Security Dilemma

This week on Security Dilemma, Patrick Carver Fox and John Allen Gay discuss weapons systems in the air, sea and land with former Marine Dan Grazier. Dan is a Senior Defense Policy Fellow at the Project on Government Oversight where he analyzes defense procurement, and our conversation covers naval shipbuilding, next generation air dominance, Marine Corps combined arms doctrine and more!

This week, Patrick C. Fox and John Allen Gay interview Doug Bandow, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. As a young lawyer, he worked as a Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. Doug Bandow began working with the Cato Institute in 1982 and he is a Senior Fellow there today. He is widely published; he’s written at least three books focused on the Korean Peninsula and today he has a weekly column at The American Conservative. 

Our conversation today covers South Korean politics, East Asia's balance of power, the future of America's role in Europe, the foreign policy legacy of Ronald Reagan and the pursuit of religious liberty in policymaking.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and guest host Scott McCann interview Dr. Brian Finucane, a Senior Adviser at International Crisis Group and a former Legal Adviser for the State Department.

This episode was recorded on October 19th, 2023 and discusses war powers as they affect the Gaza conflict, intervention in Mexico and strategic ambiguity in Taiwan. We also address specifics like the Geneva convention's Protocol 1, the 127 echo program, foreign policy's "supreme court" and more!

This week, Patrick C. Fox and John Allen Gay interview Elizabeth Beavers, a Vice President at the Quincy Institute, an experienced advocate for progressive foreign policy reform and an expert on national security law.

In this conversation, we cover the legacy of Sen. Feinstein, legal justifications for proxy wars, American strategy in North Korea, Congress's role in foreign policy and the threat of the climate crisis.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and John Allen Gay interview Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.

In this conversation, we cover the prospect of intervening in Mexico, tensions between India and Canada, America's role in Somalia and the Abraham Accords.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and John Allen Gay interview Dr. Alexander Thurston, an expert on conflicts, jihadism and stability in West Africa. Dr. Alex Thurston is a professor at the University of Cincinnati and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. This conversation covers sources of instability ranging from the French presence to the American intervention in Libya along with a conversation about the politics of the region, ranging from Niger's path to dictatorship, Nigeria's new leadership and the comparatively stable situations in Senegal and Chad.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and co-host John Allen Gay interview Dr. Stephen Wertheim, a diplomatic historian and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dr. Wertheim is a leading voice on foreign policy for the left, with essays in the New York Times and Foreign Affairs and appearances on programs including CNN and NPR. Our conversation covers the left's relationship with realism, Dr. Wertheim's research on America's changing perception of their role in the world and progressive interpretations of the rise of great power competition and BRICS.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and guest co-host A.J. Manuzzi interview Dr. Paul Heer, a decorated former intelligence official and National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. Now a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Dr. Heer's book Mr. X and the Pacific was just released in paperback. Our conversation covers how China and Xi Jinping think, the foreign policy legacy of George F. Kennan and the role that the intelligence community should play in foreign policy.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and guest co-host A.J. Manuzzi interview Elizabeth Shackelford, a Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Our conversation covers the practice of diplomacy in U.S. foreign policy, conflict in Somalia, the coup in Niger and tensions in Southern Africa.

For a bonus episode, Security Dilemma interviewed Dan Caldwell, a VP at the Center for Renewing America and a conservative veteran foreign policy advocate. We recorded this episode on August 24th, the morning after the first GOP primary debate. Our conversation covers the foreign policy of a second Trump administration, conservative rhetoric about Europe and the southern border, the foreign policy legacy of Ronald Reagan and engagement with China.

This week, Security Dilemma interviewed Dr. David Kang, a professor at the University of Southern California. Our conversation covers the application of realism to the Asian peace, China's current and future role in the world, tensions on the Korean Peninsula, what the Philippines teaches us about alliances, India's position in Asia and soccer diplomacy.

This week, Security Dilemma interviewed Dr. Sumantra Maitra of The American Conservative and the Center for Renewing America. Our conversation covers the European tradition of realism, a conservative realist approach to competition with China and a critical perspective on India.

Dr. Maitra on pivoting from Europe - https://americarenewing.com/issues/policy-brief-pivoting-the-us-away-from-europe-to-a-dormant-nato/

Dr. Maitra on India - https://www.theamericanconservative.com/indias-majoritarian-turn/

This week, Security Dilemma interviewed the Stimson Center's Dr. Emma Ashford, a key advocate for realism and restraint in U.S. foreign policy. Emma spoke about energy politics, grand strategy and advice for future foreign policy practitioners.

This week, Security Dilemma interviewed the the Cato Institute's director of defense and foreign policy studies - Justin Logan. Justin is a highly regarded voice in the foreign policy thinktank space, and he offered his analysis on China policy, NATO expansion and fentanyl.

Join dissident foreign policy academic Dr. Van Jackson for a conversation about the Indo-Pacific, nuclear policy and progressive foreign policy. Dr. Jackson is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, the host of the Un-Diplomatic Podcast and the author of Pacific Power Paradox.

