Geography and Strategy

East Asia Globe IWP 634
Two credits

This eight-week seminar demonstrates the importance of geography to international politics, economics, national security, and strategy. It introduces students to the geographic and geopolitical factors that have shaped the field of world politics. It is required for all M.A. degree candidates.

The course explores how geography has helped influence aspects of world history and how it is likely to do so in the future. After discussing the relationship between physical geography and strategy, the course covers physical geography, maritime geography and the geography of space. It concludes by examining geopolitics - the analytical method that stresses the importance of geography and in determining national interests and international relations.

Students should have read a strategic atlas, such as the one on the required reading list, prior to the start of class.

Required Texts

Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War, Harold Winters
Essential Atlas of The World, Dorling Kindersley Publishing
Class Reader: "Geography & Strategy"

Semester Available

Fall Semester
Spring Semester

Principal Professor

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz

Professor of History, The Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies {read more}

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FEATURED FACULTY

Sebastian Gorka

Associate Professor of Irregular Warfare, National Defense University

The Art of Diplomacy

This course introduces students to the art of diplomacy in the Western tradition, with an emphasis on the modern American experience. It examines the development of the traditional art of diplomacy over time and how technology, communications, and ideology have affected both the authority of the diplomatic process and the evolution of what Harold Nicholson called the "diplomatic method."

Principal Professor

Thomas P. Melady