ISD is pleased to announce three graduate capstone courses for Spring 2027. Each course will draw on the decades of senior-level Foreign Service experience that ISD Fellows and the ISD Director bring to their teaching. Full course descriptions and expectations are below, as well as links to course instructors’ full bios.
“Charting the Next U.S. Policy on Israel and Palestine”
Instructors: Ambassador (ret.) Yael Lempert, Diplomatic Fellow, ISD; Ambassador (ret.) Michael Ratney, Diplomatic Fellow, ISD
INAF 6531-02 | Wednesdays, 3:30-6:00pm | Location TBD
The course will be taught by two former senior American diplomats – Yael Lempert, former U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, and Michael Ratney, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, both of whom have worked in various capacities throughout their careers on previous Middle East peace initiatives. You can access Amb. Lempert’s full biography here, and Amb. Ratney’s full
biography here.
No foreign policy challenge has so confounded successive U.S. presidents as theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States has brought to bear virtually every dimension of American engagement and influence – diplomatic, military, development, humanitarian aid – as has the United Nations system and numerous international partners. The conflict implicates the U.S. Congress, NGOs, multiple domestic constituencies, and has now become a potent political factor in U.S. elections. This ISD Capstone seminar will focus on international diplomatic efforts – principally U.S. led – to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and develop options for a way forward for U.S. policy. The course will explore Israeli and Palestinian historical perspectives on the conflict; the origins and implementation of the Oslo Accords; subsequent efforts to put the “Middle East Peace Process” back on track, the role of the United Nations and other international actors, recent peace initiatives in the Obama, Trump and
Biden administrations, and various scenarios for the way ahead.
Students in this capstone are expected to produce an academically rigorous, policy-relevant research paper on an aspect, issue, or player within this dynamic. Collectively, the students are expected to produce a final report and presentation containing recommendations to a future U.S. administration that will synthesize past successes and failures, and current political, economic, security and humanitarian realities, to offer practical advice to an incoming U.S. President and national security team.
“U.S.-Africa Strategy Relook – Multidimensional Approaches”
Instructor: Ambassador (ret.) Andrew Young, Diplomatic Fellow, ISD
INAF 6351-03 | Thursdays, 9:30-12:00pm | Location TBD
Ambassador Andrew Young is a retired career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Career Minister. Most recently, he served as Director of International Study, Missions, and Outreach at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. You can access his full biography here.
The course challenges students to reimagine U.S. engagement with Africa for a new era informed by global competition, cooperation, and transactionalism. U.S.-Africa relations have evolved since the wave of decolonization through a multiplicity of approaches and priority domains including the Cold War and strategic resource competition, development assistance, and counterterrorism cooperation. As today’s diplomatic practitioners navigate tradeoffs between and synergies of values and interests, a fresh perspective on policy is needed in preparation for a new U.S. administration to take office. U.S. African diplomatic relations are being reshaped by seismic changes in approach, trust relations, infrastructure and new external players, benign and malign. Students will assess the opportunities and constraints shaping U.S.-Africa relations and develop policy recommendations across diplomatic, economic, security, governance, environmental, and technology domains.
Each student will produce an academically rigorous policy-relevant research paper, while working collaboratively to produce a comprehensive report designed for foreign policy and national security practitioners. The course encourages innovative approaches to building productive, sustainable, and mutually beneficial U.S.-Africa partnerships in the decades ahead. Prior Africa experience is welcome but not required.
“What Now? What Next? Arab Gulf States, Iran, and the World”
Instructor: Ambassador (ret.) Barbara Bodine, ISD Director
INAF 6531-04 | Mondays, 2:00-4:30pm | Location TBD
Ambassador Bodine, Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, served for over 30 years in the US Foreign Service and worked primarily on Gulf issues. She continues to engage on issues related to the region. Her full biography can be accessed here. Mustafa Popal, a retired senior career American diplomat and current ISD Diplomacy Fellow, will bring his extensive background on Iran to course discussions. His full biography can be accessed here.
The Iran War, in its 6th month as of this writing, has upended the economies and the lives of the millions who live in Gulf littoral states, and those far beyond. A nearly 40-year-old security arrangement between the US and the Arab Gulf states looks to unravel as security of the sea lanes are increasingly vulnerable and the American military umbrella is in tatters. The Iranian regime has not collapsed, and now understands its most potent weapon, certainly short term, is control of the vital Strait of Hormuz. The Arab Gulf states scramble to find, with only some luck, alternative ways to ship vital energy supplies out to global markets and secure the importation of equally vital commodities.
If the Carter Doctrine is dead, what is the alternative? If the US draws down its presence, who fills the void? If Gulf energy supplies can be so easily disrupted, what are global alternatives? If the combined might of the US and Israel cannot defeat an entrenched regime, how to deal with the Iran that is left standing? And what becomes of the fractured faerie tale of Arab Gulf prosperity, stability, and rising middle power influence? This is not a local or a regional war. It has had and will continue to have major global political, economic and security implications.
Some answers may lie in reframed security arrangements. Not instead of the US, but the US plus…who? China? India? The Mecca Accords states – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey? Peace and stability in the broader region through a fully realized Abraham Accord? An uneasy but unavoidable détente with Iran? Are pipelines the alternative to the Strait, or pipe dreams? Or will the world finally commit to alternative and green energy? Is broad multi-alignment – political, security and economic – the answer to dependence on one superpower? Within the churn of daily events, threats, and attacks, this capstone will grapple with options and opportunities for the Arab Gulf states and the US, and by extension Iran, in this rapidly evolving environment. Expect headlines to intrude on reading lists, and yesterday’s solution to vanish the next. This is the world within which policy must be made.
This capstone will explore the history and context of the war, and its implications and ramification within and beyond the Gulf. It will explore how each state, including Iran, must calculate their next move and chart a path forward. And it will explore the options and opportunities for the US, its friends and adversaries to cope constructively. Each capstone participant will be responsible for an individual research paper, academically rigorous and policy relevant, on an aspect, player or sector affected by and seeking to affect this evolution to the next stage. The latter third of the course will be a collaborative effort amongst all participants to weave together their insights and recommendations into one coherent policy paper to be presented to a panel of experts.