Reading List

Read before the first day of class:

• A National Security Strategy Primer
• National Security Strategy October 2022
• National Security Council (NSC) and Interagency System
• NSPM (NSPM-4) describing the NSC and Interagency System
• The Armed Forces Officer Please read Chapters 1 & 2
• 2022 NDS Fact Sheet

Additional References

• One of President Obama’s last PPDs was entitled “United States – Cuba Normalization”  (for comparison)
• Directives specific to Homeland Defense
• Federation of American Scientists, Presidential Directives and Executive Orders

The following is a suggested list of books on national security issues recommended by NDU professors. Purchase is not required.

• "The Insurgent's Dilemma" by David Ucko
• “The New Rules of War” by Sean McFate
• “Getting the Next War Right” by Thomas Marks
• “Back to the future- people’s war in the 21^st century” Dr. Thomas Marks and Dr. Paul Rich
• “FARC, 1982-2002: criminal foundation for insurgent defeat” Dr. Thomas Marks
• “A Double-edged sword: the people’s uprising in Ghazni, Afghanistan” Dr. Matthew Dearing
• “The North Caucasus: from mass mobilization to international terrorism” Dr. Elena Pokalova
•  “Cyberterrorism and Biotechnology: When ISIS meets CRISPR” Dr. Arabinda Acharya
• “China in the Middle East” Dr. Geoffrey Gresh
• “The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations: A Case Study” Monte Mallin
• “Foreign Military Education as PLA Soft Power”   John Van Oudenaren and   Benjamin Fisher
• “America’s Addiction to Mercenaries” Dr. Sean McFate
• “The Instructive Case of Sierra Leone” Dr. David Ucko
• “Colombia and the War-to-Peace Transition: Cautionary Lessons from Other Cases” Gen (Ret.) Carlos Ospina, Dr. Thomas Marks and Dr. David Ucko
• Charting a course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration by Craig Deare
• “The Gulf Looks East: Sino-Arab Relations in an Age of Instability” Dr. Geoffrey Gresh
• “We disputed every word’: how Kyrgyzstan’s moderates tame ethnic nationalism” Dr. Erica Marat
• “Security, Identity, and British Counterterrorism Policy” Dr. Kathryn Marie Fisher
• "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq" by Michael Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor
• "The National Security Enterprise: Navigating the Labyrinth" by Roger Z. George, Harvey Rishikof