Master of Arts in National Security

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.

Graduates of this degree program will be able to:

• Identify contemporary and anticipated challenges to U.S. security.
• Identify, evaluate, and understand the complexities of formulating strategies in functional and regional contexts.
• Identify the evolution of U.S. institutional arrangements and assigned authorities, and the particular relevance of the U.S. experience for U.S. security at home and abroad.