The Future at Risk

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course explores how our understanding of international security must evolve in response to the threats of the twenty-first century. Traditional conceptions of national defense have long focused on the risk of war between states, and these concerns persist as the possibility of major power conflict grows. However, the threats that have most profoundly destabilized societies in recent decades have been strategic surprises, the consequences of which few anticipated, including the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the 2008 global financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Each of these crises revealed the vulnerabilities intrinsic to global interdependence and the speed with which emerging risks can cascade across borders, destroying lives and undermining livelihoods worldwide. Building on the lessons from these events, this course examines the likelihood of systemic risks arising from renewed great power rivalry, accelerating climate change, antimicrobial resistance and novel disease vectors, unregulated artificial intelligence, transformative advances in biotechnology, and/or emerging dilemmas in the cyber and space domains. Students will learn to analyze these challenges not as isolated threats but as interconnected risks that demand innovative assessment methods, cross-cutting policy approaches, and new strategies to build societal resilience in an era when global security has come to be defined by the unexpected.