Master of Middle East Policy Studies Curriculum

Semester 1, Required Course | Martin Kramer

This course offers an in-depth exploration of the modern Middle East, from the late 18th century to the present, following a chronological approach. It seeks to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the key developments that have shaped the Middle East over the last two centuries, beginning with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, moving through 19th-century reform efforts in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, and addressing the collapse of the Ottoman state. From there, the course examines the confrontations between colonialism and rising nationalist movements after World War I, the formation of the modern state system, the military’s role in regional politics, the resurgence of Islam in its varied forms, the Arab Spring, and 21st-century sectarian and ethnic civil conflicts. In addition, the course aims to provide students with a foundational understanding of how historians approach sources, examining various schools of thought within Middle Eastern history and the use of historical analogies. The goal is not to train historians but to cultivate the historical awareness necessary for any educated individual consuming information about the Middle East.

Semester 1, Required Course | Robert Kaufman

This class will assess major watersheds in United States foreign policy thematically and chronologically, starting with the formative period which saw the principle of no entangling alliances operating largely uncontested until American entry into World War I. The second watershed is US entry into the War, Woodrow Wilson’s abortive attempt at collective security, the lost opportunity of Theodore Roosevelt’s moral realism, and the reversion to isolationism that ended with Pearl Harbor. The third segment will focus on the Cold War, with America accepting the role as the world’s default power in three vital geopolitical regions—Europe, The Indo-Pacific and the Middle East. The next segment will focus on the post-Cold War era, during which the United States effectively took a “holiday from history” that ended with the 9/11 attacks. The final segment will focus on the current debate over the “desirable” and the “possible” as the United States faces what some call an “axis of tyranny” coordinating its assault on the American-led world order at a time when the country is deeply polarized about the desirability and affordability of the United States remaining robustly engaged in the world’s most important geopolitical regions. Throughout, the course will also emphasize perennial themes: imperatives of geopolitics; the role of public opinion; the formation and execution of American foreign policy; debates about when, how, and for what purpose the United States should use force; the role of allies; the effects of technology and economics in foreign policy; debates about the role of ideology and regime type in identifying friends, foes, threats and opportunities; and debates about the role of multilateral institutions in American foreign policy.

Semester 1, Required Course | Matthew Levitt

This course will examine the changing threat of foreign terrorism to the United States—to citizens, assets, and interests—and the evolution of the US government’s response. It will include an historical look at threats from both state and non-state actors (including the relationship between the two); the relationship between ideology and pragmatism among various terrorist movements; the analytical and academic debate over “underlying causes” for resort to terrorism; where terrorism has ranked on the list of US national security priorities and how that has changed over time; and the various strategies, policies and tactics adopted to address it, including the evolving bureaucratic architecture of counterterrorism. A subtheme will focus on how terrorists and terrorist organizations are funded and resourced, how they move and access money, and how governments and other international actors seek to combat the financing of terrorism. The course considers what the goals of counter-terror financing efforts are or should be, and whether these efforts are effective, worthwhile, and how to improve them. 

Semester 1, Required Course | Barbara Stevens

This course will cover the history and role of United States intelligence from the National Security Act of 1947 to the present day. United States intelligence has not remained static as the expectations of what intelligence can and cannot do in an open society have evolved over the past 70 years. The course will describe the evolution of intelligence as an instrument available to policymakers in creating “decision advantage” while gauging “decision confidence.” The roles and responsibilities of the Intelligence Community (IC) will be addressed in support for the consumers of intelligence, within all three branches of the US government. Students will be given a detailed overview of the IC’s various areas of information collection and analytic tradecraft. The course will provide an in-depth understanding of the role intelligence plays in US policy-making and support to warfighters as guided by US law and policy. The history of intelligence will include unclassified examples of intelligence successes and failures. The course will rely heavily on actual case studies to make key points on the insights strategic intelligence can provide as well as its limitations with students learning how to prepare intelligence briefs and culminating in their preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—the Intelligence Community’s authoritative assessment on intelligence related to a key national security issue.

