HU Credits: 1

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: International Relations

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Simon Miles

Coordinator Email: simon.miles@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: TBD

Teaching Staff:
Prof Simon Miles

Course/Module description:
How do states reconcile the limited resources they have at their disposal with the virtually boundless range of things they want to do in the world? How can policy-makers use power — be it cultural, diplomatic, economic, military, or otherwise — to achieve their goals and do so effectively and efficiently? How might leaders begin to make sense of a dynamic and seemingly infinitely complex world and identify priorities, opportunities, and threats in the short-term and over the long haul?

The answer to these questions is one of the most elusive concepts in public policy: strategy, the bridging of ends and means.

In this course, students will be introduced to the concept of strategy as it has been practiced in the past — and might be in the future — by examining key concepts and texts in the field as well as historical cases of its successful (and unsuccessful) employment. It will introduce students to the political, economic, and other drivers of international affairs, and will be a semester-long exercise in applying the “lessons of history” to contemporary public-policy challenges.

Course/Module aims:
This class is designed to give undergraduate students an introduction to the theory and practice of strategy from an international and historical perspective with an eye to contemporary challenges.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
- Connect the study and lessons of the past with contemporary policy-making challenges
- Develop familiarity with key works of strategic theory and their contexts
- Understand major episodes in international diplomatic and military history and how strategy figured in changes to the international system
- Consider the ethics of leadership at war and peace and the tensions which can arise between democracy and power
- Explore how leaders have remade the international order and how that order has constrained and shaped their behavior
- Appreciate the role of technological change in shaping the conduct of statecraft and the making of strategy
- Apply these skills to today’s strategic questions

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Six lectures in three blocks of two

Course/Module Content:
Session 1A: Introduction
- What are strategy and grand strategy?
- How can we apply the lessons of history to the present responsibly?
- What are the pitfalls of the historical study of statecraft and strategy?

Session 1B: The Classics
- What are the key insights of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz?
- To what extent are they products of their time and place?
- How relevant are their theories today?

Session 2A: The Peloponnesian War
- Why did Athens and Sparta really go to war?
- Was the expedition to Sicily a mistake?
- What does Thucydides tell us about morality and warfare?
- Is Thucydides’ account useful to understanding the problems a democracy experiences in war?

Session 2B: The Second Punic War
- Whom should we seek to emulate, Fabius on the march or Hannibal at Cannae?
- Why did Hannibal, massively outnumbered, win at Cannae?
- Why did Rome’s allies not revolt when they had the opportunity?

Session 3A: Napoléon
- What are the benefits and pitfalls of unified political and military leadership?
- What is a decisive victory and did Napoléon ever win one?
- Why did Napoléon fail to achieve lasting strategic success?

Session 3B: Cold War Containment
- What differentiated the US and Soviet visions of the post–World War II world?
- What was the weakness of the strategy of containment?
- Could the Cold War have been avoided, and Stalin kept a US partner, were it not for unforced US errors?

Required Reading:
Session 1A: Introduction
- Isaiah Berlin, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” in The Proper Study of Mankind (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997), pp. 436–498.

Session 1B: The Classics
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ed. and trans. Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 63–140.
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 75–123.

Session 2A: The Peloponnesian War
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. and trans. Rex Warner (Penguin, 1972), pp. 72–87, 143–151, 400–408, 414–429.

Session 2B: The Second Punic War
- Polybius, The Histories, ed. and trans. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (Macmillan, 1889), pp. 236–274

Session 3A: Napoléon
- The Levée en Masse, 23 Aug. 1793.
- Napoléon I, letter to the Directory, 14 May 1796.
- Napoléon I, remarks to the Legislative Body, 14 Feb. 1813.

Session 3B: Cold War Containment
- George F. Kennan, memorandum to James F. Byrnes, 22 Feb. 1946.
- George C. Marshall, remarks at Harvard University, 5 Jun. 1947.

Additional Reading Material:
Session 1A: Introduction
- John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy (Penguin, 2018).
- Colin S. Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Charles Hill, Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order (Yale University Press, 2010).
- Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (Modern Library, 2009).
- Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (Free Press, 1986).
- Cathal J. Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press, 2017).
- Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Session 1B: The Classics
- Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2001).
- Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (Pimlico, 2002).
- Andrew Scobell, “The Chinese Way of War,” in The Evolution of Operational Art: From Napoleon to the Present, ed. John Andreas Olsen and Martin Van Creveld (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 195–206.
- Donald Stoker, Clausewitz: His Life and Work (Oxford University Press, 2014).
- Derek M.C. Yuen, Deciphering Sun Tzu: How to Read The Art of War (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Session 2A: The Peloponnesian War
- Graham T. Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).
- Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War (Viking, 2003).
- Robert B. Strassler, ed., The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (Free Press, 2008).

Session 2B: The Second Punic War
- Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (Routledge, 2002).
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars (Cassell, 2000).
- Patrick N. Hunt, Hannibal (Simon and Schuster, 2017).
- Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Mediterranean Civilization (Allen Lane, 2010).
- Robert L. O’Connell, The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic (Random House, 2010).

Session 3A: Napoléon
- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (Macmillan, 1966).
- Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (Penguin, 1998), ch. 5.
- Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 (Allen Lane, 2009).
- Alexander Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (Oxford University Press, 2020).
- Peter Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806 (Princeton University Press, 2009).
- Jonathan Riley, Napoleon as a General: Command from the Battlefield to Grand Strategy (Continuum, 2007).
- Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics (Clarendon, 1994), ch. 2–11.

Session 3B: Cold War Containment
- Frank Costigliola, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War (Princeton University Press, 2012).
- Oleg Khlevniuk and Yoram Gorlizki, Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953 (Oxford University Press, 2004).
- George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776 (Oxford University Press, 2008), ch. 14–15.
- Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
- Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (Yale University Press, 2008), ch. 8–12.
- Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), ch. 1–6.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 100 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
Strategic Planning Essay (100%)

At the dawn of a new decade, imagine yourself a foreign policy advisor to the leader of the country of your choosing. What would you advise the president, prime minister, etc., should be his/her country’s grand strategy for the 2020s?

Your paper must not exceed 10 pages (including footnotes, etc.) using a conventional, 12-point font and should address the following issues…
- Defining national interests
- Capabilities, both available at present and necessary for the future
- Opportunities to be seized
- Threats, vulnerabilities, and how to mitigate risk

Due by email to Prof. Miles by end-of-day on January 30, 2022.