Undergraduate Certificate in Terrorism Studies

This course introduces the student to the relationships between intelligence and homeland security strategy. The course utilizes a historical case study approach, analyzing both past and contemporary national security issues from an intelligence perspective to highlight the increasingly important role intelligence has played and will play in the homeland security strategy process. The course presents the evolving relationship between intelligence and homeland security strategy during the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the Cold War because of the lessons to be learned from that period.

During this course, students will study and analyze Counterintelligence, focusing on both U.S. and foreign counterintelligence, including the evolution of counterintelligence, perspectives on counterintelligence operations since World War II, principles of covert action and deception, and assessments of successes and failures of counterintelligence. You will be required to study a range of books and articles on this topic and will develop a comprehensive knowledge of counterintelligence, and how intelligence agencies in the United States use both offensive and defensive counterintelligence to guard and protect U.S. national security interests from adversaries. In addition, you will study how counterintelligence is collected and analyzed, and how social and technological changes affect counterintelligence.

IS420 examines Intelligence & Assassination. The course evaluates intelligence in general, two major Intelligence Services, and a diverse range of so called ‘black operations’ case studies in the context of national security, economic and corporate interests, which have culminated in the ultimate sanction – assassination. The course then moves on to examine the most prolific and persistent form of assassination – that of sustained death squad activity, with case studies of: Germany (Weimar Republic), Spain, Punjab, Kashmir, Argentina, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Uganda, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, East Timor, Philippines, Brazil, South Africa and Serbia.

This is a fundamental course focusing on intelligence interrogation from a conceptual perspective which will provide students with the tools to develop an overall understanding of interrogation and practical interrogation concepts as they can be applied to intelligence interrogation.   The course focus will address legal issues, verbal and non-verbal behavior, interrogator and subjects, environmental and cultural issues, coercive practices, as well as current events as they apply to the concepts of intelligence interrogation.

The rapid increase in multinational analysis and transnational organized crime, corporate drug trafficking organizations, and the impact of crime on national and international policy has created a critical need for law enforcement intelligence experts in the relatively new field of criminal intelligence. The course provides the student with an introduction to the methods and techniques of criminal intelligence analysis and strategic organized crime. It will demonstrate how to predict trends, weaknesses, capabilities, intentions, changes, and warnings needed to dismantle criminal organizations. Law enforcement professionals at the federal, state, and local level, criminal intelligence analysts working in private industry, and military intelligence personnel making a transition from a military to a law enforcement career will benefit from this course. Students will be introduced to techniques such as association and link analysis, visual investigative analysis (VIA), telephone toll analysis, matrix analysis, reporting and application to violent crime, and organized crime to include drug, white collar, and money laundering. This course emphasizes criminal intelligence as opposed to criminal investigation.

This course provides an overview of cyber warfare and the potential impact of its use by military, terrorist, and criminal organizations. By studying the operation of computer networks, the student will gain an appreciation of how they have both benefited society and made portions of its infrastructure more vulnerable. An overview of cyber weaponry will be presented, and various offensive and defensive strategies will be examined via case studies

This course examines terrorism as a social and political instrument from past to present. Topics include comparing insurgencies and terrorism, the paths to radicalization, the roots of extreme Islam, U.S. domestic terrorism issues, counter terrorism, national & domestic intelligence resources employed against terrorism, and a review of U.S. National Security Policy regarding terrorism.

This course assesses the impact of terrorism on U.S. national security. It focuses on a variety of aspects related to U.S. policy on terrorism, the threat of terrorism to U.S. national security, and the problems inherent to U.S. counterterrorism. The student will develop a comprehensive understanding of how the U.S. views terrorism, how various policies affect outcomes of counterterrorism, strengths and weaknesses in policy and strategies, threats to U.S. national security, and suggestions for solutions to these threats.

Modern criminal business, to include drug trafficking, trafficking in people or weapons, gold and precious gem smuggling, and even terrorism are reliant on how such activities are funded. Without some form of funding, illicit actors and illicit behaviors would have difficulty existing. This course will explore the shadowy world of illicit finance, from money laundering to Hawalas, to fraud, trade, and corruption used to fund illicit actions.

This course examines the processes involved in forecasting terrorism. The syllabus examines the theoretical underpinnings of the phenomenon of terrorism, actual and planned cases of chemical and biological weapons use, and the modern threat of improvised weapons of mass destruction. It continues by differentiating the varying magnitudes of threat and effect of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high yield explosive (CBRNE) weapons and analyzes terrorist precedent, strategy, and psychology from which terrorism forecasts and counter-terrorism activities are generated. It moves on to examine traditional and newer methods of forecasting terrorism: intuition-based, profiling, conflict vulnerability analysis and prognosis (early warning), Atypical Signal Analysis & Processing (ASAP), and the Khalsa systematic Indications and Warning (I&W) methodologies. It concludes with a brief overview of the state of the terrorist threat almost a decade after 9/11

This course is an introduction to historic and contemporary terrorist groups and their motives and strategies. The psychological and social impact on individuals, communities and global societies of the achievement of terrorist goals as well as recruitment methods, the influence terrorist groups exert on their members and factors influencing the establishment and dissolution of terrorist groups will be examined.