Horns of a Dilemma

In this episode of Horns of Dilemma, Calder Walton, assistant director of the Applied History Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, talks about election meddling in the past, present, and future. He describes the history of KGB interference in U.S. elections and how the U.S. has countered it. Walton discusses how the KGB found that they just couldn't just construct a lie out of whole...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Darren Dochuk, associate professor of history at the   University of Notre Dame,  d iscuss es  his new book,  Anointed   with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America . Dochuk  explores  how oil grafted   itself to the soul of the United States and  became part of  its identity. He  uses  the term  " wildcat Christianity "   to describe the actions...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center, sits down with Professor Paul Pope and Dr. Kiril Avramov of the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas and Dr. Calder Walton, assistant director of the Applied History Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, to discuss the history of influence operations and active measures b...

Sovereignty as a concept conveys that a single entity has the legitimate authority to exercise governance over a particular territory. So, how can an exclusive individual right be shared? John Ciorciari, associate professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and director of the Weiser Diplomacy Center and the International Policy Center, explores these ques...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, TNSR 's executive editor, Doyle Hodges, sits down with Laurie Blank, clinical professor of law and director of the International Law Clinic at Emory University, and Bobby Chesney, James Baker Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs and director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, Austin. They discuss the fie...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, John Gans, director of communications and research at Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, sits down with several members of the University of Texas faculty to discuss his new book,  White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War . The discussion is led by William Inboden, editor-in-chief of the Tex...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, retired General Amos Yadlin sits down with Steve Slick, director of the Intelligence Studies Project, to discuss Middle East security and Israeli security concerns. Slick and General Yadlin also engage in a conversation about the role of Israel in the middle east, the future of Israel, and questions regarding security in the region. General Yadlin served in t...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, retired Gen. Vincent Brooks sits down with William Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center. The conversation spans Gen. Brooks' career from his days as a cadet at West Point, where he was the first African American appointed to serve as first captain, all the way through his retirement after thirty-eight and a half years as a four star general comm...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, William Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center for National Security, and Robert Chesney, director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, sit down with Texas congressman Mac Thornberry for a wide-ranging discussion on defense policy. Congressman Thornberry is a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee and served as c...

Where are we 18 years after 9/11? What is the nature of the phenomenon of terrorism now and what challenges does America face today? What security strategies are currently in place and have they worked? Paul Pope, senior fellow at the Intelligence Studies Project, moderates a panel on counterterrorism since 9/11. Paul is joined by John Brennan, former CIA director, retired Adm. William McRaven, fo...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Jim Goldgeier, professor and former dean of the American University School of International Service, and Derek Chollet, current executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund, discuss their 2008 book,  America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11  and the arc of post-cold war American foreign policy. In this podcast, they've included another 11/9, referr...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, chair of the Texas National Security Review Editorial Board Frank Gavin interviews political scientist Robert Jervis. In a wide-ranging interview that reaches all the way back to Jervis' undergraduate days at Oberlin College in the late 1950's, Gavin explores the factors which shaped Jervis' career, the state of the political science field today, especially a...

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma expands on a recent roundtable in the  Texas National Security Review  that examines the  question of adopting a nuclear no-first-use policy . Dr. John Harvey, a scientist and former senior Defense Department official, and Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, debate whether such a policy adds or detracts from stability in the event of...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, James B. Steinberg, a professor at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, who also served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration and deputy national security adviser under President Bill Clinton, discusses the process and considerations that led to the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern I...

Throughout history, how have Americans thought about their own self-defense? Have they always thought about it like they do today — as expansive, global, and ideological? Andrew Preston discusses these questions by looking at the history of the idea of national security and how it is different today than in the past, the topic of his current book project. This talk took place at the University of...

In a conversation between Paul Pope and Seth Jones, Jones talks about his latest book,  A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland . He discusses Reagan's approach to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and how the CIA aided Poland's opposition movement by helping it to run an underground media campaign, which, ultimately, helped it survive the onslaught from the regime....

In our latest episode of Horns, we get to hear from Col. Liam Collins, who dissects how Russia used hybrid warfare in Georgia, what it learned from that experience, and how it applied those lessons in Ukraine, allowing it to take Crimea without firing a single shot. He also discusses Russia's goals in Eastern Europe and how those countries can deter the "big bear." Col. Collins is a career Special...

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma is part of a special series of live episodes bringing you into the room at the 2019 Intelligence Studies Project Symposium at the University of Texas at Austin. In this final installment, Susan Gordon, principal deputy director of national intelligence, delivers the keynote address to the 2019 ISP Symposium. Following her address, she sat down with Stephen Slick,...

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma is part of a special series of live episodes bringing you into the room at the 2019 Intelligence Studies Project Symposium at the University of Texas at Austin. In this second installment, Robert Chesney, director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, moderates a panel on emerging threats, technology challenges, and institutional change. The p...

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma is part of a special series of live episodes bringing you into the room at the 2019 Intelligence Studies Project Symposium at the University of Texas at Austin. In this first installment, Ellen Nakashima, national security reporter at the  Washington Post , sits down with John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, to discuss law enforcement re...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Stephen Tankel, associate professor in the School of International Service at American University and associate editor of the Texas National Security Review, discusses his recently published book,  With Us and Against Us: How America's Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror . This talk took place at the University of Texas at Austin and was sponsored by t...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Aaron O'Connell, associate professor of U.S. military history at the University of Texas at Austin, sits down with Charles Edel, senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre, to discuss his new book co-written with Hal Brands, The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order . This talk took place at the University of Texas at Austin and was sponsored...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Wen-Qing Ngoei, assistant professor of history at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argues that British neo-colonial strategies and anti-communist nationalism in Southeast Asia intersected with pre-existing local antipathy towards China to prompt a shift in the region from European-dominated colonialism to U.S. hegemony. This talk took place at t...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, William Hitchcock, the William W. Corcoran professor of history at the University of Virginia, discusses President Dwight Eisenhower and America's role in the world in the 1950s and its enduring relevance today. Professor Hitchcock is the author of numerous books, most recently Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s . This talk took place at th...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, moderates a discussion on authoritarian interference in democracies. The panel features Jamie Fly, senior fellow and director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Laura Rosenberger, d...