Comprehensive Security Cooperation

The Course

The Comprehensive Security Cooperation (CSC) course is a 4-week in-resident executive program offered three times a year for mid-level military, government, and non-government professionals who intersect with the security sphere.​
Fellows spend approximately three-quarters of their time on complex, transdisciplinary, and transboundary challenges and about a quarter on specialty security content that deep-dives into a variety of priority areas.​

The resulting cross-talk between security professionals from different security sectors fosters understanding and the development of significant relationships and networks.​

In parallel with presentations, discussions, and exercises, Fellows assess security environments, identify disruptors, analyze threat systems, and probe governance issues while collaboratively building relationships and mutual understanding.​

Throughout the course, Fellows seek to develop resilient solutions to real organizational and regional security issues. These complimentary processes enhance the capacity of regional allies, partners, and others to comprehend and cooperatively address complex security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, thereby advancing the freedom, openness, stability, prosperity, and security of the Indo-Pacific region.

Course Goals

CSC aims to contribute to a free, open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific by:

  1. Educating: Deepening understanding and encouraging critical evaluation of complex security challenges.
  2. Connecting: Constructing a network of interdisciplinary practitioners in order to enhance international security cooperation.
  3. Empowering: Building individual potential and partner capacity to find innovative solutions to complex security challenges, employing a whole-of-society approach.
Core Content

Critical thinking sessions emphasize the importance of objective, rigorous analysis, while introducing fellows to analytical tools to help them understand complex security challenges.

Geostrategic sessions explore the range of different security challenges, regional security architectures and geostrategic considerations within each  geographic sub-region: Northeast Asia, Southeast  Asia, South Asia and Oceania. These sessions are complemented by an examination the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy.

Security Challenges examined in detail on the course include, but are not limited to, economics and security; maritime security; counterterrorism and irregular warfare; environmental security; health security; media, misinformation and disinformation; and cybersecurity.

Capacity sessions seek to develop strategic-level understanding of such areas as statecraft; security sector governance; interagency cooperation; crisis management; and women, peace and security.

Exercises include strategic table-top exercises which aim to deepen understanding of strategic cooperation and competition between states.

Completion

Upon successful completion of this course, you will receive a Course Certificate and Alumni Status.

Upon successful completion and implementation of your Project you will receive a Specialty Security Certificate in your Concentration area.

Elective Series

In addition to the core content, Fellows choose to select a specialty “concentration” or focus area that is of particular interest or professional relevance to them and can assist them with their Fellow Project. Concentrations are deep dives on specific security issues, which allow Fellows with mutual interests from different security sectors to work together on complex challenges.

Each iteration of CSC features a different combination of concentrations, including:

Crisis Management

Practitioners from the fields of emergency management and humanitarian assistance, environmental security and climate change resilience, and public health expand their knowledge of current models, frameworks, and resources to support complex, cooperative operations in both slow and sudden-onset crises. With an emphasis on human security, Fellows use case studies, simulations, and exercises to explore prevention, mitigation, and resilience strategies, while growing their professional networks.

Fellows gain a non-technical, strategic-level, whole-of-society understanding of cybersecurity by exploring three dimensions: governance, resilience, and recovery. The aim of this concentration is to provide security practitioners with the knowledge, resources, best practices, and networks to navigate the cybersecurity environment and to understand how cybersecurity affects national and international security. Topics include strategy, policy, international frameworks, incident response, cybercrime, privacy/security, and public-private partnerships.

Fellows examine the impact of economic policies, trends, and actions on national security. Topics covered include trade agreements and sanctions, economic statecraft, and the digital and blue economies. Fellows in this concentration examine how countries at all levels of development and sizes use economics not just for growth and development, but also to deepen alliances and commitments or as a means of geopolitical competition.

Fellows gain insights into the security impacts of current and projected environmental challenges. They will explore underlying science and data for climate change, pollution, food/water/energy, and other resource issues, and heighten their awareness of measures needed to mitigate and adapt to environmental threats. Fellows will furthermore develop an understanding of how to advance, participate in, and lead evidence-based environmental security decision-making.

The information environment is enabling shifts in power and governance that can polarize and multiply fissures in society, increase risk and harm to civilians, and degrade societal resilience. Participants in this concentration will learn more about how technology is compounding the effects and power of the modern information environment, how security in war and peace is affected by this increasingly powerful IE, and how to assess risk, strengthen resilience, and recover from harms arising in the IE.

Fellows gain strategic understanding of contemporary terrorism, insurgency, and irregular warfare threats, and critically assess different response options by sharing international experiences and best practices. This practitioner-focused and highly interactive concentration builds practitioner networks to help nations successfully collaborate in the fight against terrorism and insurgency.

Fellows explore the free and open Indo-Pacific concept with a focus on the maritime domain as they review traditional state-based and non-traditional transnational crime challenges, and avenues of mutual cooperation. Fellows gain an improved understanding of the global commons and the importance of sea control, maritime domain awareness, and upholding the rules-based international order. This concentration enhances understanding of the maritime domain, enables Fellows to collaborate on improving maritime security, and benefits all security practitioners.

Fellows will explore the rapidly evolving field of space security, focusing on the strategic, legal, and policy dimensions underpinning the protection and sustainable use of space.  The concentration will assist Fellows in developing a more comprehensive understanding of the strategic significance of space to global and their national security, the threats to space systems, complexities posed by the geopolitical landscape, and potential pathways to navigate the legal and regulatory environment governing space activities to ensure the safety and integrity of space operations.  These insights gained will enable Fellows to critically evaluate current and future space security trends, and to work collaboratively alongside a diverse range of space sector partners in safeguarding this vital domain.

This concentration provides professionals engaged in security across governmental, military, and civil sectors acquire deeper insights into the strategic workings of the CCP and PRC within the evolving geopolitical scene. This concentration encompasses understanding CCP ideologies, decision-making frameworks, and strategic objectives. By analyzing historical and contemporary dynamics, Fellows will refine their strategic acumen, learn to navigate the intricate Party-State relationship, and apply these insights to current friction areas. The program fosters a collaborative learning environment, enriching participants’ capabilities to foster regional stability and peace through informed strategy and strengthened networks of security practitioners.

Up coming Elective Series

CSC 25-1 | Feb/Mar

  • Maritime Security
  • Space Security
  • Cybersecurity

CSC 25-2 | May/Jun

  • Information Environment
  • Understanding China
  • Crisis Management

CSC 25-3 | Aug/Sep

  • Irregular Warfare
  • Economic & Security
  • Environmental Security

Fellow Projects

Fellows  apply what they learn on the course by working on either individual or group-based projects, which seek to find innovative solution to complex problems.