POLITICAL SCIENCE 489
SENIOR CAPSTONE: CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN A DIVIDED WORLD
Managing The Bomb
Spring
2001
W 3-550PM, 209 Harrison Hall
Professor Patrick J. Haney
email: haneypj@muohio.edu
120 Harrison Hall
529-4321
Office Hours: W 130-230, R 2-3PM, and by
appointment
ABSTRACT
This course is
designed as a senior Capstone experience and will focus primary attention on
explaining and understanding efforts to build and manage nuclear weapons,
especially in the wake of the Cold War. We will examine why states, and
non-state actors, pursue nuclear weapons programs (and to a lesser degree we
will focus on chemical and biological weapons) and how the United States and
others have tried to build a nonproliferation regime over time. The political
uses of the Bomb will thus be our focal point. While we will all work with some
common material, subgroups of the class will explore in more depth the
experience with the bomb of particular regions of the globe, including (but not
limited to) Korea, the Middle East, South America, South Africa, the former
Soviet Union, and the U.S. and Europe. In order to facilitate the movement of
the students from being consumers of knowledge to being producers of knowledge,
the Capstone will take the form of an analytic study group that will be further
organized into Teams that will independently pursue subtopics of interest and
report back to the full group. Students in the course will also take
responsibility to leading learning in the course. Learning in this Capstone
will be largely student-driven. The professor will facilitate this ongoing
process.
READINGS
Gordon Craig and
Alexander L. George, Force and Statecraft (NY: Oxford University Press,
1995)
Peter
Beckman et al., The Nuclear Predicament (Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 2000)
Richard
Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon and Schuster/Touchstone,
1995)
Leon
Sigal, Disarming Strangers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1998)
Readings Packet
March 7: Proliferation
Cirincione, Joesph. 2000.
“The Asian Nuclear Reaction Chain.” Foreign Policy (Spring): 120-136.
Mandelbaum, Michael. 1995.
"Lessons of the Next Nuclear War." Foreign Affairs (Mar/Apr):
22-37.
Sagan,
Scott D. 1994. “The perils of proliferation.” International Security
(Spring): 66-107.
Sagan,
Scott D. 1996/1997. “Why do states build nuclear weapons?” International
Security (Winter): 54-86.
March 21: WMD and Terrorism
Betts, Richard K. 1998.
"The New Threat of Mass Destruction." Foreign Affairs
(Jan/Feb): 26-41.
Garrett, Laurie. 1996.
"The Return of Infectious Disease." Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb):
66-79.
Garrett, Laurie. 2001. “The
Nightmare of Bioterrorism.” Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb): 76-89.
Klare, Michael.1996.
"Itching for a Fight." The Progressive (September): 32-33.
Robbins, Carla Anne. 1998.
"Why Nuclear Threat Today Can Be Found At the Electronics Store." Wall
Street Journal (December 16): A1, A12.
Sprinzak, Ehud. 1998.
"The Great Superterrorism Scare." Foreign Policy 112 (Fall):
110-119.
Williams, Phil, and Paul N.
Woessner. 1996. "The Real Threat of Nuclear Smuggling." Scientific
American 274 (January): 40-44.
March 28: NMD
CQ
Researcher:
Missile Defense. (Available online; not in packet.)
Deutch, John, Harold Brown, and John P.
White. 2000. “National Missile Defense: Is There Another Way?” Foreign
Policy (Summer): 91-100.
Lewis, George, Lisbeth Gronlund, and David
Wright. 1999-2000. “National Missile Defense: An Indefensible System.” Foreign
Policy (Winter): 120-137.
O'Hanlon, Michael. 1999. “Star Wars Strikes Back.” Foreign Affairs (Nov/Dec): 68-82.
Towell, Pat. 2001. Anti-Missile Debate
Ignites.” CQ Weekly (Jan. 13): 104.
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND THE
MIAMI LIBERAL EDUCATION PLAN
As a Capstone course, students who are majors in
either Political Science or Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs may not double count
this course toward the Capstone requirement and count the hours toward the
major: only one or the other. The hours may, however, count toward a
political science minor. Students in the Capstone would be well served to
have taken POL 141 (American Politics), POL 271 (World Politics), POL 373
(American Foreign Policy), POL 376 (U.S. National Security Policy), and/or the
Thematic Sequence in the Comparative Analysis of Foreign Policy.
All Miami University Students must take a senior Capstone as part of the Miami Plan for Liberal Education. This course is designed to provide an opportunity to synthesize and integrate the academic programs of majors in Political Science and Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs as well as students who have taken the Thematic Sequence in foreign policy analysis, allowing students to apply concepts to "real world" settings and problems. The course promotes the goals of developing a critical analytic mind and the ability to reflect and act by developing in the students the ability to place themselves into a stream of political events and see the world from a variety of (often competing) perspectives. Students must interpret the historical background of ongoing conflicts and the competing visions and strategies that are involved. Ultimately, the students must make some choices or recommendations about policy options and weigh the possible consequences of different actions (or inaction). The course provides a variety of mechanisms for students to engage with other learners, in particular through the use of the Teams that work independently of each other but then report back to the whole and entertain questions and discussion. The role of the professor in the course is to facilitate this range of student activity and to lead the discussions of the material we share in common. Students will have a choice in selecting the Team each wishes to participate in and in determining the work of the Team. At the end of the semester all students will be given a questionnaire that allows them to evaluate the course against the stated goals of the Capstone. The results of the survey will be shared with the appropriate committee of the Department of Political Science that oversees the Capstone courses and their development.
