SSS 2020-2021
Cohosted with the Hertog Foundation and the The Public Interest Fellowship, the Security and Strategy Seminar (SSS) is a graduate-level seminar in Washington, DC focused on distinct challenges to the American position in the world with an emphasis on policy and cohort-building. Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, our leaders increasingly realize that our power, position, and principles are under assault from adversaries we had once hoped to transform into friends.
In 2020-2021, SSS will consist of three separate, simultaneous year-long seminars, each focused on a different strategic challenger to the United States: the People’s Republic of China, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although the nature of the competition and relevant factors differ for each adversary, each Seminar’s framing questions will remain the same:
What are America’s goals, and how do we achieve them?
What does the strategic competition look like? What are we competing over?
What do we need to understand about our adversary in order to achieve our goals?
Seminar Details
Taught by leading scholars in the field, each SSS will consist of 15 evening sessions that meet from September-May and will afford participating fellows an opportunity to gain a breadth of knowledge on critical subjects, forge relationships with senior scholars and practitioners, sharpen analytical frameworks through written and oral arguments, and build a cohort with their peers. Fellows will be responsible for around 50 pages of reading for each session and will be required to write two short essays over the course of the program. Each seminar will meet on the same designated day of the week from 6:00pm-8:30pm. If the ongoing public health crisis prevents in-person gatherings, SSS will operate via virtual platforms.
incoming Instructors
FelloWS
Ideal Candidates
SSS seeks a professionally diverse and first-rate class of highly committed junior to mid-level professionals (25 to 35 years old) already working in policy-relevant institutions. Past and current SSS cohorts have included think-tank analysts and researchers; Congressional staffers; active-duty military officers; and staff members from the Department of State, Department of Defense, White House Council of Economic Advisors, and Department of Homeland Security, among others.
How to apply
Applications are closed for the 2020-2021 cohort. Applications for the 2021-2022 cohort will open in spring 2021.
