CLASS FULL!! Planning for Combat: Concepts & practices for problem-solving on and off the battlefield
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Parkyn, Lieutenant Colonel Roftiel Constantine, USAF, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Wehr, USA
Wed Jan 31, Thu Feb 1, 12-02:00pm, E38-714
Fri Feb 2, 10am-03:00pm, Field Trip
Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 24-Jan-2007
Limited to 20 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
“No plan survives the first incoming round,” say skeptics of deliberate military plans. Advocates of deliberate plans say the same thing. Why?
Students will achieve a rudimentary understanding of military planning & look at use of conventional forces in the counterinsurgency role. The course includes:
• 2-hour seminar on hasty & deliberate planning;
• 2-hour practical application on planning & wargaming, in which participants will plan to employ an infantry battalion to seize insurgent leaders and an arms cache;
• a military staff ride of a local battlefield.
Lt Col Roftiel Constantine, USAF, LtCol Michael Parkyn, USMC, and LTC Michael Wehr, USA are active duty officers with experience at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of warfare, totaling 57 years of combined experience in the art of war.
Contact: Lieutenant Colonel Michael Parkyn, E38-670, mparkyn@mit.edu
Cosponsor: Center for International Studies
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How Baseball Teaches Us The Best Way to Elect the President
Alan Natapoff
Wed Jan 17, 04-05:30pm, 37-212
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Paradox: The Electoral College is more democratic than raw popular voting: It delivers massive power to individual voters in closely-contested states, but raw voting delivers none anywhere. Improvement: Base a state's Electoral vote count on its total popular vote, not its population. It would empower 80 million voters in poorly-contested states where the opposition could punish a despised dominant candidate by casting blank ballots. It would force candidates to earn the acquiescence of the opposition and to campaign beyond battleground states. In Iraq having many closely-contested districts would make the result sensitive to small numbers of defections - and, thereby, more democratic. We trace the paradoxes, the delicious oddities, and the resulution of Florida's deadlock in 2000 by Fermat's Rule.
Web: http://natapoff@mit.edu
Contact: Alan Natapoff, 37-219, x3-7757, natapoff@space.mit.edu
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How Baseball, Poker, and Fermat Teach Us the Best Way to Elect the President
Alan Natapoff
Wed Jan 17, 04-05:30pm, 37-212
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
The paradox of presidential voting is that the Electoral College is more democratic than raw popular voting: It delivers massive power to individual voters in closely contested states; raw voting delivers none to anyone, anywhere. We can empower 80 million impotent voters in poorly-contested states if we base a state's Electoral vote on its total popular vote (for all candidates) rather than on its population. If the opposition despises the state's dominant candidate--or greatly prefers its own--it can then cast blank ballots that will not count for anyone: Dominant candidates must then persuade their opposition to vote for someone,and both candidates must campaign beyond the battleground states. The same lessons apply to a democratic voting design for Iraq. We trace the paradoxes,the delicious oddities, and the resolution of Florida's deadlock in 2000 by Fermat's Rule.
Web: http://natapoff@mit.edu
Contact: Alan Natapoff, 37-219, 253-7757, natapoff@mit.edu
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Leadership Under Fire
Ambassador Barbara Bodine
Tue Jan 9, Thu Jan 11, Tue Jan 16, Thu Jan 18, 02-04:00pm, E38-202, (E38-2nd fl conf rm)
Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 11-Dec-2006
Limited to 12 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Prereq: memo re: your background/interest in topic
This seminar explores crisis leadership challenges. Scholars and practitioners debate the nature, form and tools of effective leadership, but what happens when stakes dramatically rise, information becomes scarce and unreliable, and the time and scope of action contract? Are conventional leadership tools still the right tools, or is crisis leadership fundamentally different?
When do you follow the rules, when do you not, and what do you do when there are no rules?
Are you prepared to face the consequences? To whom do you owe your greatest obligation? Questions of integrity, accountability.
How do you manage the media, Monday morning quarterbacks?
Readings required. Case studies @ URL.
Ambassador Bodine has been at ground zero for wars, invasions and occupations, terrorist bombings and hijackings.
Web: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/leadership/index.html
Contact: Ambassador Barbara Bodine, bbodine@mit.edu
Cosponsor: Center for International Studies
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MIT Washington Summer Internship Program Information Sessions
Charles Stewart, Tobie Weiner
Thu Jan 18, 10-11:00am, 1-150
Wed Jan 24, 01-02:00pm, 1-135
Tue Jan 30, 03-04:00pm, 1-379
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Repeating event. Participants welcome at any session
Come to an information session and find out about the MIT Washington Summer Internship Program. The program was founded in 1995 to give selected MIT undergraduates the opportunity to explore science and engineering policymaking at the national level, through study and practical experience. The interns have worked in the offices of government agencies, the private sector, and advocacy groups. Complementing the summer internships are a trip to Washington, DC, during spring break and a 12-unit HASS subject designed to give students an introduction to policymaking. All sessions are the same; come to any one.
Web: http://web.mit.edu/summerwash/www
Contact: Tobie Weiner, E53-484, x3-3649, iguanatw@mit.edu
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Putin's Russia: Friend or Foe?
Dr. Carol Saivetz
Wed Jan 17, 24, 02-03:30pm, E38-714
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Limited to 30 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
This seminar will explore the current and future state of Russian-US relations. Despite the friendship between Presidents Putin and Bush, relations are increasingly tense. Nonetheless, areas of cooperation and potential cooperation still exist.
Do the two powers agree on the war on terror?
Can the US and Russia cooperate on the Iranian nuclear question?
What about European energy security?
What are the sources of Russian foreign policy? Will it change after Putin?
Strongly suggested: Read "Russia Leaves the West" By Trenin, Dmitri, in Foreign Affairs, Jul/Aug2006, Vol. 85, Issue 4 (Available online via MIT Libraries - certificates required)
Session 1: Issues and Personalities
Session 2: After 2008
Contact: Dr. Carol Saivetz, csaivetz@mit.edu
Cosponsor: Center for International Studies
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The Future of Power
Ali Wyne
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Limited to 30 participants.
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)
Now in its second year, this interactive discussion seminar will open with the same question: What balance of power will emerge after the United States' reign as superpower concludes?" We will consider four topics: 1)The rise of India and China; 2)The declining relevance of military power; 3)The growing importance of global public opinion and 4) The various geopolitical scenarios that could accompany declining American influence.
Contact: Ali Wyne, awyne@mit.edu
The Rise of India and China
TBA
Wed Jan 10, 07:30-09:00pm, 1-135
The New Middle East and the Declining Relevance of Military Power
Ambassador Barbara Bodine
This session examines the New Middle East and the utility and relevance of military prowess and armed force in the 21st century.
Wed Jan 17, 07:30-09:00pm, 1-135
The Growing Importance of Global Public Opinion
TBA
Wed Jan 24, 07:30-09:00pm, 1-135
Geopolitical Scenarios Accompanying Declining US Influence
TBA
This final session discusses some international orders that might arise in a world in which the United States is no longer the predominant power.
Wed Jan 31, 07:30-09:00pm, 1-135
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