Semester 2, Required Course | Kenneth Pollack

This class will help students understand the role that warfare and military operations have played in the development of the modern Middle East, and in the region’s international relations today. It will cover the military campaigns of many of the most important Middle Eastern conflicts with a particular emphasis on how the course and outcomes of those conflicts shaped future military actions and defined the power relationships of the region today. It will examine conventional interstate wars, civil wars, and insurgencies to highlight their differing dynamics and why the first has given way to the latter two throughout the region. The course will explore the lessons learned by each side as a result of each conflict, and how each attempted to adapt its armed forces and/or strategy to better fight the next war. In this way, the class will help the student develop an understanding of the evolution of warfare in the Middle East since 1945, both in terms of war fighting and the use of military operations as a tool of statecraft. In addition, the course employs the history of recent campaigns as a foundation for an examination of modern Middle Eastern states and their ability to generate military power, wage wars, and employ military operations to advance their political and security agendas. The course considers how the politics, economics and culture of Arab society affect the military development, combat operations and effectiveness of Arab armed forces. It examines the range of societal factors that both empower and impinge upon Israeli military power, as well as the development of the modern Iranian armed forces as a function of the Islamic Republic’s peculiar political, diplomatic, economic and social circumstances. 

Semester 2, Required Course | Patrick Clawson

This course will explore how much Middle East economies have changed in modern times. It will examine the reasons why some Middle East countries (principally Israel and the Arab Gulf states) have had great economic success while others (such as Iran and Egypt) have for decades been stagnant or declining. This will include looking at the quality of governance (e.g., accountability and corruption), at women’s participation in economic life, and the role of ideology in setting economic policies. The course will ask why some states well-endowed with oil and gas, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have done so well economically, while oil riches have contributed to political instability impeding growth in others, such as Libya and Iraq. It will examine the great variability across countries in fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies and the resulting impact on society and on growth. The course will look at the record and effectiveness of the US government’s heavy reliance in the Middle East on economic instruments, primarily aid and sanctions. It will also touch on the economic impact of demographic challenges and implications of climate change, such as water shortages.

Semester 2, Required Course | Dennis Ross and Robert Satloff

This course will look at the evolution of United States foreign policy in the Middle East through the lens of statecraft. Statecraft involves the orchestration of all the instruments of power and influence to protect against threats and to promote broad national interests. Key elements of statecraft include developing strategy, defining objectives and purposes, identifying the means available for pursuing that strategy, and then knowing how best to employ those means. A special focus will be on negotiations as an instrument or policy tool central to nearly all forms of statecraft. The class will focus on a series of episodes in which different administrations identified important American interests and employed a variety of policy tools to pursue them, including: the first deployment of US military force in the region in 1942; the on-again and off-again decision to support an independent Jewish state in Palestine in 1947-49; the series of regional crises in which the US played an increasingly central role (June 1967 Six-Day War, October 1973 Suez Canal, 1990-1991 Gulf War); the US-led peace diplomacy from Camp David through Oslo through the Abraham Accords; the generation-long contest with the Islamic Republic of Iran; and the US response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks against southern Israel and the resulting Gaza War. The concluding part of the course will discuss issues that are confronting the United States in the Middle East today and explore how an effective approach rooted in statecraft would shape American choices, policies, and the tools used to carry them out. 

Semester 2, Elective | Soner Cagaptay

This class aims to familiarize students with contemporary domestic political and foreign policy dynamics of Turkey, the inheritor of the Ottoman empire and a major player in the strategic, political, military and economic dynamics of the broader Middle East. The class pays special attention to the country’s history since World War I, discussing drivers of political movements, as well as Turkey’s foreign policy, including relations with the United States. The course also introduces the students to the emerging trends in the country. In this regard, the seminar pays special attention to the Kemalist era, transition to democracy, and the rise of Erdogan and political Islam in the country. In addition, the course studies Turkey’s ties with both Europe and the Middle East, including the East Mediterranean, as well as relations with key Middle East actors, such as Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. The course also presents learning and self-study opportunities on media freedoms, human and LGBTQ rights issues, the Kurdish issue, energy security, as well as Turkey’s role in great power competition against China and Russia in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Africa.

Semester 2, Elective | Hanin Ghaddar

This course examines the role and impact of the militant Shia groups engaged in conflicts in the Middle East. It is designed to inspect the milieu of the militias, their narratives, social and political networks, each group’s relationship to its specific Shia community and State institutions, and the differences among these communities. The course will also explore the link between their narratives and the collective memory/history of the Shia, a disadvantaged minority in many Muslim societies, and the scope of their presence and clout, mainly in Syria and Iraq, but also in Lebanon, Yemen, and the rest of the region. To provide a deeper understanding of these groups and the evolution of Shia politics in the past few years, the course will consider a number of questions, such as the following: What is the difference between Shia militias and Sunni militias and why are they fighting? What motivates a Shia person to join or support these militias? To what extent are they integrated into state institutions? How are they financed? What is their relation to each other and to Iran? As it examines Iran’s strategic outlook and priorities in the Middle East, the course will delve into the relation between these various groups and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps—Quds Force, while focusing on the evolution of Hezbollah’s regional role, the creation and development of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and the participation of non-Arab Shia militias in these conflicts. The course will include a focus on the role of militant Shia groups in the Hamas-Israel War and the strategic blows suffered both by these groups and Iran.

