Press | 2021

Studies in Intelligence, the journal of the U.S. IC’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, recently released an unclassified special edition that includes reflections on the current state of integration within U.S. intelligence.  Studies Volume 65, No. 3 is available in full here.  This edition includes an essay by ISP Director Steve Slick “On a Path Toward Intelligence Integration” that concludes “[p]rogress along this path has been uneven, but U.S. Intelligence is immeasurably more unified and effective than it was when [the author] entered on duty during the final throes of the Cold War.”   

Hosted by UT System Chancellor James B. Milliken, the Clements Center recently convened a panel discussion on the trajectory and end of our war in Afghanistan for the benefit of the distinguished Chancellor’s Council. Panel participants include Clements Senior National Security Fellow General Bob Neller, Clements Director of Research Aaron O’Connell, Clements faculty affiliate Jeremi…

The Department of History lost one of its true giants last Wednesday when Robert Divine, a preeminent scholar of U.S. foreign relations, passed away at the age of 92. Bob taught at UT for a remarkable 42 years before retiring in 1996. Along the way, he published 14 books, racked up numerous teaching awards, served as department chair, and advised numerous PhD students who went on to distinguished careers. Bob touched innumerable lives – including ours — and is remembered for generosity and good cheer as well as his scholarly brilliance.

The Clements Center mourns the death of Colin Powell.  He is the only person in history to have served in all three roles of National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary of State, and he was the first black American to hold each position. Above all, he was an American patriot.

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.”…

Applications are now open for the Intelligence Studies Project 2021 Texas Intelligence Academy (TIA), an intensive academic program focused on intelligence and national security. Application deadline is November 30, 2021 by 11:59PM CST.  2022 Program Dates: May 22 to June 1, 2022 For more information about the TIA and detailed application instructions, please visit the TIA program page.

Sheena C. Greitens, director of the Asia Policy Program and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the LBJ School, explains China’s behavior changes on CNN. She says we are seeing more repression at home and assertion abroad; these actions are both for domestic consumption and changing China’s place and role in the world.

Sheena Greitens, Clements Center Faculty Fellow and founder of the Asia Policy Project, was quoted in “Beijing Olympics open in 4 months; human rights talk absent” published by AP.

Intelligence Studies Project Director Stephen Slick contributed to a special UNCLAS edition of “Studies of Intelligence” that was released earlier this week. Several scholars were asked to react to an article by Jim Clapper reflecting on the state of intelligence integration. Slick’s response is not a rebuttal of that optimistic essay but an argument that…

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…

Applications are open now through Friday, November 26, 2021 at 11:00 pm Central for the “London Maymester: The U.S., U.K., and World Order.” In partnership with the world-renowned War Studies Department at King’s College London, the Maymester in London provides exemplary students the opportunity to learn firsthand about the U.S./U.K. special relationship. The program is taught at King’s College London and includes visits to important landmarks in British cultural heritage and Anglo-American strategic history, as well as private events with senior policymakers and historians.

2022 Program Dates: Monday, 23 May – Friday, 17 June, 2022

Mark Pomar, Senior Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security, was a guest on UKRLIFE.TV (Ukrainian Internet TV) on September 27, 2021. In a far-ranging interview, conducted in Russian, Pomar discussed the policies of the Biden Administration, the state of politics in the United States, US – China relations, and the threats to democracy in…

Clements Center postdoctoral fellow M. L. deRaismes Combes traces the history of counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine across Francophone Africa and Southeast Asia to better understand how it is used or misused today. “Perhaps because many counterinsurgency tactics have evolved and been adapted away from those used in the nineteenth century, analysis of contemporary COIN often ignores the…

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”.

Kiril Avramov discusses the complicated relationship of private ransomware agents and States. 

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…

The Clements Center for National Security and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law are pleased to announce the launch of a new joint program at the University of Texas at Austin: the Asia Policy Program.

The China-US relationship is incredibly complex. ” …managing the relationship would be a difficult “dance” for the Biden administration, but the US should not sacrifice its interests to work with China on global issues, such as climate change.” Read more of Feher’s thoughts about the role of high-level communications by clicking the link above.

Here’s what happened at the Clements Center over the summer and what’s in store for the fall! If you would like to subscribe to our Events or Newsletter email list, please sign up here. 

“It’s a mistake to say America fought a 20-year war only for Negin Khpalwak’s orchestra or female literacy or Kabul film festivals. But it’s also true that the war to keep the Taliban in their caves created the space for civil society to grow, particularly in the big cities.” Clements Center National Security Journalism Fellow Eli Lake expounds on…

“In Defense of the Blob” written by Clements Center Executive Director Will Inboden and fellow America in the World Consortium scholars Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, published in Foreign Affairs, was cited in recent New York Times article “For Some, Afghanistan Outcome Affirms a Warning: Beware the Blob”.

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…

Clements Center Distinguished National Security Fellow General (Ret.) Vincent K. Brooks presided over the dedication of the new Buffalo Soldier Monument at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The monument is dedicated to the legacy of African American Soldiers who served in the U.S. Army’s 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments from 1907-1947.

This July, Clements Center Executive Director William Inboden, Distinguished National Security Fellow Gen. Vincent Brooks, U.S. Army, Retired, and Resident Intelligence Officer at the Intelligence Studies Project Bianca Adair, shared their diplomatic, policy and military expertise with University of Texas System Chancellor James Milliken and members of the Chancellor’s Council Executive Committee.

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, 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.”

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…

Daniel Samet addresses PRC influence in Jerusalem.

The Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin welcomes its 2021-22 class of Doctoral and Military Fellows! Emily Whalen of the University of Texas and Alexandra Sukalo of Stanford University are this year’s postdoctoral fellows. Zoltan Feher of Tufts University and Elena Wicker of Georgetown University are this year’s predoctoral fellows. Lt. Col. Edward Arntson (U.S. Army) and Cdr. Mike Knickerbocker (U.S. Navy) will be our inaugural Military Fellows. William Chou of Ohio State University joins us as a postdoctoral America in the World Consortium fellow, and Joseph Ledford of the University of California, Berkeley joins us as a predoctoral America in the World Consortium fellow. Read below for their respective bios.

Karl Rove teaches new fall 2021 course, “The Modern American Political Campaign” at UT Austin. 

“Somewhere in America today a dozen or so families will get that horrible knock on the door from uniformed Marines, Soldiers or Sailors informing them of the loss of their loved one.  Their son, daughter, father, mother …. I cannot imagine what could be worse …. Receiving the news or giving it….. I have done the…

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,…