LPPS 3240

One of the best courses I've taken at UVA. Dan Moy is, alongside Sherri Moore, UVA's most fascinating lecturer. Every lecture is captivating, and he'll bring in personal anecdotes from his service in Afghanistan. Many lectures also brought up events that had happened in recent months or even days - for example, ISIS's attack on Russia.

It's hard to do really well in the class, but not terribly so, as I'm fairly certain it's curved up. As long as you pay attention in class and take thorough notes, you'll know everything you need to for the exam. Exams are easy enough because he provides a list of questions that he'll ask on them, so you can just have a thorough outline of your responses beforehand. I was never blindsided by any of his exam questions. The memos are graded fairly but harshly, as Moy has very high expectations for what students will write. As long as you have strong writing skills and are willing to put in essentially an entire weekend's worth of time into the memo, you should do fine. I finished with an A after starting my each of my memos a week or two from the deadlines and by making extremely detailed outlines of the exam study guide questions he provided.

There are lots of readings, but the relevant takeaways are discussed in class. A chunk of the grade is participation, but that's easy enough to check off by doing a handful of online discussion board reflections. I got these done in several hours the night before the final exam.

The only downside I can think of is that the textbooks we had were mainly Western sources, but they pulled from a lot of backgrounds including getting Afghan perspectives. That said, we read a lot of pieces (just no textbooks) from basically every side in the conflict.

Don't take this class unless you are super super interested in intelligence policy and national security policy. Colonel Moy was an interesting and knowledgable lecturer and I learned a lot in his class, but the grading was difficult and the memo assignments were challenging for no reason. The exams were not open note though we were expected to have a lot of knowledge memorized and the ability to reference readings offbook, which I found ridiculous. The "memos" were 6 page papers that required lots of explanations and were so vastly different from any memo I have written for a Batten class previously. I definitely learned a lot but this class was graded so difficultly that it doesn't feel worth it to me, in the end.

This course is essentially a case study on the War in Afghanistan, going through critical events beginning at 9/11 until the American troop withdrawal in 2021. The course is taught by Colonel Dan Moy, an Afghan veteran, who addresses the challenges and triumphs of the United State's mission in Afghanistan through a neutral, fact-based lens. The course grading is broken down as Participation (15%), Midterm Exam (25%), Two Policy Memos (15% each), and a Final Exam (30%). Both exams are written, open-ended responses addressing key course themes so if you understand the key course themes and question and have facts to back up your responses, you will perform well on the exams. Colonel Moy also releases an array of possible prompts before the exam (releases about 8-10 prompts, only 4-6 were on the actual exam). The policy memos are slightly difficult and are not graded extremely easily. However, grading is extremely fair. There is no way to BS content on memos or exams because Colonel Moy knows a great deal on the topic. I ended up with an A- in the class, put in a medium amount of effort, honestly did only 25% of the assigned reading, and prepped for the exams a few days in advance. I would recommend making study guides with a group for the exam! Overall, this may have been one of my favorite classes at UVA, and often I wish I had done more of the assigned reading. I came away with a great deal of knowledge and perspective from this class and Colonel Moy is a fantastic, personable professor. Highly recommend to all Batten and non-Batten students!

I agree with the person below in that this has been one of my favorite classes at UVA. Colonel Moy is an amazing lecturer, who they actually got last minute to teach this class in the fall semester. Despite the class's description, keep in mind that you'll be focusing on counterterrorism/counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, not the entire world. It was very interesting, especially because some of what we discussed in class was happening as the class was going on.

You'll be doing a lot of reading (standard for a 3000 level class) and you'll have to write 2 policy memos, as well as a written midterm and final exam. I took this class as a first year and it seemed very intimidating at first, but I definitely recommend you take it. You won't regret it if you're interested in counterterrorism/COIN.

This has probably been my favorite course at UVA. The instructor, Colonel Moy, served in the Air Force and actually has firsthand experience with the topics he discusses, mainly the US approach to counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan. Although I expected this class to be a more general overview of terrorism in the world, it instead focused on the history of terrorism in Afghanistan, and was centered around 9/11 as a turning point in US counterterrorism efforts and policy, which I really enjoyed. Col. Moy's lectures were engaging, and he brought in quite a few guest speakers who were captivating as well. The grading of the class was broken up into 2 policy memos (15% each), a midterm (25%), a final (30%), and participation (15%). The exams were extremely fair, as he did a review session ahead of time, as well as gave us a study guide containing all of the questions he would ask on the exam. There is an assigned reading for each class period. However, the reading is from actual books intended for the general public, rather than military strategy textbooks, so it is relatively easy reading.

You can tell how passionate Col. Moy is about the subject, and it makes it really interesting to learn through a combination of lectures, guest speakers, and his personal stories about his efforts on the ground in Afghanistan. I definitely would recommend this class to anyone, regardless of having a background in public policy or not.