Critical Infrastructure Security Course

Course Philosophy

Three core principles guide this entire curriculum:

1. Systemic Interdependence – Modern infrastructures operate as interconnected systems in which localized disruptions can generate cascading effects across sectors, borders, and societies.

2. Analytical Pluralism – Every explanatory framework reveals certain dynamics while concealing others.

3. Epistemological Reflexivity – Every analytical model emerges from a specific historical, cultural, and intellectual context.

Critical infrastructure has emerged as a primary arena of contemporary international politics. Transnational energy grids, maritime corridors, digital communications systems, global financial networks, and orbital infrastructures have transcended their roles as discrete, neutral technical assets to form a highly integrated, cyber-physical ecosystem of interdependent power relations.

This course examines critical infrastructure as a foundational domain of international security, international political economy (IPE), and technological statecraft. It places particular emphasis on how cyber capabilities operate as cross-domain mechanisms of interstate coercion, disruption, and global governance. The curriculum conceptualises cyber security as the operational layer through which modern physical infrastructure is controlled, contested, and rendered structurally vulnerable, resisting the conventional tendency to isolate it as a separate policy field.

MODULE I: Infrastructure, Networks, and Power in IR

Week 1: Infrastructure as Structural Power in International Relations

Week 2: Network Power and Weaponised Interdependence

MODULE II: Deeply Cyber-Embedded Infrastructure Systems

Week 3: Industrial Control Systems and Operational Technology in National Security

Week 4: Cascading Failure and Systemic Interdependence

Week 5: Energy Systems and Deep Cyber-Physical Coupling

MODULE III: Indirectly Cyber-Mediated Systems and Material Flows

Week 6: Maritime Chokepoints and Geographic Contours

Week 7: Port Logistics, Canals, and Digital Overlays

Week 8: Subsea Cables and the Physicality of Global Communications

MODULE IV: Governance, Cyber Power, and Institutional Fragility

Week 9: Cyber Power and Strategic Competition

Week 10: Public–Private Power and Infrastructure Governance

MODULE V: Space Infrastructure and Systemic Futures

Week 11: Space Infrastructure and Orbital Dependency

Week 12: Foresight and Systemic Futures of Infrastructure Security

Analytical Proposition
Modern geopolitical power operates predominantly through the ability to shape, disrupt, or secure transboundary infrastructure networks, moving beyond traditional forms of exclusive territorial control. The security logic of global networks operates across a clear spectrum of cyber-physical coupling:

• Deeply Cyber-Embedded Systems: Sectors such as electrical grids and financial clearings, where digital code dynamically dictates physical or operational states, creating high susceptibility to remote, zero-day systemic disruptions.

• Indirectly Cyber-Mediated Systems: Environments such as maritime passages, canals, and overland logistics corridors, where physical geography remains the primary strategic constraint, and where cyber capabilities act as a secondary optimization and management overlay rather than the primary mechanism of denial.

Every week of this 12-week course is structured around four distinct learning pillars to ensure you build theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and critical awareness:

• Lecture: Core concepts, theoretical frameworks, and key debates.  

• Workshop: Application to real-world empirical cases.  

• Analytical Lab: Hands-on methodological training.  

• Reflexive Question: A challenge to unpack hidden assumptions.

Deep Thinking

• What infrastructure event, disruption, or governance response occurred, and what are the verifiable facts about the affected system — its physical architecture, digital control layer, cross-sector dependencies, and geographic scope? (Empirical baseline)

• Which state, non-state, or corporate actor initiated, experienced, or managed the event and at what level of the cyber-physical spectrum did the disruption operate: deeply embedded digital control loops, or indirectly cyber-mediated physical constraints? (Agential mapping)

• Which analytical framework (weaponised interdependence, complex systems and cascading failure theory, realist coercion logic, or critical political economy of infrastructure governance) best explains the vulnerability or the response, and what assumptions does it make about the relationship between physical systems and their digital control layers? (Theoretical application)

• What cross-sector dependencies, attribution ambiguities, or governance gaps does this explanation fail to trace and what cascading effects remain analytically invisible because the chosen framework treats the infrastructure sector in isolation? (Analytical limitation)

