这堂课程有着四项广泛的目标：

• 说明国家安全的定义与重大利益的含意是主观而不固定的，而且它们就像国内政治一样，是对于国际政治和“客观威胁”的回应。
• 说明政策决定涉及到了复杂的政治、社会、经济、军事、法律和伦理目标与价值之间的折冲。
• 探讨参与美国国家安全政策制订的那些组织、机构和个人如何影响政策形成、执行与结果。
• 进一步了解国家安全问题与解决之道的历史脉络、演变以及其间的联系。

这堂课程是以历史时间的顺序来安排的。我们将自第二次世界大战的尾声开始，从美国国家安全政策的观点，看待其与苏联和中国的对抗、亚洲地区两场有着10万名美国人伤亡并衍生社会动乱的战事、差点爆发核子战争、蹒跚地走向军备管制和共产主义的崩溃。经由一些挑选过的案例研究、回忆录和原始文件作为进入每个时期的窗户。美国国家安全决策者在想些什么？他们在担心什么？他们如何看待所面对的选择？

What threatens those interests? How should the U.S. defend those interests? What kind of military should we build? Should the U.S. enter into alliances with other countries? Do we need a larger Navy? How much should we spend on weapons procurement?

The course has four broad goals:

• to demonstrate that definitions of national security and the specification of vital interests are subjective and fluid and that they are as much functions of domestic politics as they are responses to international politics and "objective threats";
• to demonstrate that policy decisions involve complex tradeoffs among political, social, economic, military, legal, and ethical goals and values;
• to explore how the many organizations, institutions, and individuals that participate in American national security policymaking affect policy formulation, implementation, and outcomes; and
• to better understand the historical context, evolution, and linkages of national security problems and solutions.

The course is organized along an historical time line. Beginning with the final days of World War II we follow American national security policy from the first stirrings of confrontation with the Soviet Union and China, into two hot wars in Asia that cost over 100,000 American lives and spawned social upheavals, through a close encounter with nuclear war, stumbling into the era of arms control, and conclude with the collapse of the communism. Selective case studies, memoirs, and original documents act as windows into each period. What were US national security decision makers thinking? What were they worried about? How did they see their options?