William C. Inboden, foreign policy and diplomatic history expert, will join the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin as a Distinguished Scholar this December, the Strauss Center announced today.
Inboden will have an appointment as assistant professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
Inboden is senior vice president of the Legatum Institute in London, where he conducts research on issues related to national security, political and economic liberty, and global prosperity. Previously, he was senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council at the White House, where he worked on a range of issues including the National Security Strategy, democracy and governance, contingency planning, counter-radicalization and multilateral institutions.
Prior to his appointment on the National Security Council, Inboden was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State and a special adviser in the Office of International Religious Freedom. He is also a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to have Will Inboden on our team,” said Francis J. Gavin, director of the Strauss Center. “With his deep intellectual talent and on-the-ground policy experience, he embodies the mission of the Strauss Center–to develop well-informed, practical solutions to pressing global problems.”
Admiral Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret.), the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy, was instrumental in bringing Inboden to Austin.
“Professor Inboden will be a great addition to the faculty and to the LBJ School at large,” said Inman.
“Will Inboden reads history with clear eyes and brings a rare scholar-practitioner’s perspective to bear on American diplomacy past, present and future,” said Peter D. Feaver, the Alexander F. Hehmeyer Professor of Political Science at Duke University. “He is among the best of a new breed of diplomatic historian, capable of relating first-hand to the challenges both of studying American foreign policy and of doing American foreign policy.”
Inboden previously partnered with the Strauss Center in the Next Generation Project, a program that brings together influential thinkers in government, academia and the private sector to discuss ways in which international institutions can better address the current global policy environment.
“Following an incomparable three years with the Legatum Institute, I am thrilled to be joining the Strauss Center at this strategic juncture,” Inboden said. “I look forward to working with the Strauss Center team and other LBJ School scholars to continue their excellent record of bringing innovative research insights to the array of global policy challenges and opportunities.”
He received his doctor’s and master’s degrees in history from Yale University and his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University. He is the author of “Religion and American Foreign Policy 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment.”
The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law is a non-partisan research center at The University of Texas at Austin dedicated to promoting policy-relevant scholarship on the problems and opportunities created by our increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