• How does this event look from the perspective of a different sector, a state on the receiving end of coercive disruption, or a regulatory tradition operating outside the dominant Western security architecture, and whose definition of what counts as "critical" has been universalised without being examined? (Reflexive critique)

Learning Outcomes

• Analyse infrastructure as a system of geopolitical power and structural vulnerability: Evaluate global infrastructure networks as instruments of leverage and coercion, and map the distinction between deeply cyber-embedded systems, where digital code directly governs physical states, and indirectly cyber-mediated environments where physical geography remains the primary strategic constraint and digital control operates as a secondary overlay.

• Trace cascading interdependencies across sectors, borders, and domains: Diagram and track how localised disruptions propagate across interconnected energy, maritime, digital, and orbital systems, identifying the cross-sector transmission pathways and institutional gaps that transform contained incidents into systemic failures.

• Apply theoretical and governance frameworks to infrastructure security: Deploy international relations and political economy theories to explain variation in state vulnerability, regulatory capacity, and resilience outcomes, and critically assess the institutional architectures (state, corporate, and multilateral) responsible for public–private infrastructure protection and emergency governance.

• Produce professional-grade strategic risk assessments: Formulate policy-grade threat assessments and scenario-based foresight reports grounded in rigorous empirical evidence, maintaining throughout a clear analytical distinction between the physical infrastructure layer and its digital control overlay.

Assessment

Assessment 1: Infrastructure Vulnerability Analysis (35% | 2,500 words)
Students select one infrastructure system (drawn from energy, maritime logistics, digital communications, financial clearing, or orbital domains) and produce a sustained analytical assessment of its geopolitical vulnerability and governance. The analysis must establish the empirical facts of the system's physical architecture, digital control layer, and cross-sector dependencies; identify the state and non-state actors responsible for its operation and protection; and locate the system clearly on the course's cyber-physical spectrum, assessing whether it functions as a deeply cyber-embedded system where digital code directly governs physical states, or as an indirectly cyber-mediated environment where physical geography remains the primary strategic constraint. Students must apply at least one theoretical framework from the course, such as weaponised interdependence, complex systems theory, or critical political economy of infrastructure governance, to explain the system's vulnerability profile, and must identify where existing governance arrangements produce structural gaps or fragilities that the chosen framework exposes. Submission Deadline: End of Week 7.

Assessment 2: Capstone Strategic Infrastructure Risk and Foresight Report (55% | 5,000–6,000 words)
The primary summative assessment for this course is a comprehensive strategic analysis of a contemporary infrastructure-related security challenge within the international system. Students select a case involving transboundary infrastructure vulnerability and develop a structured assessment of its geopolitical implications. The report must identify and map the key state and non-state actors and their competing interests; trace the cascading interdependency pathways across affected sectors and borders; apply at least two theoretical frameworks from international relations and political economy to explain the dynamics of power, coercion, and systemic risk; and critically evaluate where state-centric security frameworks fail to account for private platform power, public–private governance gaps, or cross-border attribution ambiguities. Students must construct three plausible and mutually exclusive scenarios for the evolution of the infrastructure challenge over a 10–20 year horizon, explicitly linking infrastructural developments to shifts in international order and governance capacity. Submission Deadline: Sunday of Week 14 (Formal Assessment Period, following the conclusion of Week 12 teaching).

Assessment 3: Seminar Participation and Analytical Engagement (10% | Ongoing)
Participation is assessed continuously throughout the semester. Marks reflect the quality and consistency of engagement across three interconnected dimensions: contribution to seminar and workshop discussions, demonstrating the ability to apply theoretical concepts to empirical cases and to challenge competing interpretations with reasoned argument; performance in the weekly Analytical Labs, showing growing proficiency in applying course methodologies to live data and case material; and conduct in simulation and debate exercises, including the willingness to defend positions under adversarial questioning, respond to new evidence, and revise conclusions accordingly. Attendance is a prerequisite for participation credit, but marks are awarded for the quality and intellectual rigour of engagement rather than for the volume of contribution.

