Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Doyle Hodges
Dealers in Hope? Leadership in the Russia-Ukraine War
Napoleon once said that leaders are “dealers in hope.” While such a label might seem to fit Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky, it fits more awkwardly on Russian President Vladimir Putin. How has the leadership of these two men shaped the onset and current progress of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Would the invasion have happened at all, or if had happened would it have progressed differently under different leadership?
Keeping Civil-Military Relations Civil
Civil-military relations is not a topic that gets many hearts racing. Yet attention to the relationship between the military and the society it serves has become more urgent after it was revealed that Gen. Mark Milley, the nation’s most senior military officer, worked with cabinet and sub-cabinet officials to frustrate the desire of President Donald Trump to use the American military in ways Milley viewed as inappropriate.
A Duty to Disobey?
Among the many revelations in Susan Glasser and Peter Baker’s recent article in the New Yorkerabout the last days of Trump’s presidency was that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, resolved to thwart any orders he received from then-President Donald Trump to deploy troops domestically or to attack Iran without sufficient provocation. As the article details, “[Milley] settled on four goals: First, make sure Trump did not start an unnecessary war overseas.
A Duty to Disobey?
Published by The Lawfare Institute in Cooperation With Among the many revelations in Susan Glasser and Peter Baker’s recent article in the New Yorkerabout the last days of Trump’s presidency was that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, resolved to thwart any orders he received from then-President Donald Trump to deploy troops domestically or to attack Iran without sufficient provocation.
History is What States Make of It
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.
From Ukraine and Beyond: Unpacking the Sino-Russian Relationship
April 22, 2022 This is the national security podcast crossover of the century! Or at least of the year…ok maybe of Spring 2022! For this special episode of the “War on the Rocks” podcast, Doyle Hodges of “Horns of a Dilemma” hosts Zack Cooper, Melanie Marlowe, and Chris Preble of “Net Assessment.” They try to sort through relations between Moscow and Beijing in this time of war, as well as a whole bunch of related issues.
The Army, the Government, and the People in the Russo-Ukrainian War
April 8, 2022 Clausewitz–or at least the version of Clausewitz that is taught in many war colleges–has bedeviled generations of students by offering several “trinities.” First, there is the relationship betweeen emotion, chance, and reason which governs events in war. Emotion itself can be broken down as a balance between hatred, violence, and primordial enmity.
Getting Rid of Unpleasant (Nerve) Gas
In this week’s episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we hear from author and journalist Joby Warrick about his new book, Red Line: The Unraveling of Syria and America’s Race to Destroy the Most Dangerous Arsenal in the World. Warrick details the international effort to find, collect, remove, and destroy Syria’s stockpile of Sarin nerve agent in 2013.
Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom
I have been thinking recently of Thomas Schelling and the serenity prayer. This may seem an unlikely combination, but the wisdom in those short verses seems to encapsulate much of the essence of deterrence and coercion theory: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” A person or state confronted with a situation, whether actual or threatened, can either accept it or try to change it.
How Technology Changes Arms Control
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we hear from Professor Jane Vaynman, author of “Better Monitoring and Better Spying: The Impact of Emerging Technology on Arms Control,” which appears in Vol. 4/Iss. 4 of the Texas National Security Review, a special issue dedicated to the memory and legacy of Janne Nolan.
MAD COWs and Practical Wisdom
In the 1950s, researchers at the RAND Corporation ran two different wargames exploring questions of nuclear strategy. Both were named the Cold War Game, known to the participants as COW. One, run by the Mathematics Analysis Division (MAD), abstracted questions of the ethics of nuclear war in order to seek reproducible results. The other, run by the Social Sciences Division (SSD), reflected concerns over the ethics and implications of nuclear weapons, resulting in less-certain outcomes.
Insurgency is Easier than Governing: The Future of the Taliban in Afghanistan
September 3, 2021 With the fall of President Ashraf Ghani’s government and the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, most of Afghanistan is now under the control of the Taliban. In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we are joined by Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors at Brookings, and by Scott R.
