Press | History

The Clements Center for National Security, the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and School of Civic Leadership are pleased to announce that Robert D. Kaplan, the renowned foreign affairs correspondent and author, will be joining The University of Texas at Austin as a Distinguished Senior Lecturer. Kaplan will teach undergraduate and graduate courses, participate in our public…

Applications are now open for the 2026 Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft! Policymakers frequently attempt to draw on historical knowledge to gain perspective on contemporary national security issues. Meanwhile, historians and other scholars frequently comment on present-day decision-making problems and sometimes aspire to influence policy debates. Yet policymakers and scholars generally occupy separate intellectual…

Post-Doctoral Fellowship: The Clements Center offers post-doctoral fellowships to recent Ph.D. recipients to live and work in Austin, Texas. Fellows will spend the substantial portion of their time working on their own research and writing projects, while taking advantage of the many academic resources available here at the University of Texas-Austin. The fellowship offers a competitive stipend,…

The America in the World Consortium at Duke University, Johns Hopkins SAIS, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Florida seeks applications from current Ph.D. students for its Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.  The America in the World Consortium (AWC) is a dynamic partnership of universities seeking to create a more vibrant…

Congratulations to former America in the World Consortium Postdoctoral Fellow, Lin Le, on the publication of China’s Conservative Turn: The Origins of Xi Jinping’s New Era.

Congratulations to former visiting professor Rosella Cappella Zielinski on publishing her book Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War. Order it here!

For over a decade, the Clements Center has proudly convened its annual Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft in Beaver Creek, Colorado, a weeklong program devoted to learning, thoughtful discussion, and networking.  This year’s highly selective program brought together twenty-three students from premier universities in the U.S. and abroad, including Boston University, Clemson University, Columbia…

This year, the Clements Center introduced the first iteration of our South Korea May Term: America in the Pacific – American History, Strategy, and the Future of the Indo-Pacific Region. Conducted entirely in South Korea, the program offered twenty UT Austin undergraduate students the opportunity to visit significant landmarks in Korean history and culture, meet with…

This year marked our tenth annual London May Term: The U.S. and U.K: Past Present and Future of the Transatlantic Alliance. From 2015 to 2025, we have partnered with the renowned War Studies Department at King’s College London to bring twenty undergraduate students from UT-Austin to the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium to study the…

On April 24th and 25th, the Clements Center for National Security, the UT-Austin Department of History, and the America in the World Consortium hosted the conference “Cold War 2.0? Power and Prudence: Lessons of the Cold War for the 21st Century” in Bass Lecture Hall at the LBJ School for Public Affairs. As great power…

In this episode, Rick Landgraf talks with Andrew Forney, author of “Davy Crockett and the Boy Scouts: The Korean War and Mismanaging Protracted Conflict,” featured in the Texas National Security Review. They discuss how a series of strategic force management decisions undermined the ability of the United States to militarily coerce China and North Korea.

Kerry Anderson talks with Gokul Sahni, author of “The Main Drivers of Soviet Foreign Policy Towards India, 1955–1991,” about the historical evolution of Soviet-India relations and what lessons it might provide for current geopolitics.

In this episode, Marshall Kosloff talks with Paul Sparrow about his book, “Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR’s War of Words with Charles Lindbergh and the Battle to Save Democracy.”

Tommy Jamison reviews two recent books documenting the fractious cooperation between the United States, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Nationalists during the 1940s.

Dr. Pomar joined Lawfare’s Podcast “Chatter” to discuss the origins of US government-funded international broadcasting, perceptions of the radios after the Cold War, Mark’s book Cold War Radio and his current research into Radio Liberty, and more.

Applications are now open for the 2025 Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft! Policymakers frequently attempt to draw on historical knowledge to gain perspective on contemporary national security issues. Meanwhile, historians and other scholars frequently comment on present-day decision-making problems and sometimes aspire to influence policy debates. Yet policymakers and scholars generally occupy separate intellectual…

The Clements Center and Strauss Center hosted Robert D. Kaplan at the University of Texas at Austin, where he discussed how our leaders can come to grips with a world seemingly in disarray.

