The course, a one-credit-hour elective for undergraduate and graduate students, is co-sponsored by Kerry Kilpatrick, chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Administration in the School of Public Health; Richard Kohn, chairman of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense; and David Weber, professor of medicine in the School of Medicine.
Kilpatrick said the two main goals of the 168-student course are to develop an understanding of the reasons certain groups are using terrorism against the United States and to develop a knowledge of the means that terrorists might use to inflict damage, including explosives, biological attacks and chemical attacks.
"It came out of a series of seminars from the School of Public Health," Kilpatrick said. "We made it into a course for credit, available for a broader group of students."
The class meets from 5:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. Mondays. At its first session Monday night, Kohn introduced three panel speakers: Tom Generous, an adjunct professor of peace, war and defense; Curt Jones, formerly of the U.S. Foreign Service; and Andy Arnold, a UNC instructor in history.
Generous said the root cause of terrorism is guerrilla warfare, which occurs when a political group is unable to participate in the political process and is fighting for reform.
"Guerrilla warfare is about politics, politics, politics," he said.
Solutions to end terrorism will not work if they are purely military-based, Generous added.
He said unless all terrorists are exterminated, the only way to end terrorism is through political reforms.
Jones gave more information on the volatile history of the Middle East and how U.S. involvement there might have contributed to the state of terrorism in the world. He said the area has oscillated between unity and disunity for centuries and that 50 to 100 years ago, the target was European colonialism.
