Horns of a Dilemma

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director at the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sits down with David Adesnik and John Hannah from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , to discuss their recent work, " From Trump to Biden: The Way Ahead for United States National Security ." Inboden and the authors identify the successes and failures of Dona...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Amb. (ret.) Bonnie Jenkins discusses the array of treaty obligations, international law, and other agreements that make up the arms control and nuclear non-proliferation regime.   Paul Pope, senior fellow at the Intelligence Studies Project, introduces Marigny Kirschke-Schwartz, a Brumley fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, to moderate the talk with A...

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma features a panel discussion on prospects for civil-military relations in the Joe Biden administration.  The discussion brings a wealth of knowledge on civil-military issues, as well as a wealth of experience in administering defense programs. The conversation covers a broad range of topics ranging from the challenges that stemmed from the Donald Trump administrat...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sits down with Simon Miles, assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, to discuss his book, Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow, and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War . In his book, Miles asserts that the beginning...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster, author of the new book Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World , discusses his theories of strategic empathy and the security processes that he implemented in the Trump administration, and examines the threats posed by Russia, China, and a myriad of other actors around the world.   This wide-ranging discussion is moder...

This episode of Horns of a Dilemma is a powerhouse of intelligence knowledge. Adm. (Ret.) William McRaven, former chancellor of the University of Texas at Austin and retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral, sits down with John Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to discuss Brennan's new book, Undaunted: My Fight Against America's Enemies, At Home and Abroad . This is a wide-ra...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Bobby Chesney, director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sit down with Peter Baker and Susan Glasser to discuss their new book, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Time of James A. Baker III . James Baker was the secretary of state f...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Michael Kimmage, professor and department chair at the Department of History at Catholic University in Washington D.C., discusses his book, The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy . Kimmage asserts that the idea of the "West" — a set of shared values that he argues revolve around liberty and self-determination — can be t...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Clint Work of the Stimson Center hosts a discussion between Gen. Vincent Brooks, senior fellow at the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Sheena Greitens, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, about the Korean Peninsula. This group of experts assesses the security situation on the peninsula and how it affects U.S. security.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we listen to a talk by David French, author of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How we Restore our Nation . French details the way in which the United States has become increasingly polarized politically, geographically, and culturally, and examines what he considers to be the threat of secession. French makes the case that in order to unite th...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Dr. Michele Malvesti, professor at the LBJ School and the Strauss Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Julie Schafer, chief technology officer for Flu Lab, discuss how the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is coming along. They talk about issues related to the development of vaccines and to what extent the response to the pandemic has conforme...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sits down with Jim Golby, senior fellow at the Clements Center, to discuss the similarities and differences in foreign policy between a second Trump administration or a Biden administration. Their conversation covers a variety of foreign policy topics as well as disc...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Jim Golby, a senior fellow at the Clements Center at the University of Texas of Austin, sits down with Brandon Archuleta to talk about his new book, Twenty Years of Service: The Politics of Military Pension Policy and the Long Road to Reform . Archuleta's book unpacks the forces that are behind the long persistence of a retirement system that was, as he puts...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sits down with Evelyn Farkas, president of Farkas Global Strategies and former deputy assistant secretary of defense, to discuss global politics in the era of Trump.   Dr. Farkas provides a survey of global politics and the retrenchment of freedom since 2005. She the...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Aaron O'Connell, associate professor of history at the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Michel Paradis, a law professor at Columbia Law School and Georgetown Law School , discuss Paradis' book, Last Mission to Tokyo , examine the aftermath of the Doolittle Raid. In April 1942, Col. Jimmy Doolittle lead a group of Army aviators launchi...

If you think of the 1990s, you may think of the "The Simpsons," Nirvana, or "Seinfeld." But if you're a security or policy wonk, one of things you're going to remember about the decade is a military response option that seemed to be one of the first things officials considered for almost any dilemma — the no fly zone. What are no fly zones? What are the politics and prospects of no-fly zones?   In...

In this episode of Horns of Dilemma, Will Inboden, editor-in-chief of the Texas National Security Review , and Ashlyn Hand, a Ph. D. candidate at the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin, speak with Lauren Turek, a professor at Trinity College, about her new book, To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Right on US Foreign Relations .   American foreign pol...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, William Inboden, editor-in-chief of the Texas National Security Review , is joined by Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank, and Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission and counselor to numerous administrations, to discuss Zoellick's new book, America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy . They al...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Sheena Greitens, associate professor at the LBJ School at the University of Texas, moderates a discussion between Tanvi Madan, senior fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, and Jim Steinberg, professor of social science, international affairs, and law at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Their conversation revolves around...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review , sits down with professor Bartholomew Sparrow, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and author of, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security , to talk about the late Brent Scowcroft.   Scowcroft was a towering figure in American foreign policy...

We live in an era of almost unprecedented partisan division and polarization where any issue of policy can become one that is deeply divided along party lines, and many of those issues of policy involve the military. We've seen this in examples of troops being deployed to the southwest border of the United States and through the use of federal troops in response to the racial justice protests. How...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review , explores how social media has played an increasingly prominent role in the public discourse. Listeners to the War on the Rocks podcast may recall an episode featuring Camille Francois of Graphika, and Jessica Brandt, head of policy and research for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, deal...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review , sits down with Mark Lawrence, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, to discuss the inner workings of the presidential library system and the purposes they serve. Who runs them and who funds them? What mission do they serve? Does every President get one? Lawrence and H...

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review , sits down with Rebecca Hersman, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss her article, " Wormhole Escalation in the New Nuclear Age ," featured in Volume 3/Issue 3 of the Texas National Security Review .   In her article, He...

Often when we discuss national security we tend to focus on "hard security concepts," things like military capability, nuclear weapons, deterrence, and other things that are comfortable to those that have studied security for a long time. But what does it mean to be secure? Are people secure from something or someone? And who is it that we mean by the concept of "the nation"? Frequent listeners to...