Imaginary Syllabi: War and Logistics
[teaching optimization imaginary-syllabi Inspired by a discussion with Zachary Jones ‘25: An interdisciplinary course on the philosophy and history of logistics and war (as distinct from economic optimization and war proposed earlier).Students will focus on the philosophy/criticism of Paul Virilio, historical examples of logistics, and elementary aspects of mathematical modeling of logistics, with a special focus on linear programming and Monte Carlo simulations (performing relevant calculations in Mathematica). Reading lists to include…
Required texts
- Works by philosopher/critic Paul Virilio on the architecture of war, the configuration of cities for war logistics, etc. (t.b.d)
- van Crevald, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton — historical study on logistics in military history
- Chopra, Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation — intro textbook on supply chain management
Supplementary readings
- H. Paul Williams, Mathematical Programming — A solid introduction to optimization (“programming”) topics and their applications for newcomers
- Shapiro, Modeling the Suppply Chain — source of problems for linear and integer programming applications in models
- Liu, Supply Chain Analytics — source of problems for data-analytics/ML type exercises
Fordham stuff
- Run this as an Interdisciplinary Capstone (Philosophy + History + Military Science + Gabelli + Math). Find some co-conspirators