Submission, Formatting Requirements and Academic Integrity

• All written work must be submitted as a PDF file, regardless of the word processor used.

• Use font at 12 points Aptos or Arial. Pages must be numbered. Include your name, student number, course name, assignment title, and word count on the first page; a separate cover page is not required.

• The word count stated in the assignment brief is a guide to scope and depth, not a rigid threshold. Work within 10% of the stated count in either direction. The word count covers the main body of the text, including in-text citations, but excludes the reference list, any tables or figures, and any appendices.

• All written work must follow APA 7th edition throughout. In-text citations use the author-date format: (Yergin, 2020) or Yergin (2020) argues that… For direct quotations, include the page number: (Yergin, 2020, p. 47). The reference list appears at the end of the document, ordered alphabetically by surname. Do not use footnotes for references; footnotes may be used sparingly for substantive clarifications that would otherwise interrupt the argument.

• Formal policies on academic integrity and the use of AI tools vary by institution and will be communicated where applicable. The question beneath those policies does not change: Is the goal to understand, or simply to appear to have understood? A qualification obtained without the knowledge it is meant to represent is a transaction, not an education, and it shortchanges the holder as much as anyone else. I invest genuine effort in connecting students to scholarship, practitioners, and professional networks that extend well beyond any syllabus. Whether that investment meets a reciprocal commitment is, in the end, a question of character rather than compliance.

Literature

• Baggett, R. K., & Simpkins, B. K. (2018). Homeland security and critical infrastructure protection (2nd ed.). Praeger.

• Dunn Cavelty, M. (2024). The politics of cyber-security. Routledge.

• Greenberg, A. (2019). Sandworm: A new era of cyberwar and the hunt for the Kremlin’s most dangerous hackers. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

• Kaplan, F. M. (2016). Dark territory: The secret history of cyber war. Simon & Schuster.

• Lindsay, J. R. (2025). Age of deception: Cybersecurity as secret statecraft. Cornell University Press.

• Maschmeyer, L. (2024). Subversion: From covert operations to cyber conflict. Oxford University Press.

• Radvanovsky, R., & McDougall, A. (2024). Critical infrastructure: Homeland security and emergency preparedness. Routledge.

• Smeets, M. (2022). No shortcuts: Why states struggle to develop a military cyber-force. Oxford University Press.

• Zetter, K. (2014). Countdown to zero day: Stuxnet and the launch of the world’s first digital weapon. Crown Publishers.

Research articles do not appear in the bibliography above. This is intentional. Each week, students are expected to identify a peer-reviewed article relevant to that week’s topic, bring it to the seminar, and share it with the group. The lecturer contributes selections alongside the class. This practice develops independent literature-searching habits, exposes the seminar to a wider range of scholarly perspectives than any fixed reading list could provide, and keeps the course in sustained contact with current debates in the field.

Course Structure and Content

MODULE I: Infrastructure, Networks, and Power in IR

Week 1: Infrastructure as Structural Power in International Relations

Core Question: How do infrastructure systems constitute the material and structural foundations of state power?

Topics: Historical perspective on infrastructure development and sovereign authority; the conceptual shift from territorial containment to networked power; distinguishing the physical landscape from the digital control layer; defining "criticality" within national security frameworks.

Analytical Lab: Apply the five-rule framework to historical infrastructure networks used as instruments of geopolitical power (e.g., transnational canals, strategic railway networks, early telegraph lines).

Reflexive Question: Whose specific political, territorial, or commercial interests are privileged when a state designates an asset as "critical" while leaving other networks exposed?

Additional Literature 

• Baldwin, D. A. (2016). Power and international relations: A conceptual approach. Princeton University Press.

• Misa, T. J. (2004). Modernity and technology. MIT Press.

• Strange, S. (1996). The retreat of the state: The diffusion of power in the world economy. Cambridge University Press.

Week 2: Network Power and Weaponised Interdependence

Core Question: How do asymmetric, centralised global networks generate coercive power for the states that govern them?

