SyllabusIR 742: US Foreign Policy and National
Security Decision Making
Fall Semester 2000
Room HSS 151
Tuesday 4:10 - 6:55 p.m .
Instructor: Ambassador David Fischer
HSS 133
405-0325
Email: examb@sfsu.edu
A graduate seminar, IR 742 is designed to give students a sense of how foreign policy is really made in the United States. This seminar draws heavily on the case method, looking at how foreign policy towards Haiti, Somalia and Kosovo were made. Students will be required to write a weekly paper. (See draft National Security Council Memoranda.)
The making of US foreign policy is both the stuff of headlines, as well as intra-governmental negotiations and decision making. Decisions have consequences which impact the lives not only of Americans, but people throughout the world. Who decides and what are the factors that enter into the process? Because those decisions are often taken in response to complex, fast-breaking events, both the process and substance of those decisions are often misconstrued by the media, the public and the scholarly community. Increasingly, many are attracted to arcane conspiracy theories to explain what are rational decisions made on the need to protect US interests as defined by the Administration in power.
This course assesses the formulation and execution of United States foreign policy. What are the roles of the President, the Congress, the press and special interests? When and how are political suasion, economic sanctions, covert action or military force best employed? How important are human rights, democratization, commercial advantage and market economics in the policy process? In what circumstances should the US look to allies or the United Nations? How have US national interests and foreign policy changed in the post Cold War world ?
The process by which decisions are made and implemented in U.S. foreign policy is complex, often opaque, and variable. As a career diplomat Ambassador Fischer has served in both Republican and Democrat administrations and brings to this course a sophisticated understanding of the way in which foreign policy is made -- why a particular set of recommendations or a specific course of action is selected while others are discarded. The purpose of this course is to provide students with the tools to understand both the how and the why of U.S. foreign policy decision making.
Writing Requirement: Draft National Security Council
Memoranda