Please see attachments for sources. May use other sources as well. Can add more references if need be
many different types of “new,” or novel security challenges that confront the states of the international system, especially the leading state—the US.
Some are transnational forces like climate change, health pandemics, mass migration, and global supply chain/financial crises. Others come from national or corporate advances in technology such as with cyberwar and nuclear missile defenses (allowing for first strike impunity). Finally, there are security challenges longstanding yet now starker, often stemming from domestic conditions, such as those trends like nationalist protectionism and democratic societal disunion/rising authoritarianism (as the world witnessed in the 1930s), or the ever-present risk of terrorism.
As a result of these forces and challenges, “national” security is, arguably, becoming more difficult to define and separate from global trends. As importantly, the power that is required to check any of these challenges is likely beyond the capabilities of any one state, even the US. This is despite the paradoxical fact that relative power among states is being altered due to these forces and challenges (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic has set some countries back considerably more than others; cyberwar hurts some countries more than others, etc.).
In this writing assignment, you are to investigate these subjects in some detail and assess how well the global political system is managing this new world, and, as importantly, whether US relative power and strategy are keeping pace.
Step 1: Select at least one contemporary global security of challenge of interest
Review course content from Modules 4 through 7 in making your choice.
Please be sure to choose a subject(s) that is distinct from what you are working on in your Capstone Research Paper.
Step 2: Conduct the necessary research to answer these prompts
• Which contemporary security challenge have you chosen to focus on, and why?
• How does it affect US national security?
o For example, does it alter the definition or execution of US national security?
• How does your security challenge affect relative national power?
o For example, which dimensions of power are most affected by this challenge, and in what ways are they altered?
• What strategic actions would you recommend to address this challenge?
• Finally, is the US capable of addressing and acting on this challenge alone, or must it work in concert with others, and, if so, how?
Note how you set about answering these prompts is largely up to you, but it is essential that your responses be based upon scholarly readings and should remain at all times defensible (in an academic sense). As is the case with every assignment, presenting any unsubstantiated, illogical, or indefensible position will have an adverse effect on the final grade.
Step 3: Compose a 750-word (approx.) paper
Your APA-formatted research paper should include the following
• A title page
• A well-developed introductory paragraph
o Explain the purpose of the essay and briefly reference some of the main points/contentions offered in the work.
• Answers to the Step 2 prompts, drawing on as many significant examples and cited works as relevant.
o With appropriate in-line citations. Your answers should be grounded in scholarly course resources.
• A concise concluding paragraph
o Briefly restate both the purpose of the essay as well as some of the primary arguments offered by you, the paper’s author.
o Be sure the concluding paragraph does not introduce new information
• References list
o An APA-formatted list of all sources consulted in the preparation of the strategic options paper.
