Strategic Studies

Program Manager: James Dalton

The Master of Arts in Strategic Studies (MASS) is a 36 credit program for current and former military personnel from all uniformed branches who often have successfully completed the BSSSDA, BSNSS, and other Norwich University Bachelor degrees in related fields.  The MASS program builds on the education and experience of undergraduates by providing graduate-level coursework focusing on ends, ways and means and the challenges of nesting supporting objectives.  Graduates of the program are equipped to carry out the changing mission of the U.S. military and to work collaboratively with agencies outside the Department of Defense on matters of national security.

The MASS program explores the relationship between politics and the many kinds of national power—from the use of diplomacy to the threatened use of military might. Although many strategic studies programs focus on the use of military means, the MASS program includes work in closely related fields such as intelligence, infrastructure, natural resource studies and inter-agency cooperation. As such, it has broad applications in non-security related areas such as leadership, technology, communication and strategic planning.

Curriculum Requirements

The seminars in the Master of Arts in Strategic Studies have been carefully structured and sequenced to guarantee that prerequisite knowledge needed in subsequent seminars is obtained to optimize the learning experience, provide a mixture of topics in each seminar that evenly distribute the overall workload for the degree, and provide a blend of theoretical and practical oriented topics in each seminar.

Capstone

The capstone planning exercise provides an opportunity for the student to integrate extensive research along with the concepts and principles of the program that results in student-derived plan to achieve a theater-strategic objective. Each student will complete the plan using all the elements of national power in concert with one another. The purpose of the capstone project is for the student to apply theoretical and methodological skills to real-world issues. The expectation of the program is that the capstone project will demonstrate a student’s overall knowledge in the discipline and the skills necessary to achieve a mastery of strategic planning.