Security Studies

This five-year program is designed to prepare Ph.D. students for rigorous, policy-relevant research on the major threats to international and national security and the relevant strategies, institutions, and capabilities that will be needed to confront those threats.

Topics of study include:

Grand strategies of the major powers.
Arms competitions.
Coercive diplomacy.
Terrorism.
Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Rapid shifts in regional and global distributions of capabilities.
Insurgency, civil war, and regional political instability.
Military force composition and capability.
Civil-military relations.
Innovations in military technologies.

The cluster combines social science training in international security and national defense policy, focused study of specific regions of the world, and exploration of the technical and scientific aspects of proliferation, weapons innovations, terrorist and counterterrorist operations, and insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. This is an in-residence program, though absences may be taken for approved field research.