The International Security Policy Concentration (ISP) is designed for students interested in political violence and conflict management, defense policy, military strategy, terrorism and unconventional warfare, arms control, intelligence, peacekeeping, coercion, negotiation, and alternatives to the use of force as an instrument of policy. It provides a conceptual foundation for understanding conflict and the political, economic, and military components of policies and capabilities for coping with the possibility of war, as well as expertise for analyzing specific functional and regional security issues. The course of study prepares students for employment in a wide range of professional positions: government (for example, the U.S. departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security, and Energy, intelligence agencies, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office, legislative staffs, or their foreign counterparts), international organizations such as the United Nations, consulting firms (for example, SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton, System Planning Corporation, DFI International), public interest and policy advocacy organizations (for example, the Arms Control Association, Heritage Foundation, Center for Defense Information), nonprofit research institutes (for example, the Stimson Center, Institute for East-West Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies), Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (for example, RAND, Institute for Defense Analyses, and CNAC), journalism, or other areas.
