Horns of a Dilemma

The turnover between U.S. presidential administrations can be a time of uncertainty and vulnerability. In this week's episode of   Horns of a Dilemma , we hear from former National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, who discusses the forthcoming volume,   Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama . This book, a collection of transition memoranda prepared by National Secur...

A year ago, as Russia's aggressive war in Ukraine was proving not to be the quick and easy victory Vladimir Putin had expected, some observers speculated that the bungled decision to invade his neighbor could be Putin's undoing.  The idea of a Russian state without Putin raised alluring prospects of reform. In this week's   Horns of a Dilemma , American University Professor Joseph Torigian discuss...

In this week's episode of   Horns of a Dilemma , we listen to a discussion between Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas, Austin, and Hal Brands, Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. Brands and Inboden discuss a book written by Brands and Michael Beckley,   Danger Zo...

On this week's episode of  Horns of a Dilemma  Clement Center Senior National Security Fellow Mark Pomar, who helped to oversee the Russian language broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty during the Cold War, discusses his book,  Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty . Pomar is joined by Professor Kiril Avramov in a great discussi...

Many great figures in American history are full of contradictions. Thomas Jefferson wrote stirringly about liberty while owning human beings as property. Woodrow Wilson was both the idealistic author of the 14 Points, and a racist who re-segregated the federal work force. But few figures in American history embody as many contradictions as the two featured in this week's Horns of a Dilemma : Lyndo...

This week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma features author and public intellectual Walter Russell Mead speaking about his book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People . As Mead discusses, the trope that American foreign policy toward Israel can be explained by the outsized influence of Jewish people in American government is common, not only among fringe...

On the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, Horns of a Dilemma features a talk by University of Texas, Austin Professor Jeremi Suri about his new book, Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy . In seeking to understand the events of January 6, 2021, Suri looks to the American Civil War and the period of reconstruction that followed. He finds that, f...

Many stories of the Battle of Midway highlight the role of cryptography in breaking Japanese codes and the herculean effort to repair USS Yorktown after the battle of the Coral Sea so that she could participate in the battle. In this week's Horns of a Dilemma , author Steven McGregor highlights a less-known but equally important aspect: the SBD Dauntless dive bomber. Dive bombing was a crucial tec...

The deployment of the Soviet SS-20 missile system in the 1970s and 1980s, and U.S. plans to deploy the Pershing II and Ground Launched Cruise Missile in response, spurred a crisis within NATO over U.S. nuclear deterrence in Europe. Susan Colbourn, associate director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, tells the story of this period i...

Nathan Law first came to international prominence as a student leader of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014.  In the years that followed, he was elected as the youngest parliamentarian in Hong Kong's history, debarred from holding office, convicted for his activities in leading student protests, jailed, released, and exiled--all before his 30th birthday. In this week's episode of Horns of...

In this week's epsidode of Horns of a Dilemma , Sheena Greitens, head of the Asia Policy Program at the University of Texas, Austin, joins author Nury Turkel to discuss Turkel's book, No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs . Turkel, who was born in a re-education camp during China's culturual revolution, uses his own experiences, as well as interviews with survivors of the ca...

Before he became governor of California and later president of the United States, Ronald Reagan was an actor. In the 1940 film, Knute Rockne: All American , Reagan portrayed Notre Dame running back George Gipp who, on his deathbed from pneumonia, told Coach Rockne to have the team "win just one for the Gipper." Rockne related the line to his team in a moving speech, which inspired them to come fro...

This week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma is a must-listen for anyone who knows that microchips are a national security issue, but perhaps doesn't really understand just why chips are so strategically important. It is equally enlightening for those who have been closely following the security issues around microchips and are eager to know more. Professor Chris Miller of the Fletcher School at Tuft...

Politics is serious business. According to Aristotle, "the main concern of politics is to engender a certain character in the citizens and to make them good and disposed to perform noble actions." But some political leaders seek to manipulate passions and prejudices, rather than appealing to reason and pursuing a noble end. The ancient Greeks called such leaders "demagogues."  In this week's episo...

Civil-military relations is not a topic that gets many hearts racing. Yet attention to the relationship between the military and the society it serves has become more urgent after it was revealed that Gen. Mark Milley, the nation's most senior military officer, worked with cabinet and sub-cabinet officials to frustrate the desire of President Donald Trump to use the American military in ways Mille...

The field of strategy is littered with authors whose works are often-quoted but seldom-read. While Clausewitz is likely the foremost example of such an author, the naval strategists Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett are not far behind.  In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma , Professor Kevin McCranie of the U.S. Naval War College discusses his book, Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundati...

In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma , Katie Stallard, a journalist and scholar, speaks about her book, Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia, and North Korea . Stallard details how totalitarian regimes use a doctored version of history--especially history regarding World War II--to forcibly shape public remembrance in a way that reinforces the goals of the regime. This effo...

As the European Union has evolved over the past 20 years into a more cohesive social, economic, and political entity, one area of integration has lagged behind the others: defense. This is due to the extensive overlap in membership between the European Union and NATO, and to the reluctance of European governments to spend large sums on their militaries. In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma...

In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma , former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy Daniel Fata discusses the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Fata explains how decades of U.S. policy under  administrations of both parties was based on what he describes as wishful thinking. He argues that this may have emboldened Vladimir Putin to believe that he could i...

In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma ,  Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia chair at CSIS in Washington, DC, discusses Australia's "strategic revolution," which focuses on building diplomatic, economic, and military capacity to resist coercion by China. The recent AUKUS nuclear submarine deal is one manifestation of this effort, but as Edel explains, the deal is just one part of a larger...

Ideologies help people understand the world around them. They provide a lens through which we arrange events and images into patterns, and they offer a menu of actions that seem appropriate in response to that pattern. Although leaders and states often subscribe consciously to certain ideologies, some ideas--such as religion or a belief in the goodness of an ideal like "freedom" or "democracy"--op...

Phrases such as, "history is written by the victors," while often cycnical, hint at a fundamental truth: Historical events assume different significance depending on the perspective from which they are viewed. In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma , Professor Elisabeth Leake of Leeds University discusses her book, Afghan Crucible , which examines the war in Afghanistan from a variety of dif...

The British empire embarked on a successful and far-reaching anti-slavery campaign in the first half of the 19th century, one of the first global humanitarian efforts of its kind. Professor Maeve Ryan of Kings College London joins Texas National Security Review editor in chief and Clements Center executive director Will Inboden for a fascinating discusion of Ryan's book, Humanitarian Governance an...

A cynic might argue that a Venn diagram of good legal compliance, good politics, good strategy, and, morally good behavior has no space where all four elements intersect. This week's guests on Horns of a Dilemma argue that these virtues coincide in the protection of civilians from harm during war. Sahr Muhammedally and Dan Mahanty, both of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, are the authors of T...

In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma , Charles Edel discusses the big questions in U.S.-Chinese relations. He examines efforts under the Biden administration to deal with these questions, and projects what questions may define the relationship going forward. As Edel makes clear, the relationship between America and China is long, and has often been fraught with uncertainty.  As the world's...