Writing and Editing on the Rocks
Being an editor involves saying “no,” quite a bit. 85 percent of submissions to both the Texas National Security Review and War on the Rocks never make it to publication. At the recent Clements Center Summer Seminar on History and Statecraft in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of TNSR and chief publishing officer of War on the Rocks, and Megan Oprea, managing editor of TNSR, spoke to the assembled students about how to be in the 15 percent that do wind up in our pages.
Growing and Shrinking
July 23, 2021 The admission of new NATO members from the former Soviet Union and Warsaw pact marked an expansion of European multilateral institutions. The growth in membership of European institutions continued until 25 years later, when Britain decided to withdraw from the European Union.
Tripped Up About Tripwires
July 16, 2021 American security policy has made use of tripwire forces for many years.
Remembering What I’ve Never Known
One of the most moving Memorial Day speeches ever given is remembered as much for how the speaker stood as for what was said. When Gen. Lucian Truscott, commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, spoke at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy on Memorial Day in 1945, he turned his back on the audience, and spoke directly to the nearly 20,000 American soldiers buried there, apologizing to them for their deaths.
Gender and Security
April 16, 2021 In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Hilary Matfess (a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University and a Peace Scholar Fellow at the United States Institute for Peace), and Robert Nagel (a postdoctoral research fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security), to discuss gender in conflict and the issues surrounding women in the field of security.
Thank Me for My Service: Military Exceptionalism and the Civ-Mil Gap
March 12, 2021 The military is one of the most trusted institutions in American society. But the question of how the military views itself is different than that and one that has significant implications. Recently, the Texas National Security Review published an article titled, “From Citizen Soldier to Secular Saint: The Societal Implications of Military Exceptionalism,” that looks at the implications of military exceptionalism.
Bureaucratizing to Fight Extremism in the Military
The military loves a task force. The very name suggests military activity — overwhelming a difficult job (a task) with a crack team of personnel and equipment (a force). When confronted with a challenge, whether defeating improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan or designing new Navy uniforms, the military has historically responded with a task force.
Guns, Government, and Grievance: Right-Wing Extremism and the Oath Keepers
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Sam Jackson, assistant professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity at the University of Albany, to discuss far right-wing, antigovernment groups in the United States. In particular, Hodges and Jackson focus on the group, the Oath Keepers. Who are the Oath Keepers? Why were they founded and when?
War on the Rocks
November 23, 2020 For many people, terms like “piracy,” “stowaway,” and “kidnapped” conjure up romantic visions influenced by the literature of Robert Louis Stevenson or C.S. Forester. But as this episode’s guests tell us, these terms actually have deadly serious meanings without much romance and with a great deal of grim reality to them.
A Whole New World (Order)
November 16, 2020 Rebecca Lissner, Mira Rapp-Hooper, and Stephen Wertheim join Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, to share their views on American foreign policy and international order. They have recently published two books on the subject: An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty First Century Order, by Rebecca and Mira, and Stephen’s Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.
A Way to Not Do Nothing
September 11, 2020 If you think of the 1990s, you may think of the “The Simpsons,” Nirvana, or “Seinfeld.” But if you’re a security or policy wonk, one of the things you’re going to remember about the decade is a military response option that seemed to be one of the first things officials considered for almost any dilemma — the no fly zone. What are no fly zones? What are the politics and prospects of no-fly zones?
Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with professor Bartholomew Sparrow, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and author of, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security, to talk about the late Brent Scowcroft. Scowcroft was a towering figure in American foreign policy for over 50 years.
Who Will Guard the Guardians?
We live in an era of almost unprecedented partisan division and polarization where any issue of policy can become one that is deeply divided along party lines, and many of those issues of policy involve the military. We’ve seen this in examples of troops being deployed to the southwest border of the United States and through the use of federal troops in response to the racial justice protests. How does the military avoid becoming partisan in these divisive times?
The Role of Social Media in International Relations
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, explores how social media has played an increasingly prominent role in the public discourse. Listeners to the War on the Rocks podcast may recall an episode featuring Camille Francois of Graphika, and Jessica Brandt, head of policy and research for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, dealing with the question of disinformation.