Topics: Network centrality, hubs, and structural choke points; the theory of weaponised interdependence (the panopticon and choke effect); cyber-enabled economic coercion; structural asymmetries in global trade and financial exchange.

Analytical Lab: Network topology mapping of a global logistics, communication, or transaction clearing system to locate central points of strategic exposure.

Reflexive Question: How does the explicit analytical transition from open global markets to weaponised hubs alter conventional liberal institutionalist assumptions regarding the pacifying effect of interdependence?

Additional Literature 

• Drezner, D. W., Farrell, H., & Newman, A. (2021). The uses and abuses of weaponized interdependence. Brookings Institution Press.

• Farrell, H., & Newman, A. (2024). Underground empire. Holt Paperbacks.

• Nye, J. S. (2011). The future of power. PublicAffairs.

MODULE II: Deeply Cyber-Embedded Infrastructure Systems

Week 3: Industrial Control Systems and Operational Technology in National Security

Core Question: How does deep digital embedding within physical infrastructure alter traditional calculations of international security and conflict?

Topics: Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) architectures; cyber-physical coupling and the expansion of systemic risk surfaces; Stuxnet and Industroyer as foundational political events; the challenges of forensic attribution and strategic ambiguity in cyberspace.

Analytical Lab: Post-incident forensic policy analysis and failure chain reconstruction of a documented cyber-physical infrastructure attack.

Reflexive Question: If a digital asset can be manipulated to trigger physical destruction, does the clear distinction between cyber espionage and kinetic warfare lose its analytical utility?

Additional Literature 

• Rid, T. (2013). Cyber war will not take place. Oxford University Press.

• Sanger, D. E. (2019). The perfect weapon: War, sabotage, and fear in the cyber age. Broadway Books.

• Zetter, K. (2014). Countdown to zero day: Stuxnet and the launch of the world's first digital weapon. Crown Publishers.

Week 4: Cascading Failure and Systemic Interdependence

Core Question: Why do tightly coupled digital control loops cause failures to propagate rapidly across alternative industrial sectors?

Topics: Complexity theory and systems thinking in international relations; tight coupling, interactive complexity, and the concept of "normal accidents"; cross-sector dependency chains (the electricity-water-finance nexus); institutional resilience governance frameworks (e.g., the European Union’s Critical Entities Resilience model).

Analytical Lab: Simulation and tabletop modelling of a transboundary cascading infrastructure failure triggered by a single sector disruption.

Reflexive Question: If catastrophic failure is an inherent, structural characteristic of tightly coupled complex networks, can true security ever be attained via technical optimization?

Additional Literature 

• Clark, R. M., & Hakim, S. (2018). Cyber-physical security: Protecting critical infrastructure at the state and local level. Springer.

• Egloff, F. J. (2022). Semi-state actors in cybersecurity. Oxford University Press.

• Gartzke, E., & Lindsay, J. R. (2024). Elements of deterrence. Oxford University Press.

• Shackelford, S. (2023). Forks in the digital road. Oxford University Press.

Week 5: Energy Systems and Deep Cyber-Physical Coupling

Core Question: How do automated transboundary power grids function as sites of deep cyber-physical vulnerability?

Topics: Electricity grids as political and institutional structures; the geoeconomics of cross-border high-voltage interconnectors; energy coercion, supply cut-offs, and dependency management; grid synchronisation and desynchronization as instruments of statecraft.

Analytical Lab: Structural mapping of transboundary pipeline routes or electrical transmission interconnections to evaluate regional dependency ratios.

Reflexive Question: Does cross-border grid synchronization enhance a state's resilience through regional redundancy, or does it permanently export domestic vulnerabilities to external actors?

Additional Literature 

• Cao, Y., Li, Y., Liu, X., & Rehtanz, C. (2019). Cyber-physical energy and power systems. Springer.

• Mahmoud, M. S., Khalid, H. M., & Hamdan, M. M. (2021). Cyberphysical infrastructures in power systems. Elsevier.

• Parizad, A., Baghaee, H. R., & Rahman, S. (Eds.). (2025). Smart cyber-physical power systems: Fundamental concepts, challenges, and solutions. Wiley.

