POL 05 — Vital Issues in American Foreign Policy
Summer
Wednesdays
6:45—9:15 pm
Date(s)
Jun 24—Jul 15
4 weeks
Drop By
Jun 17
1 Units
Fees
$215
Open
This course will examine some of the most pressing issues in contemporary American foreign policy. We will consider the many issues in the Middle East (specifically, terror and the confrontation with ISIS): the Israel-Palestine conflict; the war in Syria; Iran and the question of the spread of nuclear weapons, including in North Korea; and the failure of the Arab Spring in the region. We will also explore the badly deteriorated relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including the conflict in Ukraine and threats to other former Soviet Republics. Finally, President Obama has renewed American focus on Asia, and the course will examine this policy shift with attention to China, Japan, South Korea, and other allies in that region. We will close with an assessment of the Obama administration’s successes and failures in foreign policy.
Gerald A. Dorfman, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford
Gerald Dorfman is an expert on British and European politics, including the European Union. He is also interested in US foreign policy and international relations. Dorfman served in the Agency for International Development and the US Department of State, and has been a professor of political science at Iowa State University, a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, and a distinguished visiting professor at San José State. He received a PhD from Columbia University.Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Steven W. Hook and John Spanier, American Foreign Policy since World War II, 20th Edition (ISBN 978-1-4833-6853-5 )