The Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Clements Center for National Security, and School of Civic Leadership are pleased to announce that Robert D. Kaplan, the renowned foreign affairs correspondent and author, will be joining The University of Texas at Austin as a Distinguished Senior Lecturer. Kaplan will teach undergraduate and graduate courses, participate in our public events, and mentor students.
This spring, Kaplan will offer “Great Thinkers in Realism and Geopolitics” (CIV 365) through the School of Civic Leadership. Students will explore works from 20th century geopolitical authors such as Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, Halford Mackinder, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, discuss current and historical geopolitical issues in a seminar format, and identify connections between these works and international politics today.
Kaplan holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has served in many other capacities, but most notably was a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the U.S. Navy’s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him on the of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” His bestselling books include Waste Land, The Loom of Time, The Tragic Mind, Adriatic, The Revenge of Geography, Asia’s Cauldron, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. For three decades, Kaplan reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic.
On Wednesday, January 28, Strauss Center Director Adam Klein testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in their hearing, "Review and Reform: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] and Executive Accountability." The hearing was held in anticipation of the approaching sunset of FISA Section 702 in April 2026. "For almost twenty years, Section 702 has helped our government...
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Strauss Senior National Security Fellow Brett Freedman co-authored an opinion piece for The New York Times on the recent TikTok deal. In this article, Freedman argues that the public should be skeptical of the TikTok deal as it is insufficient in addressing U.S. national security concerns. “Under the proposed arrangement, Beijing would still retain leverage over a platform that shapes what...