MODULE III: Indirectly Cyber-Mediated Systems and Material Flows

Week 6: Maritime Chokepoints and Geographic Contours

Core Question: How does physical geography constrain global economic and military systems in an indirectly cyber-mediated domain?

Topics: Strategic geography of primary maritime corridors (Malacca, Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, Panama); the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) versus raw naval enforcement; global container supply chain vulnerability; naval power projection, interdiction, and freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs).

Analytical Lab: Exposure and disruption modelling of a state's economic baseline under alternative scenarios of prolonged maritime corridor closure.

Reflexive Question: To what extent do Western legal constructs like freedom of navigation clash with the historical security perceptions of littoral states governing geographic choke points?

Additional Literature 

• Medcalf, R. (2021). Indo-Pacific empire: China, America and the contest for the world’s pivotal region. Manchester University Press.

• Monaghan, A., & Connolly, R. (Eds.). (2023). The sea in Russian strategy. Manchester University Press.

• Till, G. (2022). How to grow a navy. Routledge.

• Vego, M. N. (2022). Exercising control of the sea. Routledge.

Week 7: Port Logistics, Canals, and Digital Overlays

Core Question: How do digital optimisation platforms create secondary vulnerabilities in naturally constrained shipping hubs and canals?

Topics: Automated container tracking, port management systems, and customs clearing software; the vulnerability of material logistics corridors to non-disruptive, systemic cyber friction; public-private statecraft in global commercial port hubs.

Analytical Lab: Vulnerability mapping of an international port hub, contrasting its immutable geographic constraints against its digital management overlay.

Reflexive Question: When digital optimization obscures physical asset visibility, does corporate efficiency directly subvert sovereign readiness for extended disruption?

Additional Literature 

• Aït-Touati, F., Arènes, A., Grégoire, A., & Latour, B. (2022). Terra forma: A book of speculative maps. MIT Press.

• Alimahomed-Wilson, J., & Ness, I. (2018). Choke points. Pluto Press.

• Chayka, K. (2024). Filterworld: How algorithms flattened culture. Doubleday.

• Hillman, J. E. (2021). The digital Silk Road: China’s quest to wire the world and win the future. Harper Business.

• Khalili, L. (2021). Sinews of war and trade: Shipping and capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula. Verso.

Week 8: Subsea Cables and the Physicality of Global Communications

Core Question: How does the extreme material vulnerability of underwater fibre pathways condition global connectivity?

Topics: The geography of submarine fibre-optic cable routes and landing stations; hybrid physical-cyber threats and grey-zone sabotage risks; the political economy of private corporate ownership of sovereign digital infrastructure; intelligence gathering and deep-sea signals surveillance.

Analytical Lab: Spatial risk clustering analysis of global subsea cable choke points and landing zone path dependencies.

Reflexive Question: Given that subsea cable paths follow immutable maritime geography, how do states overcome the legal limitation of territorial boundaries when defending infrastructure located in international waters?

Additional Literature 

• Clark, D. D. (2023). Designing an internet. MIT Press.

• Doctorow, C. (2024). Internet con: How to seize the means of computation. Verso.

• Shapiro, S. J. (2023). Fancy Bear goes phishing: The dark history of the information age, in five extraordinary hacks. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

• Starosielski, N. (2015). The undersea network. Duke University Press.

MODULE IV: Governance, Cyber Power, and Institutional Fragility

Week 9: Cyber Power and Strategic Competition

Core Question: How do advanced cyber capabilities alter the conventional international relations logics of deterrence and coercion?

Topics: Cyber capabilities as instruments of asymmetric strategy; grey-zone operations and threshold manipulation; mechanisms of plausible deniability; the strategic interplay between state actors and non-state hacker collectives or state-sponsored proxies.

Analytical Lab: Strategic reconstruction and policy evaluation of an active state-sponsored infrastructure intrusion campaign using the five rules.

Reflexive Question: How does the reliance on plausible deniability and asymmetric proxies challenge classical realist paradigms predicated on clear sovereign signaling and state-to-state deterrence?

