From November 19-21, 2015, the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law and the Clements Center for National Security convened the second annual National Security Forum at the University of Texas at Austin. This year’s event, “Great Powers, Failed States, and New Frontiers: National Security Challenges in the 21st Century,” explored the security challenges the U.S. currently faces and how our national security institutions are positioned to respond.
The event gathered leading figures from the executive branch, Congress, intelligence community, and academia for high-level discussions on critical strategic questions including cybersecurity, China, Russia, the Middle East, terrorism, and stability operations.
Photos of the conference can be accessed here.
Videos of each session are available here and below:
Session 1: Russia
Paula Dobriansky; former Under Secretary of State
Leon Aron; American Enterprise Institute
Brigadier General Kevin Ryan, USA, Ret.; Harvard University
General Montgomery Meigs, USA, Ret.; former Commander, US Army Europe
Session 2: Stability Operations
Kathleen Hicks; former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
Michael Vickers; former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Paul Miller; Clements Center for National Security
Colonel Peter Mansoor, USA, Ret.; Ohio State University
Session 3: Middle East
Lieutenant General Mick Bednarek, USA, Ret.; former Chief, Security Cooperation-Iraq
Philip Mudd; former Deputy Director of CIA Counterterrorism Center
Michael Singh; former Senior Director, National Security Council
Tamara Wittes; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Lunch and Plenary Address
Admiral William McRaven, USN, Ret.; Chancellor of The University of Texas System
Session 4: China
Admiral Samuel Locklear, USN, Ret.; former Commander, Pacific Command
Dennis Wilder; Central Intelligence Agency
Ashley Tellis; former Senior Director, National Security Council
Randall Schriver; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Plenary Address
Congressman Michael McCaul; Chairman, Homeland Security Committee
Plenary Address
U.S. Senator Ben Sasse
Session 5: Terrorism
Daniel Benjamin; former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Bruce Hoffman; Georgetown University
Lt Gen Frank Kisner, USAF, Ret.; former NATO Special Operations Commander
John McLaughlin; former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Michael Vickers; former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Closing Plenary Address
U.S. Senator John Cornyn
Media coverage of this year’s National Security Forum includes:
Strauss Center Director Adam Klein has been appointed to the congressional FISA Reform Commission by U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Klein brings to the Commission his experience as former Chairman of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) and other national security authorities. The Commission is tasked...
Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Director of the Asia Policy Program and Editor of the Texas National Security Review, recently published “On War and Politics” in the fall edition of the Texas National Security Review. Utilizing a historical lens, Greitens emphasizes the “the need to integrate the use of military force with broader tools of strategy and statecraft in service of broader political goals.”...
Adam Klein, Director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, was quoted in an article in Dispatch on "FISA's Section 702 Has Lapsed. Now What?". Section 702's authority on surveilling non-Americans abroad lapsed for the first time on June 12. “The relative constitutional clarity that 702 provides should be seen as stabilizing and protective, and so for that...