Comparative National Security Project

As you approach your initial research on your country, think about what interests you about this country. What are the key security characteristics that attract you to studying it more, and contrasting it with the US in the final paper? For example, is the country a great power (Links to an external site.), or is it a lesser, regional power? Does the country have both land and sea capabilities, interests, and threats (Links to an external site.) arrayed against it, or is it more isolated and potentially more secure? How might national security be different for land powers compared to sea powers (Links to an external site.)? Similarly, how vast are the interests the country must defend and promote in the world? Are these more economic than military, and how might these be separated, if at all? Finally, does the country make national security decisions more as a unitary state than as an unwieldy representative democracy? For example, how difficult is the choice to go to war or to join an alliance with another country, how many layers or avenues of policymaking must a state’s leaders go through to achieve some desired outcome of its “leadership”?
These and other basic questions will help you consider your country in greater detail and begin to frame and transform your interests into analyses with a comparative sensibility.
For M2.4 Comparative National Security Project – Country Selection Assignment, you will write an essay of 2-3 pages (approximately 750 words). Please address yourself to any considerations such as those noted above as well as these specific questions:
• How and Why did you choose this country?
• What are the top two or three security challenges that you can see your country facing?
Finally, drawing on your initial views and research, what do you find to be unique and/or interesting about this country’s national security? For example, does it have unique geography with many rivals nearby (e.g., is it a land-locked power, or a naval and sea-oriented one?)? In short, why is its national security setting and policy-making intriguing to you (e.g., is it especially different than that in the US or other countries, such as it’s an authoritarian structure with more opaque policymaking than in the US?)