7/13/10
Fall 2010
Professor Andrew Hoehn
Lecturer Mara Karlin
Office hours will be generally held immediately before and just after class or by separate arrangement.
Mr. Hoehn can be reached by telephone at (703) 413-1100 x5916 and by e-mail at: hoehn@rand.org
Ms. Karlin can be reached by telephone at (414) 350-7851 or by e-mail at: marakarlin@gmail.com
For class-wide communications, please use crisis-sim@rand.org
I. Course Objectives
A. Identify key factors motivating principal actors during international crises through the use of a comparative case study approach.
B.
Develop working knowledge of crisis scenario design and management of a foreign policy crisis simulation.
C. Sharpen policy analysis skills through reading and writing assignments
II. Schedule
Week 1. (Aug 30) Introduction to Crisis Simulation (Hoehn and Karlin)

Discuss history and purposes of simulation in the foreign policy context.

Role of the control group, players, and press.

Expectations regarding participation and assignments
Lincoln Bloomfield and C.J. Gearin, "Games Foreign Policy Experts Play: The Political
Exercise Comes of Age," Orbis, Winter 1973, pp. 1008-31.
Alexander George, "Crisis Management: The Interaction of Political and Military
Considerations," Survival, September/October 1984, pp. 223-234.

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Aaron Levin, “Virtual Crisis,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, June 1992, pp. 7-13.
Week 2. (Sept 13) Making Decisions Through Memos; Simulations as a Tool of Policy
Analysis; Simulation Design Exercise
Scott Stossel, “North Korea: The War Game,” The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2005
Clive Thompson, “Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb?” The New
York Times Magazine, 12 August 2009.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/magazine/16Brucet.html?pagewanted=all )
Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Tested 2 Afghan Scenarios in War Game,”
The
Washington Post , October 26, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/10/25/AR2009102502633.html
David Ignatius, “Who Loses the Iran Game,” The Washington Post , December 6, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120403074.html
Kenneth M. Pollack, “Osiraq Redux: A Crisis Simulation of an Israeli Strike on the Iranian
Nuclear Program,” The Brookings Institution , February, 2010. http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/02_iran_israel_strike_pollack.aspx
David E. Sanger, “Imagining an Israeli Strike on Iran,” The New York Times , March 26,
2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/weekinreview/28sangerintro.html?pagewanted=all
Eliot Cohen, “Some Thoughts on Writing” http://www.sais-jhu.edu/academics/functional-studies/strategic/cohen/writing.htm
Week 3 (Sept 20) Manipulation of Risk: The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (Hoehn and Karlin)
Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence, Yale, 1966, pp 92-125.
Michael Oren, Six Days of War, Chapter 11, pages 305-327.
Michael Dobbs, “Cool Crisis Management? It’s a Myth. Ask JFK.” The Washington Post 22
June 2008.
David Korn, Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East
1967-1970, pages 89-98; 116-119;143-204; 225-278.
William Quandt, Peace Process, pages 148-182.
UNSCRs 242 and 338 http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/un242.htm
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/un338.htm

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Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile
Crisis, Longman, 1999. (excerpts to be assigned)
Week 4 (Sept 27) What’s Our Vision of the World? What’s Our Question?
(Hoehn and
Karlin)
Kennedy, Paul. Preparing for the Twenty-first Century. Vintage, 1994.
Fareed Zakaria, The Post American World, W.W. Norton, 2008
Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005
Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment.”
Foreign Affairs 1990/91
Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States'
Unipolar Moment." International Security 31, no. 2 (2006): pp. 7-41.
Parag Khanna, “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony.” The New York Times Magazine 27
January 2008.
Mahbubani, Kishore, The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, Public Affairs, 2008.
Krepinevich, Andrew, 7 Deadly Scenarios: Military Futurist Explores War in the 21 st
Century, Bantam, 2009.
Mandelbaum, Michael. The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World’s
Government in the Twenty-First Century. PublicAffairs, 2006.
Week 5 (Oct 4) What’s Our Vision of the World II? What’s Our Question II?
Simulation Administrivia (Hoehn and Karlin)
This class will include short group presentations on students’ visions of the world being simulated, and a larger group discussion to establish the parameters of this world.
Week 6 (Oct 11)
Federal Holiday. No class.
Week 7 (Oct 18) Simulation Design and Execution.
(Hoehn and Karlin)
This class will include discussion about simulation designs. Game designs will be
distributed prior to the class meeting.

