Marines board a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter as part of a training drill. (Image courtesy of the Marine Corps on Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. Barry Posen
MIT Course Number
17.482 / 17.483
As Taught In
Spring 2015
Level
Undergraduate / Graduate
Course Description
Course Description
The purpose of this course is to acquaint the student with the missions, capabilities, and costs of the largely non-nuclear forces that make up the bulk of the U.S. military establishment. The course will also introduce the student to basic techniques for the assessment of relative military capabilities between adversaries in given theaters of military action. Central to the course will be an examination of historical cases of military action that shed light on current defence issues. Many of these cases are recent.