Horns of a Dilemma

This episode is the second part of a conversation between four people who knew the late Robert Jervis well: Francis Gavin of the Kissinger Center and chair of the editorial board of the Texas National Security Review; Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl; Mira Rapp-Hooper, a member of the National Security Council staff, where she is responsible for an array of Indo-Pacific issues; and Derek Chollet, the counselor of the State Department. Do not miss the first episode! The views expressed here, of course, are personal and not those of the U.S. government.

In this conversation, guests Colin Kahl, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Mira Rapp-Hooper from the National Security Council; and Derek Chollet, Counselor of the State Department, reflect on the extraordinary legacy of Robert Jervis, their mentor. They share insights on Jervis's unique mentorship that combined psychological insights with policy analysis. The discussion touches on his approach to humility in scholarship, the importance of recognizing cognitive biases in leadership, and his influential theories on signaling in international relations.

"Political scientist Alexander Wendt famously (well, in political science circles anyway) observed of the international system that "anarchy is what states make of it." In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we explore the degree to which this observation is true not only of the international system, but also of the mental constructs that states, leaders, and citizens use to think about the concept of an international system and their place in it. Andrew Ehrhardt, an Ernest May post-doctoral fellow in history and policy at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is the author of Everyman His Own Philosopher of History: Notions of Historical Process in the Study and Practice of Foreign Policy, which appears in Vol 5/Iss 3 of the Texas National Security Review. Ehrhardt joins TNSR Executive Editor Doyle Hodges to discuss the article and how this view of history affects questions of security in international and domestic politics today."

Over two decades after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the American conception of terrorists and terrorism is slowly changing. While threats from foreign extremist organizations still exist, the most recent Department of Homeland Security advisory bulletin focused on the threat from domestic extremist groups. In Vol 5/Iss 2 of the Texas National Security Review, former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade evaluates the Biden administration's strategy for countering domestic terrorism and offers some recommendations of her own. In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma, McQuade joins TNSR Executive Editor Doyle Hodges to discuss her article and evaluate the current legal and policy environment surrounding domestic terrorism.

Forty years ago this week, U.S. President Ronald Reagan spoke to the British Parliament in Westminster. The speech is an iconic encapsulation of Reagan's view of the Cold War conflict between Western democracies and the totalitarian states of the Warsaw Pact. In addition to its powerful rhetorical impact, this speech motivated policy change: Less than a year after the speech was delivered, the U.S. Congress approved the formation of the National Endowment for Democracy to aid democracy movements abroad. In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Clements Center Executive Director (and TNSR Editor in Chief) Will Inboden sits down with Rachel Hoff, policy director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, to discuss the speech and its legacy.

Economic sanctions are often regarded as a relatively weak tool, especially in response to the use of military force. In part, this stems from scholarship, which suggests that economic sanctions alone rarely lead to war termination. In Vol 3/Iss 2 of Texas National Security Review, however, Erik Sand makes an interesting argument: The effect of sanctions and economic isolation may not be to lead directly to war termination, but rather to pressure a regime, such that they choose riskier strategies than they would without the sanctions in place. Sand joins us on this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma to discuss his article, and how this effect may apply to the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has come under criticism for including as members many states whose human rights record is controversial, at best. In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Dr. Rana Inboden discusses her new book, China and the International Human Rights Regime, which details (among other things) how one of those states, China, used its position on the council during the institution building phase to try to undercut the strength and effectiveness of the council's tools. While Inboden shows that China was at least partly successful in doing so, the effort that China put in to trying not to appear to be opposed to human rights may be telling. Despite criticism that the U.N. human rights regime is toothless, it is still able to shape the behavior of a powerful state--even if only by shaping their desire not to be seen as human rights violators. Or, as the French author Francois de la Rochefoucauld said, "Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue."

James Gow observed in his book War and War Crimes that, while many war crimes are so obvious that most people "know them when we see them," the very existence of the concept of a war crime gives meaning to a critical, if somewhat paradoxical premise: Even in war, there are rules. In this week's episode of Horns of a Dilemma, University of Texas Law School Professor Derek Jinks discusses the legal landscape that developed after World War II, which defines the modern concept of war crimes. He also discusses options for investigation, jurisdiction, and accountability for the many apparent war crimes being committed by Russian forces in their invasion of Ukraine. This discussion was sponsored by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, Austin.

Few countries in Europe have experienced the vicissitudes of changing political order as directly as Poland. For centuries, Poland was caught between Russia and Germany, often serving as a highway through which one great power or another traveled en route to conquering other territories. This week's Horns of a Dilemma speaker knows this better than most: Lech Walesa was the leader of the Solidarity labor movement in Poland under Communist rule and later became the first freely elected president of Poland. Walesa spoke recently at the University of Texas, Austin, about the war in Ukraine, Putin's ambitions for Russia, a changing political order, and the need for the United States to assume a leading role in this new order. Though speaking through a translator, Walesa's wit, wisdom, and humanity shine through, giving a glimpse of just how he was able to inspire people to join him in transforming his country.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, historian Paul Kennedy speaks about his new book, Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II. The book is unusual in that it is beautifully illustrated with numerous paintings by the late maritime artist Ian Marhsall. Kennedy discusses the origins of his collaboration with Marshall--how he had originally encouraged Marshall to publish a collection of his paintings with a foreword by Kennedy--and how this grew into a volume that builds from the paintings to a sweeping view of the military, technological, and social changes brought by World War II, which dramatically altered the global order. This talk was given at the University of Texas, Austin, and hosted by the Clements Center for National Security.