Professional Development Short Courses

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fast-moving field, with dramatic research breakthroughs emerging regularly. Many of these have utility for national security actors, whether in the military, intelligence agencies, or policy-making communities. Accordingly, AI has a longstanding and deepening connection with national security. This course will help to contextualise these developments. It will explore the striking changes that AI is bringing to national security, including to military tactics and strategy and will investigate the ways in which culture shapes the employment of AI. It will also consider some ethical implications of AI in national security affairs.

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The rise of China in the Liberal International Order has caused much frenzy and uncertainty across the Western civil society. China as a cultural and political entity creates anxiety in those parts of the world where liberalism has dominated for decades if not centuries. Citizens, policy-makers, and military are still catching up on their knowledge of China and cannot confidently deconstruct the complexity of a country that hosts a fifth of humanity and whose foreign interactions have been characterised by much ambiguity. This course seeks to explore those areas of ambiguity where Chinese actions are causing security dilemmas for Western citizens, administrators, policy-makers and the military and to expand knowledge on China but also to learn lessons that can be applied in other areas of foreign/security policy. To achieve this aim, the course is structured around several topics, each of which seeks to address a "dilemma" related to China, by looking at a contemporary "case-study" while leveraging on an "academic concept" to stimulate lateral thinking.

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This course offers an overview of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants in countries recovering from conflict. It outlines the concepts, definitions, and types of DDR approaches that are followed by various international, and national agencies to demobilise armed groups, and to return and reintegrate their rank and file into civilian society. The course will also map the evolution of programmatic efforts over time, and how the various shifts have influenced DDR effectiveness. This short course incorporates a gendered focus on the reintegration of women and girl combatants; and on the age-specific needs of child soldiers. It also involves a deep engagement with the question of ex-combatant re-recruitment; and the role of ex-combatant agency in the decision to re-engage in violence.

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The Indo-Pacific is emerging as one of the key regions in which international politics are redefined. It encompasses some of the world’s fastest growing economies, top world military powers, and rich cultures. Its economic dynamism rests on a maritime geography that has favoured connectivity and interdependence; its political make-up is defined by outstanding territorial disputes, unresolved Cold War issues, and an increasingly entrenched Sino-American structural competition; and its cultural traditions are both similar and different to Western traditions. This particular course focuses on what is meant by the term "culture", how do people embedded in different cultures think, make judgements and decisions and when, why, and how culture matters in engagement with the Indo-Pacific region.

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More than twenty years since 9/11, terrorist-related threats remain alive. Understanding counterterrorism and its dilemmas is therefore paramount. This course will explore questions on What is terrorism? What causes it? Who is a terrorist? Most importantly, how do we respond? How much force shall we apply? Can we legally carry out targeted assassinations in countries we are not at war with? Can we afford true intelligence sharing? How should the media cover acts of terrorism? What are the possible measures liberal democracies should undertake? After all these years, are we winning the "War on Terror"?

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This course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the topic of military healthcare ethics and to explore the issues of practicing healthcare ethically in the military setting. Who should be picked up by military medical evacuation helicopters? Should I withdraw treatment from a child burned in a cooking accident to free up an intensive care bed for a military patient? Should I declare a soldier unfit to deploy because they refuse to take antimalarials? Should I report a soldier who has declared their alcohol addiction to their Commanding Officer? Should I downgrade a senior non-commissioned officer whose medical condition precludes deployment and prevent their promotion? Should I administer a vaccination that I think is unnecessary? These are just some of the types of decisions that may face a military healthcare worker that have ethical and legal implications.

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This course seeks to provide students with a general understanding of sanctions, defined as the restrictive measures imposed by states or groups of states to achieve coercive influence in the international system. Sanctions are among the most frequently used tools of diplomacy. For many states, they form an important part of foreign policy and they are regularly deployed in pursuit of foreign policy objectives.

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This course offers an overview of space security and its ever-changing threat landscape. By reviewing the challenges posed to the evolving space domain, this course encourages thinking about the unique geostrategic properties of space, evolution of activity since the Space Race, commercial innovation, and the development of space strategy. Shedding light on the multipolar space power environment, this module includes insights from civil, government, military, and industry leaders.

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In this course you will be introduced to the core concepts of strategic communications, frameworks of analysis, and different perspectives on strategic communications around the world such as China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa.

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Over the course of five lessons, students will receive introductions into strategic theory and the method of wargaming. By the end of the course students should be well positioned to be able to evaluate if, when, and how wargaming might address some of the challenges organisations and individuals face today.

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