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In Review: Coursework

War in Our Time A Rochester expert on how wars begin and end offers a timely exploration of the war in Ukraine.By Sandra Knispel

On the Syllabus

War in Our Time: The Russo-Ukrainian War
PSCI/INTR 108
Fall 2022

Hein Goemans
Professor of Political Science

Further reading

In addition to current news reports, Goemans provides links to pertinent tweets, Twitter threads, blog posts, and academic articles, as well as several yet unpublished chapters of a forthcoming second edition of Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War (Cambridge University Press, 2019) by fellow political scientist Paul D’Anieri at the University of California, Riverside. Goemans also recommends a YouTube series by Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder (search “Timothy Snyder Yale”). The series is part of Snyder’s course The Making of Modern Ukraine. Start with the episodes “The Introduction” and “The Genesis of Nations,” Goemans says.

Course: War in Our Time: The Russo-Ukrainian War, PSCI/INTR 108, Fall 2022

Instructor: Hein Goemans, a professor of political science and an expert on international conflicts.

Summary
Added late to the catalog as a direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the course examines the war, its origins, causes, conduct, and the prospects for peace.

An introductory course with no prerequisites, the class has about 50 students.

What do students learn?
While originally designed to focus on the war in Ukraine, Goemans added more armed conflicts to the syllabus once teaching began: first between Armenia and Azerbaijan and then between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The spillover, Goemans says, is the consequence of Russia’s de facto abdication of its traditional role of stability guarantor in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, while focusing on Ukraine. As part of the course, students read peace proposals and discuss their feasibility.

Goemans warns his students that class assignments also include reports of violence, torture, and death but says reading about such topics and talking about them in class are important.

“War is never a clean experience; it’s awful. But if you avert your eyes from these horrors, if you want a sanitized version, you risk failing to recognize why war really needs to be avoided. Willful blindness is not a good stance.”

How do students learn?
Goemans teaches mainly via lectures with PowerPoint presentations and several full-class discussions, supplemented by smaller weekly discussion sections with teaching assistants. The lectures include historical background about Ukraine, the end of the Cold War, causes of war and its termination, why soldiers fight, logistics, and related topics. Because of the evolving nature of the ongoing war, the syllabus is likely to change during the semester—as developments on the battlefield and at the negotiation table warrant, and when new information becomes available. Assessments consist of quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam.

Why is the course being taught now?
It’s hard to be more timely. According to Goemans, the war could have “massive consequences,” including lasting worldwide political and economic instability and spillover wars, which might affect his students for the rest of their lives.

The assigned reading—and watching—includes the now infamous speech Russian President Vladimir Putin gave on February 21, just three days before invading Ukraine, making the case for war. Goemans hopes his students gain a deeper understanding of the conflict so that they have better context for evaluating factors that may have led to the war, such as the idea that Ukraine is part of Russia or that NATO bears responsibility for the war, which Goemans vehemently rejects. “By that logic, Ukraine and its people have no agency whatsoever.”

While the class is being taught for the first time, Goemans says it won’t be the last, given that he’s not optimistic for a quick end to the war. He thinks “we may see the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people” and “several more years of fighting” before the conflict is over.