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Press | Podcast
In Memory of Bob Jervis
Will Inboden | Dec 10, 2021
The Clements Center mourns the death of Professor Bob Jervis of Columbia University. One of the most eminent and influential political scientists of the past century, he was a valued member of our academic board of reference, a mentor to a number of our scholars, an instructor at our Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft,…
Horns of a Dilemma: A Faustian Bargain
Ian Johnson | Dec 03, 2021
Ian Johnson, of Notre Dame University and a former Clements Center fellow, discusses Soviet and German cooperation in the decades prior to WWII in this week’s episode, as detailed in his book, Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War.
Horns of a Dilemma: How Technology Changes Arms Control
Jane Vaynman | Nov 12, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we hear from Professor Jane Vaynman, author of “Better Monitoring and Better Spying: The Impact of Emerging Technology on Arms Control,” which appears in Vol. 4/Iss. 4 of the Texas National Security Review, a special issue dedicated to the memory and legacy of Janne Nolan. Vaynman explores how advances in the…
Horns of a Dilemma: The Malacca Dilemma and Growing Chinese Military Power
Thomas Shugart | Nov 05, 2021
In this week’s episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Thomas Shugart, adjunct senior fellow with the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, discusses the implications of growing Chinese military power. Shugart frames his discussion in terms of what he calls the “Malacca Dilemma”: Since much of Chinese trade and almost all Chinese energy imports must flow through strategic chokepoints controlled by the U.S. Navy or its allies and partners, Chinese leaders want to be able to protect their interests in these vital regions. But the same capabilities that allow them to protect their trading interests also allow them to threaten, intimidate, and coerce other regional countries, and may give Chinese communist leaders the tools needed to challenge or change the global order that has defined the region for decades.
Horns of a Dilemma: Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader
Benjamin Young | Oct 29, 2021
While most people think of North Korea today as an isolated pariah state, the “hermit kingdom” exercised significant influence among Third World nations during the Cold War. North Korean leader Kim Il Sung sent advisors to assist African liberation movements, trained anti-imperialist guerrilla fighters, and completed building projects in developing countries. State-run media coverage of events in the Third World shaped the worldview of many North Koreans and helped them imagine a unified global anti-imperialist front with North Korea at the vanguard. In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Professor Benjamin Young of Virginia Commonwealth University discusses these developments, as detailed in his book, Guns, Guerrillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World. This talk was sponsored by the Clements Center at the University of Texas, Austin, and was hosted by Professor Sheena Greitens of the LBJ School at the University of Texas, Austin.
Horns of a Dilemma: A Strategy of Denial
Elbridge Colby | Oct 22, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we hear from Elbridge Colby, co-founder of the Marathon Initiative, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, and author of The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Competition. Colby makes the case for a U.S. defense strategy focused on preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia by…
Horns of a Dilemma: Cyber Security is Only Partly Cloudy
Christina Morillo | Oct 08, 2021
With the release of the Pandora Papers, news reports are filled with stories derived from computer files once thought to be hidden from public scrutiny. While the source of the Pandora Papers leak isn’t yet known, the pattern of leaked computer files shaping international relations has become increasingly common as information migrates to “the cloud.”…
Horns of a Dilemma: Refuge and Reconciliation
Amanda Demmer | Oct 01, 2021
In the wake of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, much attention has focused on the fate of Afghan citizens who risked their lives to aid U.S. forces. The hastily organized evacuation of Afghan refugees has frequently drawn unfavorable comparison to the evacuation and resettlement of Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975. As…
Will Inboden Discusses AUKUS
Will Inboden | Sep 28, 2021
Click on the link to hear Clement Center’s Will Inboden discuss the new AUKUS defense pact as a deterrent to Chinese military influence on “The World and Everything in It”.
Horns of a Dilemma: Isn’t it Grand?
