Policy Certificate Program

Foundations of Warfare:

As the lines between conventional and irregular warfare blur and adversaries employ increasingly sophisticated strategies, it is essential for policymakers to grasp the realities of military tactics and operations. Policymakers shape defense strategies, legislation, and resource allocation. A tangible understanding of warfare's complexities will enable them to make more informed decisions that have profound strategic implications.

Program Overview:

This certificate program is designed to provide policy professionals with a crash course in military tactics and operational realities. Participants will engage in seminars, case studies, and interactive simulations. These components will demystify the intricacies of modern warfare, focusing on challenges such as grey zone tactics, irregular operations, and great power competition.

Through practical exercises, participants will immerse themselves in the principles and dynamics that drive military strategy and execution. This experiential learning model will ensure participants gain firsthand insights into concepts often discussed but seldom experienced in policy circles.

Course Schedule:

Wednesday April 30: 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Thursday May 1: 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Friday May 2: 5:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Saturday May 3: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm

Sunday May 4: 11:00 am - 7:00 pm

Since the end of the Cold War, US industrial policy has allowed the Nation’s supply chains to stretch far overseas and its manufacturing capabilities to atrophy. The United States has become dangerously dependent on its primary geopolitical competitor, the People’s Republic of China, for critical inputs to its weapons systems, batteries, and many other key technological sectors. The Chinese Communist Party has gained immense influence over the global flow of critical resources such as minerals, microchips, and pharmaceuticals. To protect the American way of life, Washington must reassert its industrial dominance and independence in these critical sectors, most urgently those that impact national security. This workshop will offer a history of US industrial policy, consider China’s trade policies, examine recent efforts to reinvigorate the Nation’s industrial base and the ongoing debates around those policies, and identify best practices to harness American industrial might for the future.

Religious Liberty has been of central importance to the United States before it even came to be. European settlers came to the new world in part so that they might practice their religions in freedom. Yet the United States is also a country that explicitly rejects the notion of an established religion. The American Constitution enshrines both these principles in the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Over our history, the combined meaning of these clauses has been considered and reconsidered in Supreme Court cases from Reynolds v United States (1878) to Our Lady of Guadalupe School v Morrisse-Berru (2020). New cases are coming before the Court this year. Join us to consider the nature of religious liberty, its legal history and current constitutional questions. We will also study religious liberty as it affects contemporary domestic and foreign policy.

As America’s adversaries grow stronger and more assertive, America’s relative advantages deteriorate, and the Western world’s “holiday from history” comes to an end, the United States will need to marshal its resources and employ them more effectively to defend its people, its allies, and their way of life. Strategy, the process by which the country’s leadership does that, is becoming more important, but the geopolitical, economic, technological, religious, and ideological shifts that are making global affairs more complex are also making strategy harder to do. How should policymakers categorize and analyze these changes? How does the government try to mitigate the threats posed by these shifting factors, and is that the best way forward? Through advanced seminars and a policy simulation, we will explore what strategy is, how the U.S. government tries to create strategies, and how that influences America’s geopolitical rivalries.

Emerging technologies promise solutions to approaching crises from energy to climate. Artificial intelligence and transhumanist technologies make similar promises to alter human life and identity for the better. Yet, at the same time, it has become too easy for states to place their populations under surveillance, collect behavioral data, and practice predictive policing. The conflicts in Ukraine and Israel have demonstrated how technology has made information, disinformation, and public relations an increasingly important aspect of warfare. Technological advancement is complicating American national security and empowering our enemies, while offering ways of engaging in warfare without risking American lives. How can we understand the effect of technological advancement on human life—and on policy-making at home and abroad? This workshop will consider these topics and how technology will shape our future.

Thucydides is thought to be the first and greatest teacher of power, of the facts that might makes right, and that wars begin as a consequence of fear. Thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to proponents of modern “realist” schools of international relations invoke his name. But what are his teachings, exactly? And what can he tell us about modern warfare? In this workshop, candidates will study Thucydides' great history of the Peloponnesian War with a series of foundational questions in mind: What is the nature of power, and of war? How do wars start? What role do domestic politics and “ideology” play in foreign policy? In our discussions and final simulation, we will explore whether his actual teachings are applicable to current grand strategic dilemmas—and if so, how.

The People’s Republic of China poses the most significant national security threat the free world has faced since the end of the Cold War. Recently the American awakening to this threat has ushered forth a whole-of-society effort to combat this epic challenge. Consequently, the demands for a deeper understanding of the Chinese communist system--its strategic intent, its capabilities, and modus operandi-- and for concrete counter steps, have skyrocketed. In this workshop candidates will be introduced to the work of Hudson Institute’s China Center, which specializes in providing timely, informed and strategic research and policy specifically tailored to face the China threat. They will study China, investigate the growing threat of the CCP, and strategize solutions under the guidance of America’s top China experts.