Every Adjective in the Dictionary Applies to Lyndon Johnson
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Mark Lawrence, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, to discuss the inner workings of the presidential library system and the purposes they serve. Who runs them and who funds them? What mission do they serve? Does every President get one?
Distortions in the Fabric of Deterrence
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Rebecca Hersman, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss her article, “Wormhole Escalation in the New Nuclear Age,” featured in Volume 3/Issue 3 of the Texas National Security Review. In her article, Hersman argues that our understanding of nuclear escalation may be obsolete.
Lies Through Which We Tell the Truth
July 13, 2020 In this episode, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, chats wth three authors of recent fiction related to military security that explores questions of how technology, society, and the distance between people and violence affects our conception of war and security.
Race and National Security
Often when we discuss national security we tend to focus on “hard security concepts,” things like military capability, nuclear weapons, deterrence, and other things that are comfortable to those that have studied security for a long time. But what does it mean to be secure? Are people secure from something or someone? And who is it that we mean by the concept of “the nation”?
Where Do We Go from Here? The Future of Academia and U.S. National Security
June 26, 2020 The United States faces a unique confluence of crises right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented economic and social impact on society, and has caused many people to reconceptualize what “national security” means. At the same time, the nation finds itself convulsed by issues of racial injustice and the response to issues in our criminal justice system.
Peace is Hell: Why America Struggles to Create Stability After Conflict
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, the executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with author Dr. Brendan Gallagher to discuss his book, The Day After: Why America Wins the War but Loses the Peace. America has been successful in the battlefield aspects of its military endeavors but has struggled over the last two decades to find lasting political solutions that are acceptable to all parties after the conflict has ended.
How World Leaders Are Like High Schoolers
Do reputations matter in international politics? Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with professor Danielle Lupton to discuss her book, Reputation for Resolve: How Leaders Signal Determination in International Politics. Hodges and Lupton discus how reputations form and what results from these reputations. Lupton is professor at Colgate University and earned her PhD from Duke University in 2014.
‘Keeping the Russians Out, the Americans In, and the Computers Down?’ Erik Lin-Greenberg on His Article “Allies and Artificial Intelligence”
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, talks with Dr. Erik Lin-Greenberg about his article, “Allies and Artificial Intelligence: Obstacles to Operations and Decision-Making,” which is featured in Volume 3 Issue 2 of TNSR. Dr. Lin-Greenberg is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House and an incoming assistant professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tami Davis Biddle Discusses Coercion Theory: A Basic Introduction for Practitioners
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of Texas National Security Review, takes a deep dive into “Coercion Theory: A Basic Introduction for Practitioners,” an article by author Dr. Tami Davis Biddle that appeared in Volume 3 Issue 2 of the publication. Dr. Biddle is a professor of national security at the U.S. Army War College, where she has taught since 2001.
Disarming Disinformation
May 7, 2020 In this episode of the War on the Rocks podcast, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Jessica Brandt, head of policy and research for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, and Camille Francois, chief innovation officer at Graphika, to discuss disinformation. Disinformation has been prominent in the minds of many Americans since the 2016 election.
The Navy’s Crisis of Special Trust and Confidence | RealClearDefense
In 1983, when Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, it was Ronald Reagan's official duty as president to commission these new officers. The commission Modly received, along with the rest of his classmates, noted that Reagan had “special trust and confidence” in his “patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities.” Nine years later, President George H.W. Bush wrote the same thing to me and my Naval Academy classmates.
The Navy’s Crisis of Special Trust and Confidence
In 1983, when Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, it was Ronald Reagan’s official duty as president to commission these new officers. The commission Modly received, along with the rest of his classmates, noted that Reagan had “special trust and confidence” in his “patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities.” Nine years later, President George H.W. Bush wrote the same thing to me and my Naval Academy classmates.
The Navy’s Crisis of Special Trust and Confidence
In 1983, when Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, it was Ronald Reagan’s official duty as president to commission these new officers. The commission Modly received, along with the rest of his classmates, noted that Reagan had “special trust and confidence” in his “patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities.” Nine years later, President George H.W. Bush wrote the same thing to me and my Naval Academy classmates.