ACADEMIC HONESTY AND ATTENDANCE
Students in the class are governed by the
university rules pertaining to academic misconduct and class attendance (see
Parts V and VII, Undergraduate Academic Regulations, The Student Handbook).
Students are expected to attend all class sessions; consistent with university
rules there will be no penalty for absences on religious holidays (provided you
notify me during the first two weeks of the term if you will miss class for
religious observance). These and all other university rules are hereby incorporated
by reference.
CLASS ENVIRONMENT
The professor is committed to the department's
policy of supporting the learning of all students, irrespective of gender,
ethnicity, race, age, religion, handicapping condition, or sexual
preference. Students should be able to expect that their learning
environments are free from any form of prejudice. If prejudicial behavior
occurs, you should talk to the professor and identify the specific offense or
disparaging behavior. If you are not content with the resolution of your
complaint you are encouraged to consult with the Department Chair. The
university exists for learning and the free and open pursuit of ideas.
Anything that impedes this mission is antithetical to the role of a university
and will not be tolerated.
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
This course is
designed to be a collective endeavor, and as such will require the
contributions (and good humor) of all involved. The production of knowledge in
this capstone will largely shift from being centered on the professor to being
centered on the students—which is appropriate given that this course is the
capstone of your undergraduate careers as you head forth into a life of largely
self-directed learning. The first part of the course will be recognizable to many,
as we mix together lecture, discussion, and video to attack the readings. But
as the semester rolls along an increasing amount of our learning will be at the
direction of other students who work in small teams to help the rest of us
learn about specific issues or applications that surround our common readings.
All students are expected to attend class, do the assigned readings and writing
assignments, work professionally in a small team setting, and participate
actively in the class.
Writing assignments: Each student will write a large
analytic paper as part of their contribution to the Team they join. This
paper should be typed, double-spaced, fully cited, and 12-15 pages in length.
It is due when the Team leads its session. In addition, each student will write
two other short papers that discuss and evaluate the readings assigned
in class. Students may pick the two topics on which they wish to write: missile
defense, nuclear terrorism, nonproliferation, or the Sigal book. They may not
select a topic that is the subject of their Team. These papers should be typed,
double-spaced, fully cited, and about 6 pages in length. They are due on the
day we discuss that topic. Last, each student will write a 6-8 page final
paper assessing the learning that took place during both his or her and the
other groups’ classes. These
papers could be quite theoretical in the sense of discussing how learning takes
places, what strategies work best in a college classroom, and comparing the
effectiveness of the three groups.
Or students may prefer to talk specifically about the issues raised by
the other teams – explaining what they learned, how that affected their own
positions, etc. Either way,
students should feel free to explain their own roles in the teaching of their
own group’s class, if they would like. These papers are due by 3PM on Thursday
May 3, 2001.
Team Work: One of the first
things members of the capstone will do is to organize themselves into teams to
work on substantive issues/applications of what we will cover this term. Teams
may focus on an issue, such as missile defense or nonproliferation, or on an
application, such as the nuclear programs in South Asia, North Korea, the
Middle East, or on terminated programs, like in South Africa and South America,
to name a few. Teams should have at least 3 members in them and not more than
6. The teams will be responsible to leading the learning that goes on by
the rest of us when we get to that topic, and will have about an hour to do
that (this is negotiable). In order to produce knowledge for the rest of us,
students may choose the teaching method they think would be most
effective. This assignment is not a group presentation in the sense
that dividing the time into a series of separate reports/lectures would be
considered acceptable. In fact,
there is no expectation that all members of the group speak equally or even
speak at all during the class session.
Groups may choose to make use of some combination of lecture, discussion,
videos, guest speakers, debates, summit simulations, and any other means of
producing knowledge that they choose.
These student-led seminars will be evaluated on the basis of the
following criteria: 1)
content--the thoroughness of the research and the analysis; 2)
organization--the structure and clarity of the ideas and information covered,
and the degree of cooperation among group members; 3) format--the
appropriateness of the methods selected to educate, and the skillfulness of
their execution; 4) creativity--insight and originality. Each member of the
team will also submit to me the fill-cited paper they produced to help under
gird the presentation.
Grade Ratios: Large Paper (30%),
Short papers (2 @ 15%), Final Paper (15%), Team Session (15%), Participation
(10%).
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
JAN 10: First organizational
meeting
JAN 17: Making the Bomb
(Rhodes; The Atomic Bomb Movie)
JAN 24: Making the Bomb
(Rhodes)
JAN 31: Making the Bomb
(Rhodes; Dr. Strangelove)
FEB 7: War and Peace in
the Nuclear Age
FEB 14: Statecraft (Craig
and George, chapters 12-20)
FEB 21: Living with Nucs
(Beckman et al., chapters 1-6)
FEB 28: Controlling Nucs
(Beckman et al., chapters 7-11)
MAR 7: Debating
Proliferation (Readings Packet)
MAR 14: No class; Spring Break
MAR 21: Weapons of Mass
Destruction and Nuclear Terrorism (Readings Packet)
MAR 28: Missile Defense
(Readings Packet)
APR 4: North Korea (Sigal,
part 1)
APR 11: North Korea (Sigal,
parts 2-3)
APR 18: USAF Museum Trip
APR 25: Remaining
Presentations
TEAMS
Rogues
(3/21), Missile Defense (3/28), Korea (4/11), PRC (4/25), USA-PRC-Japan (4/25)
Haney: POL 489, Spring 2001