Jason Beardsley, a former U.S. military veteran and Director of Veterans Affairs at Stand Together, shares his insights on a range of national security issues. Beardsley's diverse background and experiences in the military provide a unique perspective on the challenges and complexities facing the United States in the realm of national security. The non-conventional footprint of SOF provides advantages in certain situations, but it is crucial to ensure that their use is nested under regional or higher-level commanders and connected to the grand strategy of the United States. Strategic alignment and clear objectives are key to maximizing the effectiveness of special operations while avoiding the perception that they are a substitute for broader strategic planning.

Join legendary foreign policy academic Dr. Stephen Walt in a tour of modern national security issues. Dr. Walt is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, a columnist at Foreign Policy, and the author of The Origin of Alliances, The Hell of Good Intentions, and many more books.

Lyle Jeremy Rubin deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 as a committed neoconservative. His experience serving there brought him face to face with the realities of war and empire. His book Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body: A Marine's Unbecoming tells the story of how he changed and came to support restraint in U.S. foreign policy. The Society's Patrick C. Fox interviews Rubin.

What does 2023 hold for the war in Ukraine? Does Russia have the will and ability to slog on another year? Can Ukraine regain its lost territory? Will Western states remain relatively unified on providing aid? Is peace possible?  We spoke with Christopher Chivvis, director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former National Intelligence Officer for Europe.

While all eyes are on Iran's protests, the country has advanced closer than ever to a nuclear weapon. Safeguards on the program are weak in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. Where do things stand, and where are they going? We hear from Kelsey Davenport, Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association, where she focuses on the nuclear and missile programs in Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan and on international efforts to prevent proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

We hear a lot about something called "the liberal international order." The frequent use of the term, however, is relatively recent - and the phrase itself often obscures as much as it reveals. This recording from our 2022 summer conference in Washington captures a conversation with Stephen Wertheim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and its American Statecraft Program.

President Joe Biden has made several big moves in his foreign policy toward the Middle East so far - among them a planned trip to meet with Saudi Arabia's controversial leader Mohammad bin Salman, a willingness to allow the Iran nuclear talks to lie fallow, and a cut to military aid to Egypt. This happens as several regional states want the United States to remain committed to the region and even to increase military presence there. How is everything going, and how does this fit into broader trends in U.S. grand strategy and Middle Eastern politics? 

Our guest Sean Yom is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University and Senior Fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington, DC. He is a specialist on regimes and governance in the Middle East, especially in Arab monarchies like Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco. His research engages topics of authoritarian politics, democratic reforms, institutional stability, and economic development in these countries, as well as their implications for US foreign policy. His publications include the books From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2016), as well as The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings (Oxford University Press, 2022); articles in print journals like Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Journal of Democracy; and contributions in online venues like Foreign Affairs, Middle East Eye, and the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. He also advises country-level work with international NGOs, law firms, and sovereign clients. Education: A.B., Brown University (2003); PhD., Harvard University (2009).

Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv and pushed the Russians back from Kharkiv. But that doesn't mean the war is over - indeed, it seems likely to continue for the long haul, while there may be dangers of Russian escalation in spite of Russia's weak position. We spoke with George Beebe, former head of Russia analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency and current Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute, about what lies ahead. His 2019 book is The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe.

How did Putin become Putin? Amb. John Evans met the future Russian leader when he was just a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Evans, then serving as U.S. consul general, shares his recollections of the young Putin, situates this in the broader Russian political situation in the 1990s and the evolution of U.S.-Russian relations from the optimism of the period to today's bitterness. We also speak about Russia's move into Ukraine - how it came to this and where it may go.

Our guest offers a minor correction to his remarks: "It was Chip Bohlen who got the scoop on the Hitler-Stalin pact from his German colleague in Moscow. [Not George Kennan.]  Bohlen tells the story in Chapter Five of his 'Witness to History.'"

Change is in the air in the Koreas.

In the South, incoming president Yoon Suk-yeol takes over from Moon Jae-in, potentially yielding shifts away from diplomacy with Pyongyang and toward closer relations with Washington and Tokyo.

In the North, a recent ICBM test stoked concerns about nuclear risks as many diplomatic mechanisms are on ice. And both Koreas face a diplomatic test as the Russian invasion of Ukraine creates new friction in global politics and economics.

Our guest, John Delury, is Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies and Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea. He is author of Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China (Cornell, 2022) and is co-authoring a book on the political history of North Korea and the keys to the longevity and resilience of Kim family rule. His PhD is from Yale.

How do different countries choose who gets to decide when nuclear weapons are used, how that decision is made, and how that decision can be brought into effect? What factors lead them to choose different strategies for closely controlling - or not - their nuclear arsenals? How does all this impact U.S. security - and how do U.S. policies shape other actors' choices? Learn all this and more in a special conversation with a leading expert on the subject, Dr. David Arceneaux.