Chris Nichols, Andrew Preston, Adriane Lentz-Smith, Charles Edel, Will Inboden, Jeremi Suri | Sep 24, 2021
Grand strategy can be a vexing term. While many people understand grand strategy to be an important expression of the way in which countries wield their power, there can often be confusion as to exactly what the term “grand strategy” encompasses. (For listeners eager to explore more on this, Vol. 2, Iss. 1 of Texas National Security Review contains…
Horns of a Dilemma: Defending Democracy – Inside the Senate Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election
Emily Harding | Sep 20, 2021
The 2016 presidential election was a milestone in modern American politics, not only for the surprising victory of a candidate whom many pundits and observers had considered unlikely to win, but also for the degree to which foreign powers attempted to influence the electoral process and outcome. In this week’s Horns of a Dilemma, we hear…
Horns of a Dilemma: MAD COWs and Practical Wisdom
John Emery, Doyle Hodges | Sep 10, 2021
In the 1950s, researchers at the RAND Corporation ran two different wargames exploring questions of nuclear strategy. Both were named the Cold War Game, known to the participants as COW. One, run by the Mathematics Analysis Division (MAD), abstracted questions of the ethics of nuclear war in order to seek reproducible results. The other, run…
Diana Bolsinger joins Spy Musem SpyCast Podcast for “Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen, Al Qaeda”
Diana Bolsinger | Sep 09, 2021
Diana Bolsinger, Lecturer and Graduate Director of the Intelligence and National Security Studies Master of Science program at UT-El Paso and Clements Center Graduate Fellow, joins the Spy Museum’s podcast, SpyCast, for “Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen, Al Qaeda – My Time at CIA & State with Diana Bolsinger.”
Insurgency is Easier than Governing: The Future of the Taliban in Afghanistan
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Scott R. Anderson, Doyle Hodges | Sep 03, 2021
With the fall of President Ashraf Ghani’s government and the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, most of Afghanistan is now under the control of the Taliban. In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we are joined by Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the director of the Initiative on…
Horns of a Dilemma: Writing and Editing on the Rocks
Doyle Hodges, Megan Oprea | Aug 27, 2021
Being an editor involves saying “no,” quite a bit. 85 percent of submissions to both the Texas National Security Review and War on the Rocks never make it to publication. At the recent Clements Center Summer Seminar on History and Statecraft in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of TNSR and chief publishing officer of War on the Rocks,…
Horns of a Dilemma: Diplomacy Shaken not Stirred
Paul Edgar | Aug 20, 2021
Mark Twain once said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The repetition of patterns of events and responses is one reason that scholars and policymakers often turn to the past for insight into how to best deal with contemporary events. It is also why classic works of history and strategy — such…
Horns of a Dilemma: A History of Things That Didn’t Happen
Francis Gavin | Aug 13, 2021
The history of nuclear weapons is, thankfully, largely a history of things that haven’t happened. Since 1945, nuclear weapons have dominated strategy and statecraft, but they have not been used after the first two bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Professor Frank Gavin of Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, and Chair of…
Horns of a Dilemma: The Long Goodbye
Alexandra Hall Hall | Aug 06, 2021
Two weeks ago on Horns of a Dilemma, Professor Jim Goldgeier of American University and the Brookings Institution joined Ambassador Alexandra Hall Hall to discuss the thematic connections between the choice in the early 1990s to add new members to the NATO alliance and Britain’s choice in 2016 to leave the European Union. In last week’s episode,…
Horns of a Dilemma: Growing and Shrinking
Jim Goldgeier, Alexandra Hall Hall, Doyle Hodges | Jul 23, 2021
The admission of new NATO members from the former Soviet Union and Warsaw pact marked an expansion of European multilateral institutions. The growth in membership of European institutions continued until 25 years later, when Britain decided to withdraw from the European Union. In a session recorded at the Clements Center Summer Seminar on History and…
Horns of a Dilemma: A Promising Past?
