IR448 Half Unit
American Grand Strategy
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof Peter Trubowitz
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in International Relations, MSc in International Relations (LSE and Sciences Po) and MSc in International Relations (Research). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All students must include a brief written statement of no more than 200 words explaining why they wish to take the course and how it will benefit their academic/career goals.
Places on capped courses cannot be guaranteed.
Deadline for application: The deadline for applications is 12:00 noon on Friday 26 September 2025.
You can expect to be informed of the outcome of your application by 12:00 noon on Monday 29 September 2025.
For questions about the academic content of a Department of International Relations course, students should contact the teacher responsible as listed in the hyperlinked course guide.
For questions about your programme regulations, please contact your programme convenor/director or your Academic Mentor.
For questions about the process of applying to a Department of International Relations course, if not already clear from the information provided, please contact ir.msc@lse.ac.uk.
Students are advised to check the MSc Course Availability Spreadsheet.xlsx for information on the remaining availability of EU4, DV4, GV4, IR4, PP4 and SO4 courses after 12:00 noon Monday 29 September.
All students are required to obtain permission from the Teacher Responsible by completing the online application on LSE for You. Admission is not guaranteed.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access). In previous years we have been able to provide places for most students that apply but that may not continue to be the case.
Course content
This course will explore American foreign policy at the broadest level of analysis – the level known as grand strategy. The course will showcase the main theoretical perspectives that inform the study of US grand strategy and apply them to historical and contemporary cases of American statecraft. In this connection, we will assess the relevance of the US experience for theorizing about power politics and the implications of alternative theories for thinking critically about American behaviour. Students will gain an appreciation of the debates and controversies that animate the study of US foreign policy, as well as of the unique challenges posed by making foreign policy in the American political, economic, and cultural context.
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
Formative assessment
Students will write short weekly blog posts on Moodle and provide an 800-word outline of their assessed essay by the end of Week 8. This will be returned by the end of AT.
Indicative reading
• John Lewis Gadds, Strategies of Containment (2005)
• Peter Trubowitz, Politics and Strategy (Princeton 2011)
• Linda Weiss, America Inc.? (Cornell 2014)
• Rebecca Thorpe, The American Warfare State (Chicago 2014)
• Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power (Princeton 1998)
• Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back (Knopf, 2018)
• Joan Hoff, A Faustian Foreign Policy (Cambridge 2008)
Assessment
Essay (100%, 4000 words)
Students will write a 4,000-word assessed essay selecting from a list of topics and questions provided by the course coordinator.
Key facts
Department: International Relations
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 40
Average class size 2024/25: 13
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.