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Week 8 (Oct 25) Crisis Decision Making – September 11, 2001 (Mr. Frank Miller)
The 9/11 Commission Report, W.W. Norton, 2004, pp. 1-46; 325-338.
Clarke, Richard A. Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, Free Press, 2004,
pp. 1-34.
Whittaker, Alan G., Smith, Frederick C., & McKune, Elizabeth (2007). The National Security
Policy Process: The National Security Council and Interagency System . (Research Report,
November 2006 Annual Update). Washington, D.C.: Industrial College of the Armed Forces,
National Defense University, U.S. Department of Defense (skim).
Week 9 (Nov 1) Crisis Decision-Making II: A Policymaker’s Perspective (Speaker TBD)
Kissinger, Henry. White House Years, Little, Brown, 1979, pp. 1-70 (particularly 17-70).
Rodman, Peter W. Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009 (final chapter on lessons learned).
Week 10 (Nov 8) Gaming and Simulation Roundtable (outside speakers)
Simulation (Hoehn and Karlin)
The first hour of this class will feature speakers from the gaming and simulation community.
Speakers will focus on the role of gaming and simulation, how to structure effective simulations, procedures for adjudicating “moves,” and assessing simulation results.
The second hour of this class will involve a class-wide simulation.
Frederic Wehrey, David E. Thaler, Nora Bensahel, Kim Cragin, Jerrold D. Green, Dalia
Dassa Kaye, Nadia Oweidat, Jennifer Li, “Dangerous but not Omnipotent: Exploring the
Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East,” RAND, 2009 (entire).
(free PDF available online at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG781/ )
Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, “The Last Resort: Consequences of Preventative
Military Action Against Iran), The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2008 (entire).
(free PDF available online at: http://washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus84.pdf
)
Week 11 (Nov 15) Scenario Proposals (Hoehn and Karlin)
Student presentations.
Week 12 (Nov 29) Scenario Selection (Hoehn and Karlin)
Week 13 (Dec 6 ) Simulation Planning (Hoehn and Karlin)

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Game dates: TBD
There will also be a 5-8:30 pm meeting tentatively set for January 26, 2011 (after winter recess) with dinner provided. This session will include the final selection of players and detailed planning of crisis run-up and the weekend simulation itself.
III. Writing Assignments
A. Two short papers (not more than 3 single-spaced pages) making a policy recommendation to the President. Paper should be written from the standpoint of a member of the National Security
Council or the White House Chief of Staff. Papers will:

Outline issue or concern

Discuss options (include brief coverage of pros and cons)

Recommend a course of action and steps needed to implement course of action
Papers will address topics covered in weeks 3 and 8. Papers will be due the week following the discussion (e.g. week 3 topic due week 4). Please bring 2 hard copies of your paper to class for the instructors.
B. One short paper (no more than 1 single-spaced page) outlining 5 characteristics of the simulation’s world and a 5 minute presentation on this topic. Papers should be emailed to all class members by 0900 on October 2 so that all students have an opportunity to peruse them.
Please bring 2 hard copies of your paper to class for the instructors.
C. Scenario presentation (include scenario sequence and key players) to be considered for use in the Crisis Simulation weekend. The draft scenario will include a brief description of the question to be tested (Week 5 discussion), the world situation leading up to the crisis, precipitating events, and 4 specific scenario moves that would provide the context for the simulation. Details will be discussed in Week 4. Presentations will be given to the class on Week 11. Group presentations are encouraged.
D. One Op-Ed (not more that 800 words) seeking to influence consideration of options
(including to constrain options) regarding topics discussed during Week 2, 3, 8, or 9. Students have the option of addressing a different topic, but only if approved in advance by Professor
Hoehn or Ms. Karlin. Paper will be due one week during Week 10. Please bring 2 hard copies of your paper to class for the instructors.
E. Threat/Situation Report to be used in Crisis Simulation. Details to be discussed in Week 10,
11, 12, 13.