The goal of this course is to prepare the student to recognize and analyze the use of foreign disinformation and propaganda to affect U.S. perceptions and policy formation, and to employ countermeasures against them.
Propaganda as a tool of statecraft can be traced to antiquity. The refinements and innovations introduced in the 20th century and the information technology revolution give the foreign propagandist greater opportunities than ever to attempt to influence perceptions and policy in the United States and elsewhere. Those who shape public opinion or design or implement U.S. national security strategy and foreign policy are among the principal targets of foreign propaganda.
This course examines the history, theory and methodology of foreign propaganda and disinformation in modern statecraft, both from democratic and non-democratic countries, with an emphasis on how the practitioners target the United States. It is intended to help prepare the student to recognize foreign propaganda in all its forms, to analyze and isolate it, and to employ countermeasures.
Required Reading (copies of all books are on reserve in the library)
- Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds. [Note: This book can be downloaded at no charge as .pdf documents from the publisher.]
- Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent, Larry Berman.
- World Communism: A History of the Communist International, Franz Borkenau.
- Agents of Influence, Pat Choate.
- Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Jacques Ellul.
- Deception, Edward Jay Epstein.
- Propaganda Technique in World War I, Harold D. Lasswell.
- On Political War, Paul A. Smith, Jr.
- The Art of War, Sun Tzu. Griffith translation.
- British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-1945, Nigel West.
- New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation, Anatoly Golitsyn
