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Governments, law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies operate under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Correctly evaluating threats to national security necessitates the use of decision-making frameworks designed to assist decision-makers to prioritise threats and select the optimal response. Since these frameworks are widely used in practice by governments and their agencies, this course will develop your understanding of how decision problems are cast (as prioritisation or ranking problems), how outcomes and likelihoods are judged and how errors and biases that can distort the process can be mitigated. The frameworks are applied to those problems that are of the most pressing concern in contemporary international relations, including terrorism, non-conventional warfare, and espionage.

The course addresses decision-making in the context of national and international security, drawing on complex, real-world concepts used in practice and providing students with frameworks for solving relevant problems and interpreting decisions. Using a combination of problem-based learning and discussion, students are introduced to decision theory and will learn to apply it to terrorism, non-conventional warfare, espionage, and areas of emerging concern to governments and their agencies. Students will demonstrate their critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills by drawing on decision theory to examine the possible actions to be taken in response to real-world problems and with reference to risk and uncertainty, and an ability to articulate the results of their analysis in a user-friendly and practical manner.

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. critically analyse the impact of emerging trends in national and international security on populations and policy;
2. apply critical thinking and decision-making to assess risky and uncertain contexts and propose viable solutions to real-world problems;
3. evaluate the choices made by governments and their agencies as they confront challenges posed by terrorism, non-conventional warfare, and espionage;
4. clearly communicate the results of analysis and evaluation in a manner that can be used by specialist decision-makers.