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Simulation : The National Security Council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Douglas W. Simon
Douglas W. Simon*
Affiliation:
Drew University
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Extract

In the spring of 1981 I designed and taught what I considered, at the time, a "high risk" seminar for seventeen junior and senior political science majors. There were to be no textbooks, no lectures, no examinations and no term papers, those hallmarks of the traditional college course. Nevertheless, when the thirteen week course was over, the students were exhausted and claimed that they had never worked so hard in their college careers.

The adventure that my students (and I) undertook was a semester long simulation of the United States National Security Council (NSC), dealing with actual global events as they happened. As Washington dealt with a problem, we dealt with the same problem. The simulation was initially offered during the deteriorating situation in Iran and instability in the Gulf region.

Type
Research Article
Information
News for Teachers of Political Science , Volume 47 , Fall 1985 , pp. 3 - 4
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

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References

Selected Bibliography on National Security

Allison, Graham. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1971.Google Scholar
Berman, Larry. Planning A Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: W.W. Norton, 1982.Google Scholar
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. “Deciding Who Makes Foreign Policy,” New York Times Magazine. September 18, 1983.Google Scholar
Cohen, Bernard C. “The Influence of Special Interest Groups and Mass Media on Security Policy in the United States,” in Kegley, Charles W. and Wittkopf, Eugene R., Perspectives on American Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983, pp. 222–241.Google Scholar
Destler, I.M. “The Rise of the National Security Assistant 1961-81.” in Kegley, and Wittkopf, , Perspectives on American Foreign Policy, pp. 260-80.Google Scholar
Dull, James. The Politics of American Foreign Policy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1985.Google Scholar
Esterline, John H., and Black, Robert B.. Inside Foreign Policy. Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1975.Google Scholar
Gelb, Leslie and Betts, Richard. The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1979.Google Scholar
Haiberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972.Google Scholar
Halperin, Morton and Kanter, Arnold. Readings in American Foreign Policy: A Bureaucratic Perspective. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1973.Google Scholar
Hillsman, Roger. The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977.Google Scholar
Janis, Irving L. Victims of Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. (Updated version entitled Groupthink. 1982).Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1979.Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry. Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1982.Google Scholar
Kronenberg, Phillip S. Planning U.S. Security: Defense Policy in the Eighties. New York: Pergamon Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Nash, Henry T. American Foreign Policy: Changing Perspectives on National Security, rev. ed. Homewood, III.: Dorsey Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Spanier, John and Usianer, Eric M. Foreign Policy and the Democratic Dilemmas. 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982.Google Scholar
Williams, Phil. Crisis Management. New York: John Wiley, 1976.Google Scholar