Title: ISD’s New Fall 2026 Course Offerings

ISD is pleased to announce three new courses – graduate and undergraduate – for Fall 2026. Each will be taught by incoming Diplomatic Fellows who bring decades of senior career foreign service experience to the classroom. Full course descriptions and expectations are below, as well as links to course directors’ full bios.

“U.S. Interventionism: Collisions with Reality”
Instructor: Ambassador (ret.) John Bass
INAF 4025 | Wednesdays, 12:30 – 3:00 PM | Walsh 397

Course Description:  “U.S. Interventionism: Collisions with Reality will be taught by John Bass,  a three-time former U.S. Ambassador (Afghanistan (2017-20), Turkiye (2014-17) and Georgia (2009-2012), Acting Under Secretary for Political Affairs and Under Secretary for Management.

Ambassador Bass over the course of his career has wrestled with the prospect and consequences of major U.S. interventions initiated in the name of  humanitarian relief (including R2P), economic protectionism, security and counterterrorism, or for ideological reasons.

This course will assess the U.S. track record, with a focus on post-World War II interventions, and examine the different tools of statecraft– diplomacy, economic leverage, intelligence, military training and advising, and use of military force – to understand how or whether these instruments were more or less effective, or doomed to  negative unintended consequences.

The course also will examine why the U.S. often produced different outcomes as its rationale collided with realities on the ground.  We will assess why the U.S. fails to learn from its past, repeats the same mistakes, or at least builds new mistakes off of old ones. Finally, it will assess those factors that contribute to better outcomes. We also will explore whether contemporary international political and economic dynamics are likely to impel or hinder further U.S. interventions, and how technology may change the nature of future interventions.

Students will be responsible for producing a case study on a specific intervention, its justification, key decision points, and assessment of its success or failure short-term and long-term.

Ambassador (ret.) John Bass is a retired career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Former ambassador to Turkey, Afghanistan and Georgia, and former Executive Secretary of the State Department. Most recently, he served as Acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (2024–2025) and Under Secretary of State for Management (2021–2025) at the U.S. Department of State, helping steer U.S. foreign policy across the globe.

“The Empire Strikes Back: Russia’s Complex Relations with its Former Colonies”
Instructor: Ambassador (ret.) Daniel Rosenblum
INAF 4026 | Wednesdays, 3:30 – 6:00 PM | Car Barn 302

Course Description: This course – “The Empire Strikes Back: Russia’s Complex Relations with its Former Colonies” – will be taught by the former U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan (2022-25) and Uzbekistan (2019-22), who is now serving as a diplomatic fellow at the SFS Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.  It will examine this topic through the lens of U.S. policy towards the Former Soviet Union since 1991. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has asserted a privileged sphere of influence covering the 14 other former Soviet republics, officially labeling them not as independent foreign countries but as its “near abroad” (blizhneye zarubezh’ye).

Russia’s imperial ambitions go back centuries, and its colonial legacy shapes political and economic developments in the region to this day – the most recent and blatant example being its 2022 invasion of — and ongoing effort to control — Ukraine.  Meanwhile, the United States has repeatedly declared its support for the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the former Russian colonies, and made bolstering their independence a core element of its policy towards the region.  This course will examine the interplay between these clashing Russian and American perspectives over the past 35 years.  It will focus on the various methods Moscow has used to retain dominance in the region (from control over energy resources, export transit routes and labor markets to the direct use of intelligence networks and military power to manipulate and intimidate its neighbors), and the mixed results of those efforts.  In parallel, the course will look at how these Russian actions have been viewed by U.S. policymakers, and how the U.S. responded through the use of diplomatic tools, security cooperation, private sector trade and investment, and foreign assistance, also with mixed success.

Ambassador (ret.) Daniel Rosenblum is a retired career member of the Senior Executive Service. Most recently, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan (2022–2025), after previously serving as U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan (2019–2022). Prior to his ambassadorial assignments, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia from 2014 to 2019 and earlier as Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia from 2008 to 2014, overseeing major U.S. assistance programs in the region. Earlier in his career, he worked on U.S. foreign assistance and policy toward the former Soviet Union and the Western Balkans. Before joining the State Department in 1997, he worked with an NGO supporting independent labor unions in the former Soviet Union and studied Russian history and language at Yale and Soviet Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

“Strategic Crossroads: Africa Edition”
Instructor: Vincent Spera
INAF 3920-01 | Mondays & Wednesdays, 5:00- 6:15 PM | St. Mary’s G40

Course Description: “Strategic Crossroads: Africa Edition” will be taught by a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Africa and for Regional/Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, who is now a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer serving as a Diplomatic Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

The course will explore why some foreign powers are expanding their relationships across Africa for development, security, and economic policy reasons, and why others are backing away. It will begin with an examination of what Africa offers to its global partners – for example, the human resource capital provided by a long-term demographic boon, port and other infrastructure benefits given Africa’s vast coastline, flexibility to operate to protect security interests, abundant natural resources, and opportunities for foreign investment.

Although Africa has attracted foreign interest for decades and even centuries, dynamics have shifted dramatically in the 21st Century. Countries from the Middle East, China, India, Türkiye, and others have adjusted their approach and presence given their own interests. United States foreign policy towards Africa has also evolved over time, with a major transition now underway from a long-standing humanitarian focus to one centered more on trade and security. The course will cover how the United States and other actors view the continent, how they advance their interests, how they deploy scarce resources, and what an increasingly crowded space means for Africans and their partners.

The course will place special emphasis on East Africa as the geographic seam with the Middle East and given its unique blend of security, cultural, and economic relationships with an array of foreign players. For example, the security situation in places such as Somalia and Sudan are of direct concern to countries across the Red Sea, and ports in Djibouti, Kenya, and Tanzania serve as a gateway to the Indian Ocean and onwards to Asia. Building on knowledge gained throughout the course, students will conduct their own deep dive assessment of a country or subregion, exploring both the realities of global competition and the tradeoffs faced by policymakers managing limited resources.

Mr. Vincent Spera is a retired career member of the Senior Foreign Service with extensive experience in African affairs. From 2024 to 2026 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Africa and for Regional and Multilateral Affairs in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs, where he oversaw U.S. policy and strategy for 11 countries across the Horn of Africa, East African coast, and Western Indian Ocean. From 2021 to 2024, Mr. Spera served as the U.S. Consul General in Johannesburg, South Africa. Earlier in his career, he held a number of diplomatic assignments overseas and in Washington, including service as Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and as Director of the Office of African Affairs in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.