RESEARCH General Terrorism

ATTACKS' AFTERMATH
Homeland defense, terrorism among course topics to be explored

Melissa Mitchell, News Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

12/1/2001

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Next semester, students at the University of Illinois will have the opportunity to look beyond today’s headlines to explore in-depth topics such as homeland defense, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

Leading the list of courses taught by faculty members in the UI’s Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security is one on "Homeland Defense," offered as a section of Math 351: Topics in Applied Mathematics. The course will be taught by math professor Julian Palmore, who introduced a similar course on preventive defense strategies last spring.

"The course will provide an in-depth analysis of preventive approaches for homeland defense against attack by missiles and unconventional means," said Palmore, a member of the ACDIS faculty and author of "Ballistic Missile Defense: The ABM Treaty, MAD and NMD," an article that appears in the December issue of the journal Defense Analysis. Palmore said he plans to emphasize the point that "terrorists are usually not ‘high tech.’

"This bunch [the al-Qaida network] is definitely low tech but effective," he said. "We need to think low tech in order to figure out how they’ll strike and what they’ll strike. In the Sept. 11 attacks, they turned the aviation infrastructure against itself. That took us by surprise; they will try to take us by surprise again. We’ve got to think more from the point of view of defending against attacks by people who have essentially nothing technical to work with."

While the content of the spring 2002 course will be similar to what was offered previously, "the course will focus on preventive defense for homeland security – rather than defending against theater ballistic missiles for the U.S. forces overseas, or any military operations overseas," Palmore said.

A half dozen other UI courses will cover topics that apply directly to current world events:

Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering 390: Intermediate Special Topics, with sections on "Civilian and Military Uses of Nuclear Energy" and "Technology and Security," taught by ACDIS director Clifford Singer. Half of the latter section’s 14 seminars will be on homeland defense.

East Asian Language and Culture 431: Seminar in Japanese Literature, "Fanaticism, Irrationalism and Terrorism in Japan," taught by EALC professor David Goodman.

History 282: "History of War, Military Institutions and Society Since 1815," taught by history professor John Lynn.

Physics 180: "Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear War and Arms Control," taught by physics professor Jeremiah Sullivan.

Political Science 288: "Governing Globalization: The Pursuit of Order, Welfare and Legitimacy," taught by political science professor emeritus Edward Kolodziej.

Political Science 372: Ethnic Conflict," taught by political science professor Paul Diehl.