Course outline

Monday 12 & Tuesday 13 March 2018; Tuesday 17 & Wednesday 18 April; Wednesday 9 & Thursday May 10; (schedule: 14:00 to 16:50).

1. Tweet: "I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” The rationality of the "Madman theory" and a brief overview of the course.

Reading: Ellsberg

2. Hitler playing and winning the game of chicken, and the (nuclear chicken) "balance of terror".

Reading: Ellsberg; Allan & Dupont; NYT (4 February 2018)

3. "Between 1 in 3 and even": the probablility of disaster as estimated by Kennedy for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and rational foreign policy decisionmaking.

Readings: Allison; Allison & Zelikow (1999)

4. Organizations: a necessary tool of foreign policy decisionmaking – the sociology of organizations and foreign policy.

Readings: Allison; Allison & Zelikow (1999)

5. Foreign politics is also domestic – the politics of foreign policy.

Readings: Allison; Allison & Zelikow (1999)

6. Misperceptions in decision-making and non-rational explanations – the psychology of foreign policy.

Reading: Mintz & DeRouen

7. Iran, North Korea, etc.: is nuclear proliferation good ? Pro and contra.

Reading: Waltz

8. Diplomacy: an art and a science.

Readings: Jönsson & Hall; Schelling; Fisher & Ury

9. Strength and weakness, promise and threat: How to use coercion and exchange for reaching an agreement ?

Readings: Jönsson & Hall; Schelling; Allan & Dupont; Fisher & Ury

10. Terrorism and its strategic logic, a weapon of the weak (and the strong, too !).

11. Mao Zedong's war against Japan and for a revolution in China: What makes his political theory of guerrilla warfare successful ?

Readings: Mao; Allan & Stahel

12. Che Guevara, the internationalist guerrillero in Bolivia: Why did he fail ?

Readings: Mintz & DeRouen; Allan & Stahel; Mao

13. What are thin and thick recognition ? Renouncement, sacrifice, and looking for compromise.

Readings: Allan & Keller; Fisher & Ury

14. What are "rotten" compromises ? Political and moral compromise, pro and contra.

Readings: Margalit; Allan & Keller

15. Conclusions: when to escalate, when to compromise in international conflict ?