National Security Studies

The Discipline and Practice of Strategy (DPS)

“Everyone needs a strategy” reads the first line of Lawrence Freedman's landmark chronicle, Strategy: A History. Indeed, professionals who want to progress from journeyman to executive leadership need to recognize and formulate effective strategies. And yet, popular usage seems to have drained the concept of strategy of useful meaning. Often it is a term suggesting an orderly arrangement of ends, ways and means to achieve an important goal. More tragically, strategy has come simply to signal obvious virtues or express a compelling vision. 

The objective of the DPS course is an antidote to this problem and an accelerant to professional development. It provides knowledge of strategy as a specific discipline, an awareness of its application to the special class of challenges that warrant its exercise, and a toolkit of how to think strategically, formulate strategies and act with strategic coherence. 

The syllabus comprises 27 hours of instruction organized into nine, 3-hour sessions drawn from a portfolio of lecture-discussions developed exclusively for this course, including:

• The Discipline of Strategy, which sets out the theoretical foundations of the course, introduces several heuristic tools, and applies them to a case study, “What's an Army for?: General Edward Meyer and the Army of Excellence.”
• Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, which teaches how to decompose complex strategic questions into tractable, testable forecasts and calibrate their utility with confidence.
• Throughlines to Winning the 21st Century, which teaches how a grand strategist appraises the key tectonic changes that will play out across the next 50 years.
• The Practice of Business Strategy, which teaches the application of strategy to advance a commercial or financial interest.
• The Practice of Political Strategy, which teaches the application of strategy in electoral campaigns.
• Strategizing, which teaches a systematic approach to implementing well-formulated strategies in complex organizations and contexts.

Graduates of DPS at Syracuse join a network of alumni who are exercising the discipline of strategy in government, business and not-for-profit enterprises throughout the world.

National Security Management (NSM)

“There is more to sustaining a competitive advantage than acquiring hardware; we must gain and sustain an intellectual overmatch as well,” commands the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their guidance for professional military education. Moreover, even high performance at the operational ranks of national security does not generally instill the knowledge needed to succeed at the executive ranks. Accordingly, those on a trajectory to exercise executive authority in national security affairs require a more advanced education.  

The objective of the NSM course is to develop senior executives of military, government and industry organizations to participate with confidence in national security affairs. It teaches compelling models and practical know-how drawn from a portfolio of academic disciplines and the crucible of experience. 

The syllabus comprises 60 hours of instruction organized into two phases: 

• The online phase is delivered in five, four-hour sessions which convene weekly over five successive weeks. The scope of the online phase encompasses knowledge of the building blocks of national security affairs, such as: 

•  Tectonics, which characterizes the global trends that are shaping the national security landscape.
•  Strategy, which conveys theories of grand strategy and their expression in national security and national defense strategies.
• Technology, which provides an overview of how advanced technologies are giving impetus to the dynamics of national and international security. 

• The on-campus phase is delivered at Syracuse, New York, in 13, half-day sessions which convene daily over seven successive days, from Saturday through Friday. The scope of the on-campus phase encompasses both lecture-discussions and practical exercises, including:

• Intelligence, which summarizes the role of the intelligence community in national security affairs and illustrates its uses as an instrument of soft power.
• Regional Studies, which explain the social and political context of international security affairs in the geographies that figure most prominently in U.S. national security strategy.
• In the Arena, which provide the first-hand accounts of national security decision-making by a range of distinguished former officers and executives.
• The Kinmen Crisis, which simulates an international crisis for which students play the roles of executive branch officials, elected representatives in Congress, and foreign ministers of regional partners and allies.
• National Security Law, which explains the legal structure undergirding national security affairs and illustrates how law informs national security decision-making. 

Graduates of NSM at Syracuse join a distinguished cadre of over 2,000 alumni who form a powerful network of leaders in U.S. national security affairs. Among the course's distinguished graduates are General John Caine (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff), Robert Ulibarrí (VP and General Manager, Aerospace Systems at Saab, Inc.) and Brigadier General Yvonne Mays (Adjutant General of New Jersey).