Semester 2, Elective | Elizabeth Dent

For policymakers navigating the Middle East in recent decades, the region has been defined by conflict, terrorism, regime change, and the subsequent humanitarian crises that emerge as a result. Yet there are a rising set of new social, economic, and political challenges policymakers must begin to contend with over the coming years. The region is warming faster than any place on earth, the global economy is shifting away from fossil fuels, and decades of conflict have driven new human migration patterns. In response, regional leaders have begun to look towards technological innovation to secure their economic future. This course will seek to address these issues, with a particular focus on how climate change, migration, and technology intersect to impact the modern Middle East. This course will challenge students to design and develop effective policy recommendations that take these emerging issues into account and then develop public and private strategies to implement them. 

Semester 3, Required | Gilles Kepel

This course will put into perspective political developments spanning the near-quarter century from the September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the United States to the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the multiple fronts of conflict that followed, a period in which the Middle East experienced unprecedented domestic turmoil and rapidly changing relations with the world at large. It will be divided into three chronological sections: first, 9/11 in perspective: from the second Palestinian Intifada to the US invasion of Iraq—the age of Al Qaeda; second, the rise and fall of the Arab springs—the quest for democracy in the Middle East and the spread of ISIS; and third, the great Middle East and North Africa (MENA) reshuffling—from the Abraham Accords to the reverberations of Hamas’ October 7th attack. With a mix of lecture, discussion, and student presentation, each section will examine the interplay of civil society forces, states and transnational actors, within a region characterized by the prevalence of oil rent and its redistribution, the interplay of demography, climate change and migrations, the Sunni-Shia and the Israeli-Arab fault lines, and the region’s complex outreach to the West, China and Russia, and the “Global South.”

Semester 3, Required | Dennis Ross

This course will delve into the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the efforts to resolve it. It will explore Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab narratives and assess why each side tends to see the world the way it does, and why mythologies have taken hold of all sides and made reality hard to grasp. Looking chronologically at the Arab-Israeli arena from the competition between Zionists and Arab nationalists in Mandatory Zionism through the present, the class will examine how close the parties came to resolving the conflict at various points, with a special focus on the Camp David summit of 2000, and why the conflict has been so stubbornly impervious to resolution in the quarter-century since then. A special focus will be on the American role as well as that of outside parties in trying to resolve the conflict. Throughout, a consistent theme will be to learn what ingredients led to progress and what lessons can be learned from failure so that diplomats, negotiators and concerned citizens can contribute to shaping a more hopeful and peaceful future for Arabs and Israelis in the years ahead. 

Semester 3, Required | Michael Singh and Dana Stroul

This course will provide students with an introduction to how United States foreign policy is made. Through lectures, case studies, and exercises, students will learn about how policymakers define US interests and objectives, how they develop strategy, and how they employ the various tools of American power in combination. The course will explore the interagency process and the roles of different actors within the executive branch, the different individual roles within that process (e.g. senior versus junior policy roles, career vs. politically-appointed officials, etc.), and the roles of different branches of government within the policymaking process. In addition, the course will address policy implementation at a high level—how do policymakers ensure that policies are effectively implemented, and how and when do they change course when policies are either not succeeding or are no longer appropriate? This course will emphasize student involvement—students will be expected to engage in role-playing, to draft policy memoranda, and to contribute actively to class discussions. Readings will focus heavily on primary-source materials drawn from US national security archives and courses will be enhanced by visits from current and former US policymakers from throughout the government. 

Semester 3, Elective | Devorah Margolin

This course will explore the driving ideology behind violent Islamist groups—including Salafi-Jihadi groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State—examining different group goals, as well as how different groups define their in-group and out-group. In doing so, this course will delve into how a diverse set of violent Islamist groups recruit, control in-group dynamics, carry out acts of violence, and in some cases, even govern. The course will also examine the ways that, despite their ideological differences, the resulting tactical and strategic methods and objectives converge around violent and immoral actions. In the closing weeks, students will look at different strategies for countering violent Islamism, from a focus on counterterrorism to using the tools of countering violent extremism.

