This module examines the historical development of the West’s security threats. The module looks at the essential areas within the historical development of security and security threats as a field of study, adapted and presented to history students. Topics covered may include nuclear weapons, terrorism, armed conflict (inter-, intra-, extra- and proxy wars), space race, energy, revolutions and (beginnings of) Islamic fundamentalism, new wars, terrorism, energy security, frozen conflicts, epidemics, rogue and failed states, nuclear proliferation, extremism, authoritarianism. In discussing these issues, the module also expands on the institutions, organisations, regimes, and norms that have been set up by the West to combat these threats. In this way, participants examine the historical evolution of both threats and responses. Taken together, the threats-responses dynamic is presented against a clear chronological background, namely, by observing its development across historical decades (40s/50s/60s/70s/80s/90s/00s). In doing so, the module aims to set the threat-response relationship and its effects on Western security within the wider historical, social, and cultural contexts. The module puts forward a case for a clear conceptual understanding of Western security threats and responses, while underlining the role of both continuity and change in their transformation from 1945 onwards.

1. Become conversant in the major threats to Western security from 1945 onwards and understood the role of international institutions and organisations aimed at reducing such threats.
Knowledge & Understanding

2. Gained empirical and theoretical knowledge of the debates and developments related to Western security threats and responses to such challenges by learning how to integrate historical insights from multiple theoretical standpoints
Knowledge & Understanding

3. Mastered skills related to research and policy analysis developed through the interdisciplinary study of Western security threats (history and political science)
Learning
Analysis

4. The facility to develop and sustain written and oral arguments around security and its challenges in a historical setting.
Communication

5. Become intellectually curious and able to solve such puzzles by collecting and analysing data from primary and secondary sources.
Application
Enquiry
Problem Solving

Books, Library/Online Recourses
Articles
Room with Computer + data projector for Teaching
Blackboard for Module Materials and Assignment submissions.

Dover, Robert, Dylan, Huw, Goodman, Michael (Eds.) (2017) The Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
Gaddis, John Lewis (1998), We Now Know. Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Gaddis, John Lewis (2007), The Cold War (London: Penguin).
Leffler, Melvyn P. and Odd Arne Westad (2012), The Cambridge History of the Cold War [3 Volume Set] (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).
Westad, Odd Arne (2005) The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).

Each week there will be several required readings. Students are responsible for reading these materials and discussing and/or debating them in class. Students will engage with both primary (archival documents, newspapers, manuscript material, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, films, letters, and diaries), and secondary sources (literature). In regard to the latter, in addition to core texts (see below), students will read a variety of secondary sources, including books and journal articles. The objective is to observe and understand security threats from multiple perspectives which, by either complementing or contradicting each other, put into question the dominance of mainstream narratives of the historical evolution and transformation of Western security threats. Additionally, the mix of primary and secondary sources allow for a better feel and appreciation for the socio-political context in which threats emerged and were countered.

Security Options Memo (LO – 1,2,3, & 5) - 1000 words 20% Sem. 1

Document Analysis Essay (LO – 1,2,3, & 5) - 1500 words 30% Sem. 1

Individual Presentation (LO 4 &5) 5-7 mins (500 words) 10% Sem. 2

Essay (1,2,3, &5) 2000 words 40% Sem. 2