Jim Goldgeier | Jul 30, 2021
In last week’s episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we heard Professor Jim Goldgeier of American University and the Brookings Institution and former British Ambassador Alexandra Hall Hall discuss the thematic connections between the addition of new NATO members after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the dynamics that ultimately led to Brexit. In this episode,…
Cyber Economic Espionage
Catherine Lotrionte | Jul 12, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Dr. Catherine Lotrionte, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discusses state-sponsored cyber economic espionage, that is the use of state resources in order to obtain private intellectual property, not for the benefit of the state, but for the benefit of industries and companies.
Security and Insecurity in the Indo-Pacific
Randall G. Schriver | Jul 05, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Randall G. Schriver, the former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs and now serving as the chairman of the Project 2049 Institute, offers an overview of U.S. security relations throughout Asia. He speaks of the policy continuity between the Trump and Biden administrations. He also…
The Cyber Arms Race
Nicole Perlroth, Robert Chesney | Jun 28, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Nicole Perlroth, author of This is How the Word Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race, sits down with Bobby Chesney, director of the Strauss Center, to discuss the increasing complexity and sophistication of attacks on U.S infrastructure and the challenges presented in defending against cyber attacks.
Putting Diplomacy at the Center of Foreign Policy
Philip T. Reeker | Jun 21, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Ambassador Philip T. Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, provides an overview of European security issues. Ambassador Reeker’s talk focuses on Russia, NATO, Eastern Europe, as well as other critical European security issues.
Horns of a Dilemma: Living in the House Designed by Greeks and Romans
Thomas Ricks | Jun 14, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Thomas Ricks, journalist and historian, talks about his new book, “First Principles, What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How that Shaped Our Country.” Ricks outlines the degree to which the founding fathers were influenced by the ancients and how this influence helped to…
General Brooks records two-part podcast on U.S. Military and Diplomatic Relations in S. Korea with U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert
The General and the Ambassador Podcast | Jun 07, 2021
Released by the General and the Ambassador podcast on June 5, 20221.
Horns of a Dilemma: “A Country That Matters All Day, Every Day”
Amb. Martha Bárcena, Kimberly Breier | Jun 07, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Martha Bárcena, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, and Kimberly Breier, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discuss U.S.-Mexican relations. The talk covers topics such as immigration and trade, but also highlights the degree to which the U.S. and Mexico are each…
New from Horns of a Dilemma: The Politics of Who You Know
Henry Hale | May 28, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Henry Hale, professor of political science and international relations at George Washington University, gives a talk about the evolution of power structures in post-Soviet Eurasia. Hale focuses on the concept of “patronalism,” the idea that political power is distributed and wielded by networks that are connected by…
A League of Like-Minded Nations
Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jim Golby, Will Inboden | May 24, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center, and Jim Golby, senior fellow at the Clements Center, sit down with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former U.S. senator and most recently U.S. ambassador to NATO. They discuss NATO’s future, the challenges that confront NATO now, as well…
Horns of a Dilemma: Reporting on Radicals
Tess Owen, Brianna Kablack | May 17, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Tess Owen, senior reporter at VICE News covering extremism, hate crimes, and gun control, sits down with Brianna Kablack, a Master of Global Policy Studies candidate at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, to discuss domestic extremism. Their talk examines the evolution and developments that Owen has seen in…
Horns of a Dilemma hosts Josh Rogin to discuss his latest book on podcast episode “Trump Versus Xi”
Horns of Dilemma | May 11, 2021
Horns of Dilemma hosted Josh Rogin, a journalist for the Washington Post and CNN, to discuss his latest book, “Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century.”
Latest from Horns: The Unconventional Future of Conventional War
Sean McFate | May 03, 2021
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Sean McFate, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and professor of strategy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, discusses his book The New Rules of War: How America Can Win Against Russia, China, and Other Threats. McFate argues that the lack of strategic success achieved by the U.S….