You may select any topic that connects across these fields, whether this is a domestic security topic such as the ethical conditions surrounding how and why the Department of Homeland Security chooses to use personnel and/or force on American streets, or an international one such as how the U.S. Air Force uses unmanned aerial vehicles (aka drones) to strike targets in foreign lands. There are no set topics, and the ethics or diversity subjects you may examine can come from the domestic, national, or international domains. While the subject matter can be about force usage, it could also be about how U.S. security is affected by other forces, practices, or actors, such as electronic eavesdropping on citizens, espionage at home or abroad, government contracting ethics breaches, treatment/experiences of minority populations, chain of command matters such as principled resignations, etc. The subject could be related to any important security aspect of the military, civilian government, or even the public citizenry at large.
With whatever topic you select and address across the term, you are required to address yourself, as much as is practicable, to these specific prompts:
Identify the ethical dilemma, relationship, case, or issue/subject you are studying, and explain why it is significant, both to you and the U.S. national security community writ large.
Provide relevant background on your research topic. If any, what have been the prior decisions or ethical baggage that has affected the current reality of the relationship, dilemma, case etc.? What key constituencies, interests, or stakeholders are involved in your study and how do they weigh in on your subject?
How are ethical considerations present in your chosen topic, and which ethical principles are most at play in your chosen subject? You may shape the analysis of your topic through one or more relevant ethical viewpoints, including, eventually, your own.
Through your analysis, what problems or dilemmas in national security are you uncovering in your research, and how might the situation or condition be remedied? What possible solutions can you recommend to the national security community, or the broader public?
Finally, in your conclusion, how can what you have analyzed lead to improved practices, operations etc. in the relevant national security domain you investigated? Assume you are briefing someone senior, and lay out your assessments, conclusions and recommendations to the relevant national security community.
Below are helpful journals and research sites as well as more guidance on research paper formatting.
Key Journals to Review:
Journal of Military Ethics (Links to an external site.)
Ethics and International Affairs Journal (Links to an external site.)
Public Integrity (Links to an external site.)
Armed Forces and Society (Links to an external site.)
Military Review (Links to an external site.)
Journal of Business Ethics (Links to an external site.)
Key Research Sites to Review:
Homeland Security Digital Library (Links to an external site.)
United States Naval Academy, Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership (Links to an external site.)
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. (Links to an external site.)
Santa Clara University. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics (Links to an external site.).
Stockholm University. Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace (Links to an external site.).
Oxford University. Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (Links to an external site.).
Harvard University Center for Ethics (Links to an external site.).
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
To successfully complete M8.4 Evaluate: Research Paper Assignment, you will need to perform original research, organize your responses to the questions posed above, and then craft a formatted research paper that includes each of the following:
A title page;
Well-developed introductory paragraph explaining the purpose of the research paper and briefly referencing some of the main points/contentions offered in the work;
The body of the assignment should consist of your effort to best answer the primary questions from the assignment prompt and should consist of approximately 2,500 words of text (approximately 10 pages of double-spaced and 12 point font of text). Though the method by which this is done is largely up to you, it is essential that the responses to the questions in the prompt be based upon scholarly readings and should remain at all times defensible (in an academic sense). You have a great deal of information to draw from in creating your research paper, including the assigned readings and hyperlinked sources in the module notes. As is the case with every assignment in BNS301, presenting any unsubstantiated, illogical, or indefensible position will have an adverse effect on the final grade. Please direct any questions regarding these expectations to the instructor;
A concise concluding paragraph that briefly restates both the purpose of the research and its relevance to the national security community as well as some of the primary argument offered by you, the paper’s author. Be sure the concluding paragraph does not introduce new information;
A list of all sources consulted the preparation of the research paper. The essay should be formatted according to APA-style documentation. (Links to an external site.) This includes the format of the list of references.