Semester 3, Elective | Robert Kaufman

This course will provide a theoretical and practical founding for focusing on the comparative importance of ideals versus self-interest and the debate over morality and wisdom. It will begin with an analysis of the debate between realist and idealist scholars of international relations, starting with Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue. It will also analyze the thought, policy frameworks and implications of the idealist tradition, starting with Kant and Woodrow Wilson. The course will also look at a hybrid tradition that takes power and ideals seriously, grounded in the assumption that the dynamics of international politics imposes more stringent limits in extremis on the role of  us morality and ethics than well-ordered domestic political systems. The course will focus heavily on the debate over the morality and self-interest of using force, employing just-war theory as a point of departure starting with Augustine, Aquinas, and more modern versions which add to their requirements, including the Lieber Code more in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, Kant, the Weinberger and Powell Guidelines and the United Nations Charter. The class will apply various aspects of just-war theory to historical case studies and modern wars, from the Peloponnesian Wars to the use of strategic bombing and the dropping of the atomic bomb during World War II to Israel's response to the Hamas attacks. Throughout, the course will pose the critical questions of Ius Ad Bellum (when is it just to use force); Ius ad Bello (how to use force justly); and Ius Post Bellum (how to achieve and sustain a rightly ordered peace). In addition, the class will examine when and in what circumstances the pursuit of “regime change” is either morally and practically justified or unjustified; the criteria for open societies negotiating and reaching agreements with repressive regimes and—especially relevant in the Middle East, where Israel is an exceptional case of an open, democratic societies—how should policymakers think about the dynamics of engaging with various forms of controlled societies. 

Semester 3, Elective | Karim Sadjadpour

Modern Iran has established itself as a key political, religious and military actor in the Middle East. This course will review ten phases in the history of US-Iran relations, from Operation Ajax in 1953, the coup that overthrew Iran’s prime minister and led to the return of the Shah, to the vulnerable situation in which the Islamic Republic finds itself with the election of Donald Trump as the 47th US president, with its own regional strategy in tatters one year after Hamas’ attacks on Israel. Students will explore the huge role Iran once played in America’s broader Middle East strategy, the collapse of that approach with the fall of the Shah, the years of conflict and hostility that began with the hostage crisis and saw its apex with Iran branded a charter member of the “Axis of Evil,” and the intermittent but repeated efforts at outreach, from the Iran-contra affair in the 1980s to the nuclear diplomacy of more recent years. Students will also review the internal American debates over strategy toward Iran, how they evolved over the past seven decades and the role the Iran debate has played in US domestic politics. 

Semester 4, Required | Jeffrey Kupfer

This class will examine modern United States energy and climate policy, with the goal of understanding, from a practical perspective, how economics, technology, politics, public opinion, and national security all influence the development and implementation of policy. The course will explore: Why has energy and climate taken on such a critical role in the public policy agenda? How does the government make policy and what are the ways that those policies impact energy markets and availability? How has US policy changed over the years and what lessons have been learned from past initiatives? How have new technologies changed the energy landscape and our interactions with other countries? The class will begin with an overview of the energy sector and the related government structure; discuss presidential initiatives and legislative activity, including the important energy-related aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act; and will consider case studies, such as the Keystone and Mountain Valley pipelines and carbon pricing, that demonstrate conflicting viewpoints about appropriate energy policy. The class will also explore international energy issues like liquefied natural gas and crude oil exports, United Nations climate agreements, and US relations with global players in the energy market, including the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. 

Semester 4, Required | Becca Wasser

This course will explore the role that gaming plays in policy decision-making, particularly during crises. In this hands-on course, students will gain an understanding of gaming as a methodology, why it is used to assess complex international and national policy issues, and why it is applied to improve decision making. The course will culminate in the class developing a detailed crisis scenario and designing a game to examine a critical international policy question. Students will then analyze the game outcomes and translate them into tangible policy recommendations. Through experiential learning, this course aims to introduce students to key methods and skills they may apply in their policy careers: wargaming, scenario writing, and policy analysis.

Semester 4, Required | Robert Satloff

The course, taken in the final term of the degree will include a major project of either a traditional master's thesis with an original piece of research or an innovative capstone project that includes three work products (an essay, brief research paper, and intelligence briefing). The capstone course will build on each of the three pillars of the degree: understanding the Middle East (including its history, politics and society); understanding the evolution of American foreign policy in the region; and understanding how foreign policy is developed, made and executed in the Middle East. All students will present their thesis or capstone orally to their class and program faculty.

Semester 4, Required 

Students are required to demonstrate intermediate-level proficiency in a modern language from the Middle East (Arabic, Hebrew, Kurdish, Persian, or Turkish). Proficiency will have to be demonstrated by evaluation, examination, or coursework taken from an approved language studies program to meet this requirement. While support will be provided to students to develop these skills outside their regular courses, students will be required to demonstrate the ability to read, write, speak, and understand at an intermediate level in one of the five designated languages by the time they complete the program. Proficiency will be verified by the satisfactory completion of a language proficiency examination or other assessment administered by the school.

