The introductory part of the program focuses on geopolitics and the changing nature of armed conflict, including the big questions in international relations related to security, democracy, climate change, competition for natural resources, economic growth, free trade and changing power-relationship between states and how new technologies shape security issues. This part of the program covers core concepts in security studies, such as hard and soft power; grand strategy, security strategy and tactics; security cooperation, competition and the security dilemma; and changing global and regional economic, political and military balances of power. The course focuses on the EU, the USA and NATO, o the changing geopolitical roles of Russia and China, and international intervention in conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Norway’s international relations and the its relationship with NATO, the EEA and the EU is also covered. The program should help the participants acquire the ability to analyze international political and economic conflicts and events, and to provide them with a better basis for handling and influencing these conditions at both the national and the global level.

The second half of the program focuses on there salient security challenges: corporate security, cyber security and the difficulties involved with international security cooperation in an environment that ranges from classical war and civil war to terrorism and insurgency as well as hybrid-war and frozen conflicts. This part of the program addresses conflict management in a changing world, with emphasis on leadership in conflict management. Policy responses range from police cooperation to various forms of military power, both at the national, regional and the international level. The last module takes place in Brussels and Paris, and includes visits to EU institutions in the security field, NATO's military and civilian headquarters and an international security company. In Paris it involves Sciences-Po, one of France’s leading business schools, and CERI, an international politics institute linked to that school, as well as IRSEM, a research center for the military college, as well as military and civilian antiterrorism organizations.