Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program (SSP) is the academic pillar of the Center for Security Studies (CSS) and one of eight master’s degree programs offered in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS). SSP is a multidisciplinary course of study designed to prepare graduates for positions within the defense and security fields.

The program's overarching mission is to produce a new generation of analysts, policymakers, and scholars fully knowledgeable about the range of international and national security problems and foreign policy issues of the 21st Century. The SSP has over 30 years of experience preparing students with a wide range of backgrounds to become leaders in their fields.... [-]

The MA Program in International Security provides in-depth knowledge and understanding of the international security environment of the 21st century. To enable students to master the complex challenges of the post-9/11 world, the program views security from a broad theoretical and historical perspective, placing traditional security concerns in the context of such fields as development, economics, and human rights. Students focus on topics including strategy, foreign policy, intelligence, homeland security, military analysis, regional security and conflict resolution. The curriculum combines relevant coursework with a mandatory internship, providing students with the knowledge and skills demanded by the market for the international security professional, broadly defined. Graduates are exceptionally well prepared to serve as administrators, executives, diplomats, military and civil servants, policy analysts, and consultants.... [-]

Security Policy Studies (SPS) is a policy-oriented master's degree program focusing on international security issues, with a particular emphasis on the security challenges for the 21st century and how to respond to them. These challenges include but are not limited to: weapons of mass destruction proliferation, transnational threats, terrorism, changing regional power dynamics, weak and failing states, international crime, effectively linking security and development, and ensuring U.S. national security.

The curriculum provides a strong grounding in the national security and defense policy-making process. Students choose two specific concentrations — which can range from transnational security issues to conflict resolution to defense analysis. Students also have the option of emphasizing a particular region, such as East Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America, by selecting a regional field as one of their two concentrations.... [-]

MASTER OF ARTS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - ONLINE

In today’s ever-changing world, an advanced understanding of international communication, business, and development is crucial. With the Master of Arts in International Relations online program, you can learn to conduct credible research, plan strategies and view the effects of global actions in a new light. With our extensive military history, we have seen firsthand the value of diplomacy, trade, and compromise. In fact, this value has made master’s degrees in International Relations the No. 5 best “Master’s Degree for Jobs” (Forbes). Without ethical experts at the helm, there could be negative consequences for global relationships. That’s why we’re preparing leaders for global engagement. You can become one of them. Learn how to analyze and apply data, understand international relations theories and laws, and dig into research and topics that matter most to you. Depending on your area of interest, you can use your skills and experience to help drive change in any sector — public, private and nonprofit.... [-]

Program Summary

DMGS' M.A. in National Security enhances students’ skills to anticipate the trends in the global environment; the short-and long-term aims, strategies, instruments, and vulnerabilities of competitors; and to identify the resulting specific opportunities – in a given region or globally – to advance U.S. interests. The program also covers U.S. government organizational and institutional arrangements, and the authorities of individual agencies to implement policy. In addition, the tensions between national security policy and practices and liberal democracy will be considered – and how the U.S. and other democracies have sought to reconcile them.

This program covers the functional utility of individual instruments, and integrated “whole of government” planning in regional geographic contexts, with particular emphasis on the non-kinetic capabilities of the other two DMGS programs – Intelligence and Information Operations.... [-]

Program Summary

DMGS' M.A. in Intelligence focuses on both the public and private sector use of intelligence examining missions, methods, and organizational structures. It examines and interprets the four major elements of intelligence – collection, analysis, analytical presentation, and counterintelligence. This program also examines new fields of intelligence such as private sector use of intelligence, homeland security, and cyber.

Graduates of this degree program will be able to: Articulate the strategic significance, aims, strategy, tradecraft, and culture of the elements of intelligence, evaluate each element, and the skills and aptitude required for this work. Anticipate current and future security challenges. Identify how major tensions inside liberal democracy with secret intelligence are reconciled through institutional checks and balances, oversight, press freedom, and public education. Interpret the value of intelligence input to public and private sector efforts supporting organizational tactics and strategies. Identify opportunities for effective use of intelligence. [-]