Intl and European Security

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course is taught at Georgetown's Villa Le Balze in Fiesole, Italy. The post-Cold War international security landscape is being redrawn by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact. Institutions and policies alike are being questioned, undermined, or reframed with lasting consequences for the international system. Crises and challenges from the Covid pandemic to climate change had already placed the international order under stress, with a world dominated by uncertainty, a lack of shared security, and the fragmentation of expected norms of international society. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has dramatically exposed the fragility of the international system and its vulnerable interdependencies. Paradoxically recent challenges (and above all Russia-Ukraine) have simultaneously undermined the structures of international cooperation and solidarity and rendered them ever more critical and essential. This course will endeavor to set out the existing foundations of international security: the United Nations system with its political, economic, and social components (including human rights); international development and financial institutions; the European Union, regional security and institutions (including Brexit); NATO and the Western Alliance, as well as other alliances; and explore how all of these have been shaken and may be transformed by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The course will also look at communications and their impact on the conflict, including propaganda and “fake news”; humanitarian initiatives and principles in the wake of Afghanistan and Ukraine; the role of the private sector in the current conflict; energy, climate change, and food security challenges raised or exacerbated by the conflict; sustainability and the fate of the UN SDGs. Please reach out to the Office of Global Education with any questions.