Semester 4, Elective | Scott Abramson

This course considers the challenges that hostile neighbor states and natural resource deprivation have on the Jewish state while focusing on Zionist destiny and Jewish self-determination under three rubrics: history, politics, and society. The course will survey Israeli history, examining the wars, foreign relations, and policies that have shaped Israeli experience from 1948 to the present. The course will also trace Israel's evolution from a poorly armed, underdeveloped country with a statist economy into a regional powerhouse, with the world’s twenty-sixth largest economy and one of its mightiest militaries. Israeli politics and civics will be examined and the course will analyze the structure and operation of the Israeli government, including how coalitions and cabinets are formed, how legislation in the Knesset is enacted, and how the High Court exercises its jurisdiction in a country with no formal constitution. Particular attention will be paid to the balancing acts that must be performed in the big tent of Israeli politics, where groups with little in common pursue conflicting interests. Lastly, the class will explore how Israeli society was forged in the crucible of the Israeli melting pot; and discuss how social cohesion has been maintained and social division managed in a population diversified by religion or religious observance, family background, class stratification, residential location, and political identification will be probed.

Semester 4, Elective | Martin Kramer

This course explores the interplay between ideas and national interests that has shaped United States policy toward the Middle East. How have intellectual frameworks such as American exceptionalism, democratization, and the clash of civilizations shaped American strategy? How have grand visions illuminated or obscured the stark realities of energy security, military alliances, and balance of power? Central to this exploration is the role of influential thinkers who crafted narratives that guided policymakers in understanding the region. The course traces the impact of these policy intellectuals, examining how their arguments found their way into speeches, policies, and strategies that continue to echo today. Through themes such as “linkage,” “reform,” “containment,” and more, students will unravel key moments where ideas mattered. Why were some ideas embraced and others discarded? What were the consequences of influential ideas for the Middle East and for America’s global standing? Engaging with pivotal case studies, lively intellectual debates, and policy documents, this course challenges students to think deeply about the power of ideas in shaping history and to consider how these dynamics continue to play out in contemporary US-Middle East relations.

Semester 4, Elective | Dave Harden

This course will provide an in-depth look at how the US government responds to humanitarian crises, whether produced by natural causes or political conflict. Students will explore all elements of national security, including the role of defense, diplomacy, intelligence, development, and humanitarian assistance as tools to a coordinated response to complex crises. They will gain unique insight into the pressure-packed decision-making needed for crisis response and crisis management by taking on senior leadership roles to lead their respective agencies in addressing the multi-faceted challenges of responding to crises, especially in the Middle East. In the class, students will assume the role of serving senior leadership position and be expected to understand, influence, and lead their agencies or organizations by reporting on complex crises, engaging the legislative branch, speaking to the media, and working the US interagency process with the goal of affecting outcomes in the Deputies Committee or Interagency Policy Committees of the National Security Council. This seminar will specifically help students hone practical leadership skills required for senior career or political positions during a time of crisis. Specifically, students will understand US Executive Branch policy, resources and operations as applied to specific crises; draft illustrative reporting cables, humanitarian situation reports, and policy papers drawing from contact reporting, social media, implementing partners, civil society, the business community, host and third country government officials and the donor community; shape media messaging and engage with print and television international and national media on background and on the record; brief Congress, including members and committee staffers whether on the ground or in the halls of Congress; develop and debate strategies, options, recommendations and decisions; and lead operations to implement decisions, monitor, evaluate, and adjust operations, as may be required.

This course will consider different issues in the Middle East region that arise from year to year. It will involve students in cutting-edge policies while they are in the formative stages and consider the tradeoffs that define all public policy choices and strategies. The instructor, specific topics, and themes related to the offerings in this course in a given term will be announced during registration.

This course will consider different issues that emerge from the involvement of the United States in the Middle East region. It will involve students in cutting-edge policies while they are in the formative stages and consider in depth the tradeoffs that define all public policy choices and strategies. The instructor, specific topics, and themes related to the offerings in this course in a given term will be announced during registration.

This course will consider in-depth application of the skills and processes that professional policymakers use to create public policy solutions. These special topic courses allow the students to engage in contemporary real-world problems that can serve as laboratories for understanding the interplay between leaders, options, interests, and outcomes in the public diplomacy space. The specific topics for courses offered in this series will often capture rapidly emerging developments in the region and allow students to map alternatives and solutions at the same time the problems are being resolved in practice. The instructor, specific topics, and themes related to the offerings in this course in a given term will be announced during registration.