Guardians or Guardrails? The Role and Rule of Law in the Military
In November, a dispute between President Donald Trump and senior military leaders over whether convicted war criminal Eddie Gallagher should remain a member of the Navy’s elite SEAL community resulted in the departure of the senior civilian service secretary who had publicly (but perhaps not privately) opposed the president’s desires. In the wake of the secretary’s dismissal, military leaders quietly dropped their plans to administratively remove Gallagher’s SEAL designation.
Analysis | Trump said the Navy can’t take away Eddie Gallagher’s SEAL qualification. That could be a problem.
On Thursday, President Trump tweeted that the Navy should “get back to business” rather than convene a board to determine whether Navy Special Warfare Operator Eddie Gallagher should retain his qualification as a Navy SEAL. The Navy’s decision to review Gallagher’s SEAL status came following Trump’s pardon of Gallagher and two former Army officers a week earlier. Trump’s tweet may have set the stage for a serious civil-military confrontation. Here’s what you need to know.
Kings, Presidents, Editors, and People with Tapeworms
November 4, 2019 “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we.’” This line, often attributed to Mark Twain (it wasn’t him) speaks to the thorny feelings that writers associate with those who shape their prose. Now that the War on the Rocks editorial team has grown so much, we thought this was a good opportunity for you to get to know our Washington-based editors a bit better: Doyle Hodges, Shane Mason, and Rebecca Zimmerman.
Law and National Security: Legitimacy, Security, and ‘Tom Clancy Stuff’
October 23, 2019 In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, TNSR‘s executive editor, Doyle Hodges, sits down with Laurie Blank, clinical professor of law and director of the International Law Clinic at Emory University, and Bobby Chesney, James Baker Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs and director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, Austin.
No First Use: Unpacking the Benefits and Risks of a Policy of Nuclear Restraint
August 5, 2019 This episode of Horns of a Dilemma expands on a recent roundtable in the Texas National Security Review that examines the question of adopting a nuclear no-first-use policy. Dr. John Harvey, a scientist and former senior Defense Department official, and Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, debate whether such a policy adds or detracts from stability in the event of a crisis, and how it affects the calculus of deterrence.
Ask Me No Questions, and I'll Tell You No Lies
July 29, 2019 Every summer, the War on the Rocks crew travels to Beaver Creek, Colorado, where the Clements Center hosts its summer seminar — an intimate gathering for PhD students, senior scholars, former policymakers, and a misanthropic editor and podcast host.
Building Modern Screw-Sloops? Strategic Choices about Artificial Intelligence in Defense
When militaries avoid making choices about new technologies, they often wind up with something like the “screw-sloop”: a hybrid solution that fails to take full advantage of either the old or the new technology. In the mid-1800s, many navies commissioned screw-sloops, which were warships with both steam propulsion and masts and rigging for sails. One of the best-known screw-sloops, the H.M.S. Warrior, was designed to be the most powerful ship of her day.
(Moral) Hazards to Navigation at Sea
It would be an understatement to say Bryan McGrath’s excellent article, published in these pages last week, turned some heads. It was a response to the in-depth reporting in ProPublica on the events leading up to the 2017 USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) collision.
Loss of Confidence Doesn’t Cut It
View Proceedings Archives Keep the great articles coming through your tax-deductible donation now. Loss of Confidence Doesn’t Cut It By Commander Doyle Hodges, U.S. Navy (Retired) This content is only accessible by current members. Please login to view the full content. Not a Member yet? Learn more about the exclusive benefits you'll receive! Join Today
Draft EO on Interrogation: Should We Expect the Military to Protect Us from Ourselves?
Although the White House is now disavowing the draft executive order on detention and interrogation, the document has revived debate on the legal prohibitions against torture and on President Trump’s campaign promise to “bring back waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse.” During the campaign, some retired senior officers, including former CIA director General Michael Hayden, suggested that the military would or should refuse to follow orders to torture or commit other acts such as bombing...
Texas National Security Review
Staff Editorial Board Policy and Strategy Advisory Board
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Doyle
Contact Doyle, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack