Curriculum
Explore global affairs through an immersive DC program.
Course description
Our Master of Arts in Strategy and Policy – Fellowship Program offers a dynamic year-long experience, featuring a course each month. Immerse yourself in engaging readings, mandatory in-person sessions, and tailored writing assignments.
Explore global geopolitics, from counterterrorism to emerging technologies, guided by expert guest instructors in foreign policy, national security, diplomacy, and defense. At the program’s core is an exposure-maximizing residency requirement—a part-time internship propelling you through diverse scholars, focal areas, and think tank functions. You will collaborate directly with Institute staff on think tank projects — research, writing outreach and engagement.
Hosted at New Lines Institute’s offices in downtown Washington, D.C., our classes and internships require your in-person presence, paving an exciting path for your future in foreign policy work!
Download the academic calendar
Summer, Fall, and Spring semesters are 16 weeks in length. All three semesters are “required” terms for attendance purposes and students must maintain continuous attendance to remain enrolled. New cohorts only start in the Summer semester.
Course structure
The Master’s of Arts in Strategy and Policy – Fellowship Program will comprise twelve courses divided into three topical clusters.
Cluster 1: strategic analysis
Sharpen critical thinking, policy skills, and lifelong learning to solve global problems and shape US foreign policy.
Cluster 2: U.S. foreign and national security policy formulation
Analyze global power dynamics, evolving challenges, and historical lessons to craft effective policies.
Cluster 3: tradecraft and skills for foreign and national security policy professionals
Refine analytical skills, develop policy expertise, and build leadership for impactful careers in strategy and foreign policy.
1. Foundations of strategy and policy I: worldviews and models of thinking
This course introduces multiple concepts, tools, and processes of thinking that can serve in taking effective action and finding innovative solutions to challenges.
2. Strategic analysis for an interconnected world
This course will provide you with an understanding of strategic analysis in its various forms and components. It will address the intelligence process as well as different ways of analyzing data inputs, including geopolitical analysis, human agency analysis, and connectivity analysis. It will address how strategic analysis can be applied, including in the net assessment of a particular topic/country/theme, forecasting and scenario building, and informing policy recommendations.
3. Foundations of strategy and policy II: learning and being
The purpose of this initial course is to expand your capacities for learning by exploring the principles of learning and applying those daily and ultimately to the principles of policymaking.
4. Decision making in U.S. foreign and national security policy
This course will give you an in-depth understanding of how U.S. foreign and national security policies respond to domestic and foreign developments and how policy is developed, socialized, and implemented. You will learn core theoretical concepts such as deterrence, fait accompli, unilateralism, bilateralism, etc. You will finish the course able to develop relevant, actionable foreign policy recommendations.
1. Global citizenship and social impact
This course builds your capacity for and interest in thinking and acting like global citizens, creating impact in the world, and achieving purpose in that pursuit.
2. The global architecture
This course closely examines the structure of the international system and its features, including great powers, emerging players, trade, conflict, international organizations, and transnational non-state actors. You will learn how the current global architecture emerged in the wake of World War II and will examine its various stages of development. You will have the opportunity to explore these concepts through analytical assignments, debates, and war gaming exercises.
3. Connectivity and the global commons
This course will provide you with an in depth study of the concept of connectivity, which is fundamental to how the New Lines Institute approaches analysis and formulating policy recommendations. The course focuses on species-level themes such as climate change, food, and health, which provide challenges and opportunities for local, national, and international policymakers.
4. Disruptions of orders
This course explores the rise, dominance, and fall of different regional and global orders. The focus will be on examining why these orders emerge, stagnate, and collapse and how this affects their environment and beyond. The course will connect historical analysis to contemporary questions and challenges to U.S policy, with an emphasis on the current shifting balance of power. You will apply these insights to write and present a national security strategy document for today’s challenges.
1. Analytical development
This course applies the analytical tradecraft you learned in Course 3 in the context of the knowledge acquired in Courses 4-8. The objective is to develop the skillset required to produce sophisticated assessments of issues that are at the intersection of global geopolitics and U.S. foreign policy.
2. Impact-driven project management
This course introduces you to the motivations and methodology that shape the New Lines Institute and its work. It focuses on the animating principles of the Institute and the institutional framework behind its projects, examining case studies of policy challenges the Institute works to address while helping you to use what they learn in their own work.
3. Capstone project presentation: operationalizing the connectivity framework
This course builds your capacities for career success in strategy and policy, providing concepts, tools, and processes to prepare students for a lifetime of career planning and transformative leadership across jobs and careers.
4. Designing your career and life
The purpose of this course is to explore possibilities and build your capacities for career success in the strategy and policy field, regardless of what you choose to do or the organizations you join. This course will provide concepts, tools, and processes to help you engage in career planning throughout your lifetime and prepare you for being a transformative leader regardless of your roles and career paths. The focus is on generating career options, determining priorities, setting goals, developing plans, and taking action – always keeping in mind that we live in a dynamic, complex, and evolving world.
Fellowship description
Just as medical students undergo intensive, practical training as part of their professional education, fellows at New Lines Institute will too. Over the course of 12 months in our Master of Arts in Strategy and Policy – Fellowship Program, fellows will benefit from a unique blend of academic exploration and training in the practical skills necessary to launch a career in foreign policy.
Throughout the program, fellows will work alongside policy scholars, develop analytical tradecraft, and confront real-world challenges while connecting with different elements of Washington D.C. Fellows will gain exposure to the inner workings of a foreign policy think tank, complementing their classroom learning and refining their practical skills. Our fellows, through an integration of theory and practice, will become both knowledgeable scholars and skilled practitioners, fully equipped to navigate the complexities of foreign policy.
Fellowship structure
Learn practical skills and tackle real-world challenges.
Policy exploration
Hands-on learning
In addition to academic exploration, you will immerse yourself in the practical mechanics of think tank operations. From mastering events management to crafting effective outreach strategies and refining analytical writing skills, you will acquire valuable applied experience essential for success in a foreign policy career.