin the Gambler,” Foreign Affairs, 10 March 2022; John J. Mearsheimer, “Why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis,” The Economist, 11 March 2022; Dominic Lieven, “Empires eventually end amid blood and dishonour,” The Economist, 16 April 2022; Paul Sonne, “How Vladimir Putin gıt Ukraine wrong,” The Washington Post, 11 April 2022; Natalia Antonova, “Putin’s War Was Never About NATO,” Foreign Policy, 7 May 2022; Bobby Ghosh, “An unarmed Putin wants to Fight a Culture War With the West,” Bloomberg, 14 September 2022; Tatiana Stanovaya, “Putin’s Apocalyptic End Game in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs, 6 October 2022; Andrei Kolesnikov, “Putin’s Stalin Phase,” Foreign Affairs, 8 November 2022.
12 Security of the West: NATO, Europe, US Tom Sauer, “NATO Is Obsolete,” The National Interest, 24 February 2017; Zachary Karabell, “The Anti-American Century,” Foreign Policy, 13 July 2020; Thomas de Maiziere and A. Wess Mitchell, “NATO Needs to Deal With China Head-On,” Foreign Policy, 23 February 2021; John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart, “America the Humble,” Foreign Affairs, 30 September 2021; Max Bergmann and Benjamin Haddad, “Europe Needs to Step Up on Defense,” Foreign Affairs, November 2021; James Hershberg, “Putin Is Repeating the USSR’s Mistakes,” Foreign Affairs, 24 February 2022; Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage, “What If Russia Loses?” Foreign Affairs, 4 March 2022; Ivo Daalder, “NATO enlargement didn’t go far enough,” The Economist, 9 April 2022; Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Michael Kofman, “Russia’s Dangerous Decline,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2022.
13 Security in Asia-I Elizabeth C. Economy, “History With Chinese Characteristics,” Foreign Affairs, 13 June 2017; Kevin Rudd, “How Xi Jinping Views the World,” Foreign Affairs, 10 May 2018; Yan Xuentong, “Becoming Strong,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2021; Hal Brands, “China Is a Declining Power,” Foreign Policy, 24 September 2021; John J. Mearsheimer, “The Inevitable Rivalry,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2021; Elizabeth Economy, “Xi Jinping’s New World Order,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2022; Jonathan Tepperman, “China’s Dangerous Decline,” Foreign Affairs, 19 December 2022.
14 Security in Asia - II The Economist, “”North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons,” 28 May 2016; Scott D. Sagan, “The Korean Missile Crisis,” Foreign Affairs, 10 September 2017; Joshua Shifrinson, “Learning to Love Kim’s Bomb,” Foreign Affairs, 3 October 2018; Claudia Westwood, “Ambivalent Partners: The complex Russia-China relationship,” ELN Commentary, 28 April 2021; Kevin Rudd, “Why the Quad Alarms China,” Foreign Affairs, 6 August 2021; Alexander Gabuev, “China’s New Vassal,” Foreign Affairs, 9 August 2022; Frank Aum, “Don’t Isolate North Korea,” Foreign Affairs, 22 December 2022; Isheika Cleare, “Asian States Are Worried the U.S. Is a Perenially Distracted Superpower,” Foreign Policy, December 2022; Jennifer Lind, “Japan Steps Up,” Foreign Affairs, 23 December 2022; Sushant Singh, “India and China’s Latest Border Clash Is Not a One-oOff,” Foreign Policy, 23 December 2023..
15 Review of the semester
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 Blackboard page few days before the 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 improve theoretical and conceptual proficiencies on Political Science and International Relations and to ultimately deepen and develop intellectual interest X
2 To evaluate the relationships between factors in the field of Political Science and International Relations such as structures, actors, institutions and culture in a critical perspective X
3 To provide advanced competences to determine and question the theoretical and emprical gaps in Political Science and International Relations literature X
4 To identify the political and cultual conditions that generate discrimination mechanisms based on race, ethnic groups, gender and religion at national and international levels
5 To provide competences to develop original arguments in order to fill the gaps in Political Science and International Relations literature
6 To determine, collect, resolve, and interpret the data that would measure the theories and concepts as variables by using scientific research methods in Political Science and International Relations field X
7 To use confidently the terms and concepts of Political Science and International Relations
8 To communicate systematically, in written, oral, and visual forms, contemporary developments in Political Science and International Relations to groups inside and outside the said discipline X
9 To take responsibility in an individual capacity and as part of a team in generating solutions to unexpected problems that arise in relation to politics in daily life
10 To develop projects determining the institutional and political instruments for management of domestic and international conflicts X
11 To prepare an orginal thesis/term project about Political Science and International Relations in accordance with scentific criteria X
12 To design and carry out a scientific research project in the field of Political Science and International Relations
13 To have ethical, social and scientific values in the stages throughout the processes of collecting, 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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