David Arceneaux is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He earned a Ph.D. in political science from Syracuse University in 2019. He also holds a master's degree in political science from Syracuse University, as well as a master's degree in international affairs from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

Dr. Arceneaux was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, affiliated with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom. He was also a predoctoral Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program and a Carnegie International Politics Scholars Consortium and Network (IPSCON) predoctoral fellow at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), affiliated with the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs.

Dr. Arceneaux studies several topics related to international security, with a focus on nuclear weapons strategy and operations. His book project builds upon archival and original interview data with political and military elites to explain variation in regional nuclear power command and control systems. He also has ongoing research projects on nuclear platform diversification and North Korean nuclear operations.

The global response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has put China in a complicated position, and there have been some signs of frustration in Beijing. The global economic disruptions wrought by war and sanctions are no good for the PRC. At the same time, an isolated Russia may present opportunities for China. And stepping back from today's crisis to the broader sweep of history, the Sino-Russian relationship may be emerging as the pole of an alternative non-Western sphere. What does all this mean? Join us as we hear from Lyle Goldstein, an expert on both Russia and China who is writing a book on the two states' relationship.

Lyle J. Goldstein is Director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities. Formerly, he served as Research Professor at U.S. Naval War College for 20 years. In that post, he was awarded the Superior Civilian Service Medal for founding and leading the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). His main areas of expertise include both maritime security and nuclear security issues. Major focus areas have also recently included the Arctic, as well as the Korean Peninsula. He has published seven books on Chinese strategy, including Meeting China Halfway (Georgetown UP, 2015). He speaks both Chinese and Russian and is currently writing a book on China-Russia relations. He has a PhD from Princeton, an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a BA from Harvard.

What motivates a military to continue fighting even when their situation looks grim? Are certain types of militaries more effective at achieving their goals than others?  Ukraine appears to have fought better than Russia expected, while even experts on Russian forces have been surprised by the shortcomings its military has displayed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What can the current situation tell us about prospects for military cohesion as the conflict continues?  

Jasen J. Castillo is an Associate Professor and the Evelyn and Ed F. Kruse '49 Faculty Fellow in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He is the Co-Director of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy. Prior to joining the Bush School, Dr. Castillo worked in the Department of Defense's Strategy and Plans Office. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was an analyst at the RAND Corporation, where his research focused on military strategy, nuclear deterrence, and WMD terrorism. Prior to RAND, he was a consultant for the Institute for Defense Analyses. Dr. Castillo earned his PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, where he received research support from the National Science Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. His research interests include U.S. defense policy, military history, and nuclear deterrence. His publications include Endurance and War: The National Sources of Military Cohesion (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2014); “Loyalty, Hedging, or Exit: How Weaker Alliance Partners Respond to the Rise of New Threats,” Journal of Strategic Studies, forthcoming; “Don’t Leave Grand Strategy to the Generals,” The National Interest, October 2019; “Passing the Torch: Criteria for Implementing a Grand Strategy of Offshore Balancing,” in New Voices in Grand Strategy (Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, 2019); Understanding Russian Nuclear Strategy and Assessing Escalation in Conventional Conflicts, PR-3039-OSD (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, October 2017); National Will to Fight: Why Some States Keep Fighting and Others Don’t, PR-3191-A (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, October 2017); Will to Fight: Defining, Modeling, and Simulating the Will to Fight of Tactical and Operational Military Units, PR-3149-A (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, October 2017).

Why is it so hard to let go? It is an enduring puzzle of U.S. foreign relations. It is hardly original to point out the sprawling collection of U.S. military installations and personnel abroad, but why is it so hard to reduce that military footprint, especially when so many presidents come into power wanting to do so? Today, I'd like to discuss U.S. President William McKinley's annexation of the Philippines in 1898 which sheds light on one important cause of "stickiness": a common psychological bias called the Endowment Effect. In exploring this concept, it enriches our understanding of why it can be so hard to let go.

​Aroop Mukharji is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He received his PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University, where he studied American foreign policy and presidential decision-making in the William McKinley (1897-1901) and Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909) administrations. He has hosted several podcasts, including Snack Break, the Belfer Center's foreign policy podcast at the Harvard Kennedy School (called Office Hours), and another podcast for the NGO Sense and Sustainability. He published a book on education and diplomacy in 2016 with Palgrave Macmillan, and has published foreign policy opinion pieces in War on the Rocks, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Yale Journal of International Affairs, and The New Republic. His academic research has been published by Negotiation Journal and The Journal of Applied History.

A twenty-year campaign in Afghanistan that ended in disaster. An intervention in Libya that helped cast the country into a decade-long civil war. An invasion of Iraq that led to chaos and removed a check on Iran. A war on terror that seems to have created more terrorists. NATO expansion in Europe that cemented Russian enmity. Why does U.S. foreign policy have such a poor record lately? And how has all of this impacted civil-military relations?  

Join us and the Columbia Political Union for a conversation with Andrew Bacevich, president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a historian of U.S. foreign and defense policy.