Additional Literature 

• Andersen, L. H., Broeders, D., & Csernatoni, R. (Eds.). (2024). Emerging and disruptive digital technologies: National, regional, and global perspectives. Publications Office of the European Union.

• Bjola, C., & Kornprobst, M. (2023). Digital international relations. Routledge.

• Edelman, R. D. (2024). Rethinking cyber warfare. Oxford University Press.

• Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2022). Cyber persistence theory. Oxford University Press.

Week 10: Public–Private Power and Infrastructure Governance

Core Question: Who maintains ultimate governance authority over critical national systems in a privatised, cloud-dependent digital economy?

Topics: Platform power, sovereign data centres, and global cloud infrastructure; the structural dependence of state institutions on private technology corporations; intelligence sharing, public-private friction, and national security fragmentation; regulatory sovereignty in an extra-territorial digital space.

Analytical Lab: Stakeholder mapping and institutional friction analysis of a public-private critical infrastructure governance network.

Reflexive Question: When private corporate actors hold the exclusive capability to defend or shut down state utilities, how must our understanding of the state's monopoly on legitimate violence change?

Additional Literature 

• Clarke, R. A., & Knake, R. K. (2019). The fifth domain: Defending our country, our companies, and ourselves in the age of cyber threats. Penguin.

• Hodge, G. A., & Greve, C. (2022). A research agenda for public-private partnerships and the governance of infrastructure. Edward Elgar Publishing.

MODULE V: Space Infrastructure and Systemic Futures

Week 11: Space Infrastructure and Orbital Dependency

Core Question: Why has extraterrestrial orbital infrastructure emerged as a central single point of failure for terrestrial security systems?

Topics: Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) dependencies across modern societies; satellite constellations, commercial mega-constellations (e.g., Starlink), and tactical military assistance; counter-space capabilities (kinetic ASATs, electronic jamming, spoofing); orbital debris chains and the vulnerability of space-based architecture.

Analytical Lab: Strategic crisis simulation evaluating the cascading domestic and military impacts of a localised GNSS or satellite network disruption.

Reflexive Question: How do emerging commercial space monopolies alter the execution of international space law frameworks originally devised exclusively for state competition during the Cold War?

Additional Literature 

• Bateman, A. (2024). Weapons in space. MIT Press.

• Chaar, W. (2024). Data independence. Advantage Media Group.

• Klein, J. J. (2024). Space warfare. Routledge.

• Moltz, J. C. (2026). The politics of space security. Stanford University Press.

Week 12: Foresight and Systemic Futures of Infrastructure Security

Core Question: How will the integration of artificial intelligence and automated autonomous processes reshape the balance between systemic defence and structural vulnerability?

Topics: Artificial intelligence in smart-grid governance and network defence; automated decision-making systems and algorithmic risk propagation; thermodynamic and electrical constraints of hyper-scale computing infrastructure; analysing long-term systemic fragility.

Analytical Lab: Scenario construction and strategic foresight exercise drafting alternative critical infrastructure security models for the year 2040.

Reflexive Question: If automated foresight models and autonomous systems take over live network operations, where does ethical, legal, and political liability rest for systemic failures?

Additional Literature 

• Bailey, M. (2025). Unknowable minds. Imprint Academic.

• Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford University Press.

• Christian, B. (2020). The alignment problem: Machine learning and human values. W. W. Norton.

• Scharre, P. (2018). Army of none: Autonomous weapons and the future of war. W. W. Norton.

*** This course is designed to be adaptable. The weekly structure, assessment components, and reading load can be adjusted to suit the requirements of a particular higher education institution or the context of individual tutoring, and can be scaled to meet the demands of bachelor’s and master’s degree students alike. The analytical framework and intellectual ambitions of the course remain constant; the format is a starting point, not a constraint.

Updated – June 2026

I have done my utmost to ensure everything is correct, but if you spot any mistakes, please let me know, as I am only human after all. Additionally, if you have a recommendation for another excellent book that could enhance this course, please do share your suggestions.

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