TNSR Production Editor Kerry Anderson talks with historian Daniel Chardell about his article The Origins of the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait Reconsidered. Daniel and Kerry discuss Saddam Hussein’s understanding of the shifts in power that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse, how U.S. and Iraqi leaders perceived each other, Saddam’s concerns about Israel, and historians’ use of Iraqi…

On a new episode, Marshall Kosloff talks with journalist Martin Pengelly about his book, “Brotherhood: When West Point Rugby Went to War.” They discuss rugby and Pengelly’s story about members of a West Point rugby team in the aftermath of 9/11.

In this episode, TNSR Production Editor Kerry Anderson sits down with Joseph Stieb to discuss his article from TNSR: “Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? The Debate at 20 Years.”

Jim Goldgeier and Marshall Kosloff discuss the post-Cold War era, NATO expansion, great-power expectations, and the future of the U.S. role in Europe.

At the Clements Center for National Security’s Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft, Susan Colbourn and Simon Miles discussed how different concepts of history have shaped the war in Ukraine and how students of international affairs should challenge their assumptions and embrace uncertainty.

For the past ten years, the Clements Center has proudly hosted its annual Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft, selecting advanced doctoral students for a week of learning, discussion and networking.   This year’s highly selective program brought together twenty-one students from premier universities in the U.S. and abroad including Yale, John Hopkins, Georgetown, Princeton, Purdue,…

Ryan Evans talks with Philip Zelikow about his recent article for TNSR, “Confronting Another Axis? History, Humility, and Wishful Thinking.”

Rick Landgraf talks with TNSR author Joshua Byun about how American attempts to leave Europe during the first decade of the Cold War were thwarted by European concerns that German rearmament would trigger a Soviet attack.

This year marked the Clements Center’s second iteration of Summer Beyond Borders: Case-Studies in Difficult Diplomacy and our first iteration of the program in South Korea, focusing on the historical challenges and successes of our important allies in the Republic of Korea and US interests in the Pacific. In June, thirteen undergraduate students from UT-Austin…

Marshall Kosloff sits down with Luke Schumacher to talk about his recent article in TNSR titled, “Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II, and the Reality of Constitutional Statesmanship.”

In this new article, graduate fellow Sam Rosenberg and Jacob Ware delve into the intelligence and deception strategies that shaped the Normandy invasion: “The D-Day deception operation stands as a powerful example of the essential blend of irregular warfare methods with conventional tactics.”

The Clements-Strauss Asia Policy Program hosted Xiaobing Li, professor of history and the Don Betz endowed chair in international studies at the University of Central Oklahoma, for a book talk on China’s New Navy: The Evolution of PLAN from the People’s Revolution to a 21st Century Cold War.

The Clements Center for National Security, the LBJ Presidential Library and the UT-Austin History Department hosted Talmage Boston, historian and partner at the Dallas law firm Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP, for a book talk on How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents.

Dr. Pomar Joined Cold War Radios’ “Waging Peace: Lunch & Learn Series” to lead a discussion of President Eisenhower’s critical role in setting a freedom agenda in the early years of the Cold War. Following WWII, the United States sought to combat communism through a radio broadcast campaign across Europe. These broadcasts confronted the communist…

Philip Taubman, a lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, discussed his latest book, In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz. The conversation touched on the legacy of Secretary Shultz, his approach to the Soviet Union, and is filled with anecdotes from Philip’s time in Moscow at the…

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of Government, spoke about the history of isolationism in the United States, its role in the formulation of American foreign policy, and how the idea is now…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Aaron O’Connell, associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and director of research for the Clements Center for National Security, hosts a discussion with Rob Rakove,  a lecturer in Stanford University’s Program in International Relations. They discuss Rakove’s new book, Days of Opportunity: The United…

Marc Selverstone, the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, co-chair of the Center’s Presidential Recordings Program, and professor of presidential studies, moderated a discussion with Francis Gavin, the Giovanni Agnelli distinguised professor and director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the School of Advanced International Studies…

Carter Burwell, a Public Interest Declassification Board board member, moderated a discussion with Erin Mahan, Chief Historian at the Office of the Secretary of Defense; Adam Howard, the director of the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State; and John Fox, a historian at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The conversation discussed…