With a joint appointment in History and at Wagner, Timothy Naftali, a Clinical Associate Professor of Public Service and a Clinical Associate Professor of History, is director of NYU's undergraduate Public Policy Major. A native of Montreal and a graduate of Yale with a doctorate in history from Harvard, Naftali writes on national security and intelligence policy, international history and presidential history. Using Soviet-era documents, he and Russian academic Aleksandr Fursenko wrote the prize-winning One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964 and Khrushchev’s Cold War, the latter winning the Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature in 2007 and inclusion on Foreign Affairs’ 2014 list of the ten best books on the Cold War. As a consultant to the 9/11 Commission, Naftali wrote a history of US counterterrorism policy, published as Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism. Most recently, with Peter Baker, Jeffrey Engel and Jon Meacham, he wrote Impeachment: An American History.
Naftali came to NYU Wagner after serving as the founding director of the federal Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, where he authored the Library's nationally acclaimed exhibit on Watergate and oversaw the release of 1.3 million pages of presidential documents and nearly 700 hours of the infamous Nixon tapes. Naftali, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times, Slate and Foreign Affairs, is a CNN presidential historian. Most recently, he was featured in CNN’s The 2000s, Presidents Under Fire: The History of Impeachment and The Bush Years: Family, Duty, Power. In addition, he served as historical consultant to the CNN Original Series "Tricky Dick" and the NETFLIX series, Designated Survivor.
The Trump presidency has forced a reexamination of the institution of the American presidency by both allies and critics of the current President. Allies of the President celebrate the disruption of presidential “norms” in support of populist ideals. Critics of the President bemoan the disappearance of those “norms” and warn of the threat that a resurgent “Imperial Presidency” poses to American democracy and its constitutional system. This course will introduce students to the evolution of the modern presidency, how it functioned before Trump and what is different about the current era. This course combines historical perspective and analysis with first-person accounts of what it is like to work in and for the White House. Are there any limits on presidential power at home and abroad? How were these limits established and, under our constitutional system, can they be undone? How have the nuclear and digital ages affected those powers? What role does the character or personality of the incumbent play in the functioning or effectiveness of a presidency? The core objectives of this course are to enable students to acquire the knowledge and analytical skills to assess any American presidency and understand its role in shaping the United States and the world.
Whether as an action agency or a source of analysis or raw material, the intelligence community is a key but little understood participant in the policymaking cycle. This course introduces students to the contemporary intelligence community and its role in shaping US national security policy, providing students with a hands-on appreciation of the role of intelligence through participation in class simulations of case studies of national security policymaking.
How do terrorist organizations die? What can governments do to hasten their end? Are there government policies that are actually counterproductive? After nearly a half-century of experience with international terrorism, governments are still having a hard time managing the threat of terrorism. What does the data show us about the efficacy of counterterrorism policies? Moreover, can the data help us discern the lifecycle of terrorism groups? Are there some basic elements to the organizational culture of terrorist groups that states can use to undermine them? This is a course in the theory and practice of counterterrorism taught through case studies drawn from the major forms of modern terrorism—ethno-national, political-revolutionary and religious-fundamentalist. Students will develop an understanding of the instruments available to policymakers, the ways in which they have been used, and their effect. In the end, the students should be in a position to analyze the current terrorist challenge and propose alternative strategies for defeating or, at least, attenuating it.
We are witnessing a moment where many in the US mistrust existing policy elites and decision-making systems and have elected representatives to disrupt years of regulations and policies. In this course, we will seek a baseline for assessing the effect of this disruption by taking a deep dive into the history of those systems and policies under stress today, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and the paths they were on before January 2017. Then we will explore how to assess the consequences of this political ferment. What effect has the “America First” agenda and approach had so far on various key sectors of our society? To what extent have new groups arisen to defend existing policies or to find ways to achieve traditional goals without federal partner?
How do terrorist organizations die? What can governments do to hasten their end? Are there government policies that are actually counterproductive? After nearly a half-century of experience with international terrorism, governments are still having a hard time managing the threat of terrorism. What does the data show us about the efficacy of counterterrorism policies? Moreover, can the data help us discern the lifecycle of terrorism groups? Are there some basic elements to the organizational culture of terrorist groups that states can use to undermine them? This is a course in the theory and practice of counterterrorism taught through case studies drawn from the major forms of modern terrorism—ethno-national, political-revolutionary and religious-fundamentalist. Students will develop an understanding of the instruments available to policymakers, the ways in which they have been used, and their effect. In the end, the students should be in a position to analyze the current terrorist challenge and propose alternative strategies for defeating or, at least, attenuating it.
Whether as an action agency or a source of analysis or raw material, the intelligence community is a key but little understood participant in the policymaking cycle. This course introduces students to the contemporary intelligence community and its role in shaping US national security policy, providing students with a hands-on appreciation of the role of intelligence through participation in class simulations of case studies of national security policymaking.
How do terrorist organizations die? What can governments do to hasten their end? Are there government policies that are actually counterproductive? After nearly a half-century of experience with international terrorism, governments are still having a hard time managing the threat of terrorism. What does the data show us about the efficacy of counterterrorism policies? Moreover, can the data help us discern the lifecycle of terrorism groups? Are there some basic elements to the organizational culture of terrorist groups that states can use to undermine them? This is a course in the theory and practice of counterterrorism taught through case studies drawn from the major forms of modern terrorism—ethno-national, political-revolutionary and religious-fundamentalist. Students will develop an understanding of the instruments available to policymakers, the ways in which they have been used, and their effect. In the end, the students should be in a position to analyze the current terrorist challenge and propose alternative strategies for defeating or, at least, attenuating it.
What is it like to make decisions of war and peace, more equality or less equality? How much freedom does a senior decision-maker, including the president, have? What roles do politics, high and bureaucratic, information and time play in public policy outcomes? Through a series of case studies drawn primarily from the federal level—and involving foreign as well as domestic policy—students will examine decision-making in search of patterns and lessons helpful to future public policy. The class is primarily a discussion section with digital content and issue-setting lectures by the professor. Topics include nuclear danger, welfare reform, tax reform, intelligence oversight, matters of public health and the use of drones.
2020
Book Review of Tim Weiner’s The Folly and The Glory, Washington Post, October 22, 2020.