American security policy has made use of tripwire forces for many years.  One of the most prominent examples cited is the case of Berlin: As Thomas Schelling famously described the logic, the small garrison of US soldiers stationed there during the Cold War weren’t militarily capable of defeating the far-larger East German or Soviet forces nearby but, the East Germans or Soviets would be deterred from attacking because any attack would result in the deaths of that small US force, drawing America into a conflict. Our guests today, Professor Dan Reiter of Emery University and Professor Paul Poast of the University of Chicago, argue that Schelling was wrong. Their article, “The Truth About Tripwires: Why Small Force Deployments Do Not Deter Aggression,” in Vol 4, Iss 3 of TNSR, argues that deterrence relies almost exclusively on the military value of force deployment, so small token deployments are unlikely to deter a determined attacker.  They illustrate their argument with two cases from the Korean peninsula, and a counterfactual example from World War I.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Dr. Catherine Lotrionte, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discusses state-sponsored cyber economic espionage, that is the use of state resources in order to obtain private intellectual property, not for the benefit of the state, but for the benefit of industries and companies.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Randall G. Schriver, the former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs and now serving as the chairman of the Project 2049 Institute, offers an overview of U.S. security relations throughout Asia. He speaks of the policy continuity between the Trump and Biden administrations. He also discusses issues such as human rights and democracy promotion, the role of India and the Quad, and supply chain security.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Nicole Perlroth, author of This is How the Word Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race, sits down with Bobby Chesney, director of the Strauss Center, to discuss the increasing complexity and sophistication of attacks on U.S infrastructure and the challenges presented in defending against cyber attacks.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Ambassador Philip T. Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, provides an overview of European security issues. Ambassador Reeker’s talk focuses on Russia, NATO, Eastern Europe, as well as other critical European security issues.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Thomas Ricks, journalist and historian, talks about his new book, “First Principles, What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How that Shaped Our Country.” Ricks outlines the degree to which the founding fathers were influenced by the ancients and how this influence helped to shape the structure and the principles of the emerging republic.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Martha Bárcena, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, and Kimberly Breier, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discuss U.S.-Mexican relations. The talk covers topics such as immigration and trade, but also highlights the degree to which the U.S. and Mexico are each indispensable to each other.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Henry Hale, professor of political science and international relations at George Washington University, gives a talk about the evolution of power structures in post-Soviet Eurasia. Hale focuses on the concept of “patronalism,” the idea that political power is distributed and wielded by networks that are connected by personal acquaintances and lead by a single powerful patron.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center, and Jim Golby, senior fellow at the Clements Center, sit down with Amb. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former U.S. senator and most recently U.S. ambassador to NATO. They discuss NATO’s future, the challenges that confront NATO now, as well as the development of a new strategic concept, likely to be developed and unveiled as part of the upcoming NATO summit in June.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Tess Owen, senior reporter at VICE News covering extremism, hate crimes, and gun control, sits down with Brianna Kablack, a Master of Global Policy Studies candidate at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, to discuss domestic extremism. Their talk examines the evolution and developments that Owen has seen in the course of reporting on domestic extremism. These findings include the evolution of what she refers to as “suit and tie extremists,” as well as the mainstreaming of increasingly extremist views.

This talk was sponsored by the Strauss Center and was part of the Brumley Speaker Series.