The Special Topic is designed to showcase a new area of teaching for the GSSD Program and to allow students to learn from visiting specialists at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. In 2008 the Special Topic will be a course on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency  in an Age of Terror, taught by the military historian Dr Daniel Marston. The course places contemporary insurgencies (in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan) in a strong historical framework by examining earlier examples of internal conflict from North America to Southeast and South Asia. It will also encourage students to evaluate contemporary counter-insurgency practice, including those campaigns being waged as part of the attempt to defeat transnational terrorism, against the backdrop of the evolution of counterinsurgency strategies.