Strategic Practices (7,5 ECTS)

During the course Strategic Practises: Controlling, Creating and Using Force, students are trained to analyse strategic decision making, how to evaluate different theories of controlling, creating and using force as well as how to structure and organise central arguments in these key debates.

Strategy, in short, consists of three different, but related, practices: controlling, creating and using force. Understanding strategy as a practice allows for approaching strategy in novel ways. What do strategists do? In this course, we explore these practices through the central War Studies debates on strategy. How should civil-military relations be organized? How should we organize defence planning? And what is the utility of force in modern conflicts?

The course starts with exploring the conditions for the growth of knowledge within strategic research. In the following weeks, we focus on the practices of controlling, creating and using force. In the final exam paper, students have the opportunity to focus further on one of these practices. Throughout the course, students are challenged to elaborate on strategy as a practice and consider the consequences of such an understanding for their coming careers.