The Blue Center supports teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Our courses are taught by faculty from the Jackson School and across the University, covering a wide range of topics from economic statecraft, to the practice of diplomacy, to the uses of big data. Blue Center courses often include practitioner guest speakers or ties to real-world events and governmental efforts.
Courses affiliated with the Blue Center include:
Spring 2026
GLBL 7825 – Spies, Cyber, and Statecraft
Instructor: Timothy Haugh
Nations invest heavily in intelligence and cyber capabilities. Historically, intelligence and cyber activities have occurred in the shadows; following 9/11 these operations have become increasingly public. How nations employ these capabilities has tremendous consequences economically, diplomatically, and militarily. The goal of this course is to prepare students to think critically about the use of intelligence and cyber capabilities and the consequences of their use for militaries, nations, and their citizens. Drawing on a diverse set of narrative, historical, legal, and other sources, the course examines the policy and civil liberties implications surrounding the use of intelligence/cyber capabilities as a critical part of warfare and statecraft. This course is being taught by General Timothy Haugh (ret.), the former director of the National Security Agency.
GLBL 7826 – Accelerating Defense Innovation in U.S. National Security
Instructor: Doug Beck
This course examines the evolution of defense innovation in the U.S. and its allies and partners over the last fifteen years, and particularly efforts to leverage commercially derived technology and rapid technology development cycles in areas such as artificial intelligence, autonomy, space, biotechnology, energy, cyber/telecom, and advanced manufacturing for national security. We examine the origins and imperative for transformation in this arena, critical areas of tech and their impact, related policy and acquisition/procurement tools and structural reforms, the intersection between the Department of Defense (or “War”) and Congress, the evolution of the defense tech ecosystem’s founders and funders, operational integration and the perspective from the warfighter, lessons from the war in Ukraine and other recent conflicts, adversary approaches and threats, and the critical role of allies and partners. The course also provides students with the opportunity to explore remaining barriers, current efforts at reform, and potential solutions. Perspectives from current practitioners across the military, policy and legislative, and defense-tech sectors are incorporated, including through selected guest speakers.
GLBL 7827 – U.S. Law Enforcement and Foreign Affairs
Instructors: Brian Driscoll
The role of U.S. law enforcement in international affairs has matured immensely since WWII, with several inflection points that have informed the persistent evolution of its responsibilities and desired outcomes. Collaboration between US law enforcement agencies and strategic foreign partners has been, and remains, nuanced and complex, heavily impacted by shifting geopolitical environments, competing priorities within the global interagency community, and often requiring a whole-of-government approach. Impactful U.S. law enforcement international operations require outside-the-box thinking, fluency in legal authorities, and sensitivities to the asymmetrical and unpredictable variables unique to any geographical region in which one operates. The goal of this course is to prepare students to think critically about the responsible leveraging of U.S. law enforcement, in partnership with the broader U.S. intelligence community and foreign partners, to hold responsible those who have committed criminal acts in violation of U.S. federal law. This course explores real-world investigative and operational scenarios ranging from counternarcotics, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, crisis negotiation, and hostage rescue matters, analyzing each in search of more creative and efficient solutions, as criminal and terrorist enterprises continue to be a pacing global threat.
GLBL 7077/YLS 21365 – The National Security Policy Process
Instructor: Phil Kaplan
This year-long joint Yale Law School/Yale Jackson School course is designed to facilitate student exposure to high-level national security policymakers and will address the question: “How does the national security policy process work?” Embedded in this question are subordinate questions about how that process works at different relevant departments and agencies, the answers to which look strikingly different from one to the next. The study of national security policy process touches the very structure and functions of the federal government of the United States, the national security tools at its disposal, the nature of policymaking, and its relation to law. Since its creation by statute in 1947, the National Security Council (NSC) has served as the primary forum in which the United States has engaged in national-security policymaking. The processes employed have varied across presidential administrations and different agencies. While they have been the subject of some historical inquiry, they remain in flux, and are largely opaque to the general public, even while they form an essential element for understanding some of the government’s most consequential decisions and actions.