From Frontline to Headline: The 'War About the War' in Afghanistan

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website.
 
 
Multiple frontlines beset contemporary global geopolitics.
 
In Ukraine, Russia’s invasion is faltering, triggering fears of nuclear escalation. In East Asia, China’s plans for Taiwan seem to be advancing into a pre-invasion stage. And in South Asia, the Taliban regime which replaced the US-backed dispensation has entered its second year — with alarming signs that it still supports international terrorism. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to test advanced nuclear-delivery systems, Iran maintains its nuclear ambitions, and new terrorist networks emerge in Africa, triggering a wave of coups and mercenary warfare, all as cyberespionage expands and cybercrime morphs into a global cyberterror threat.
 
How do we unpack all those conflicts? Simply, through those whose job it is to watch, analyze and cover them.
 
In this course, we drill down on one major conflict — Afghanistan — and explore the impact of the US pullout, a year-and-a-half after it was completed.
 
Lectures will include insights from experts who cover, examine, and continue to engage in and negotiate with the Afghan conflict -- from the frontline -- as well as those who bring their findings from there to you -- through the headline.
 
Though it is now in its fifth decade of unrest, we will review ‘post-American Afghanistan’ through the critical lens of contemporary international, national, and social media narratives.
 
We will examine how the narration, coverage and broadcasting of security and conflict have become a part of our national conversation and how they’ve affected international relations since the last American soldier walked away from America’s longest war.
 
We will delve into what happens when the reporting ends and the debate begins, and how conflict further develops from there.
 
We will learn more about the players and organizations shaping global security dynamics — from new alliances like the Quad and AUKUS, to rejuvenated ones like NATO — from the practitioners who cover them, and officials who have served them.
 
Think of this course as eight weeks of deep diving into the debate about Afghanistan — the war about the war -- with weekly inputs and exchanges from the best global experts in the business of conflict, and/or covering it.
 
 

Spring 2023 tuition is $499.

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