"When the Cold War ended, I wanted to help college students understand and come to grips with the foreign policy choices facing the United States - so I conceived and co-authored a college text." - William M. Rose

"This collection provides a splendid introduction to the foreign policy choices of the 21st century. . . "
- Gary Huffbauer, Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics, commenting on The Role of the United States in a Changing World: Choices for the 21st Century, by William M. Rose.

"A marvelously conceived approach to drive home the fact that a new era demands new ways for thinking about American foreign policy?", added Ernst Haas, Robson Research Professor of Government at the University of California, Berkeley.

• International politics, especially issues of war and peace
• Terrorism and insurgencies: causes, consequences and policy implications
• Ethnic conflict, the security dilemma, and prospects for civil war and peace
• Post-Cold War and post-9/11 challenges for U.S. foreign policy

Professor Rose teaches courses on international relations, terrorism and counter-terrorism, insurgency and counterinsurgency, civil wars, US foreign policy, and UN peacekeeping.

He was named a 2006-07 Academic Fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The fellowship began with a late spring 2006 trip to Israel. Along with 43 other professors, he attended lectures on terrorism at Tel Aviv University and went on field trips for "hands-on" exploration of related issues. The trip help provide data for his major research project, "Impact of the Balance of Threat on State Responses to International Terrorism: The Case of Israel 1987-2008."

During the Cold War, he specialized in U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations. He published journal articles and a book, U.S. Unilateral Arms Control Initiatives: When Do They Work?

Professor Rose and his co-author, student Rysia Murphy '07, published a 2000-word letter in the summer 2007 issue of the journal International Security. This letter features their collaborative research into the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings, and is directed toward an article by Max Abrahms in the fall 2006 issue. While agreeing with Abrahms' thesis that terrorism rarely achieves its political objectives, their case study constitutes an exception to Abrahms' claim that terrorist groups targeting primarily civilians never achieve their political aims.A much longer version of their letter is available here: rose-murphy_long_IS_letter.pdf.

When the Cold War ended, Rose wanted to help college students understand and come to grips with the foreign policy choices facing the United States. He conceived of and co-authored a college text titled The Role of the United States in a Changing World: Choices for the 21st Century, published by the Center for Foreign Policy Development at Brown University.

His research then turned to ethnic conflict and civil wars. He has published lead articles in the journals Security Studies (Summer 2000) and Civil Wars (Fall 2002).

Interested in effective teaching methods, Rose co-authored "Teaching About the Future of U.S.-Soviet Relations," which appeared in International Studies Notes and "The Professor's Dream: Getting Students to Talk and Read Intelligently," co-authored with Andrew Green, which appeared in PS: Political Science & Politics.

As a strong supporter of undergraduate research, Rose has co-authored papers with Connecticut College students. Since 2002, for example, he worked with five students who converted outstanding honors theses or independent studies into papers for annual meetings of the International Studies Association. The students presented all five papers on panels typically composed of professors and graduate students.

During his fall 2009 sabbatical, Rose is collaborating with Nick Grenoble '09 to produce a journal article. The working title is “David Galula’s Counterinsurgency: Occam’s Razor and the Case Study of Colombia.” It is based on Grenoble’s research paper for Rose’s course on insurgency and counterinsurgency. On May 16, 2009, the New London newspaper The Day published an opinion piece based on this work: “Pakistan's flawed counterinsurgency and Colombia's lessons.”

In the Spring 2010 semester, Rose will collaborate with Professor Marc Forster (history department) to offer a new team-taught, cross-listed interdisciplinary course, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: History and Politics.

Rose has served two three-year terms as chair of the department of government, and he founded and directs the international relations major. He has served on various College committees, including the International Commons Steering Committee, the Educational Planning Committee, the Academic and Administrative Procedures Committee and the Study Away Committee.

Rose is a member of the International Studies Association and the Sudan Studies Association. In the past, he was a consultant to Brown University's Choices for the 21st Century Education Project, a board member of the Southeast Connecticut Committee on Foreign Relations, an adjunct research fellow at Harvard's Center for Science and International Affairs, and was on the Board of Directors of OPTIONS, a national organization that was dedicated to educating the public about security alternatives in the nuclear age.

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