William Charles Inboden III is an American academic, writer, and former White House staffer. Inboden is the executive director and William Powers, Jr. Chair of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as an associate professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum.
Education
Will Inboden graduated with an A.B. in history from Stanford University in 1994. During his time at Stanford, Inboden studied abroad at Oxford University's Magdalen College. After graduation, Inboden worked as a staff member in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives in the offices of Sam Nunn and Tom DeLay. During his time in Congress, Inboden was one of the original "visionaries" of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which obligates Congress and the president "to take into account the various issues of religious freedom while developing the country's foreign policy." In 1998, Inboden moved to New Haven to pursue a Ph.D. in history at Yale University. During his time at Yale, Inboden was a Civitas Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2002. Inboden received his Ph.D. degree in history from Yale University in 2003. His dissertation was entitled "The Soul of American Diplomacy: Religion and Foreign Policy, 1945–1960."
Professional career
Returning to Washington, D.C., Inboden worked at the U.S. Department of State as a member of the Policy Planning Staff and the special advisor in the Office of International Religious Freedom. From 2005 to 2007, Inboden served as the senior director for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. During his time at the White House, he worked on a range of foreign policy issues including the National Security Strategy, democracy and governance, contingency planning, counterradicalization, and multilateral institutions and initiatives. From 2007 to 2010, Inboden served as the senior vice president and head of the Legatum Institute, a London-based think tank and educational charity, conducting research on issues related to national security, political and economic liberty, and global prosperity. In 2010, Inboden moved to Austin, Texas to begin teaching at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas as an assistant professor in public affairs. Additionally, in 2010, he joined the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at UT-Austin as a distinguished scholar. In 2013, Inboden was promoted to associate professor. Since 2010, Inboden has taught a wide range of courses, including "Presidential Leadership and Decision Making on National Security," "Intelligence & National Security in American Society" with Professor Stephen Slick, and "Ethics & International Relations." As a professor, Inboden has received numerous teaching awards, and his classes have often been selected as the "Best Class in the LBJ School." During his time at UT, Inboden has also served as a non-resident fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Senior Advisor with Avascent International, and Associate Scholar with Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. In 2013, Inboden helped to establish the William P. Clements Jr. Center for National Security at UT-Austin, where he currently serves as the center's executive director. The Clements Center, a nonpartisan research and policy center named after former Texas Governor and Deputy Secretary of DefenseBill Clements, aims to "draw on the best insights of diplomatic and military history to train the next generation of national security leaders. Inboden says he was inspired to create a center which would bridge the gap between policymakers and historians during his tenure in the National Security Council, after noticing that nearly every high-level national security official was reading a book on history during a meeting at Camp David. Every semester, the Clements Center brings distinguished scholars and policymakers to UT's campus, including former and current Secretaries of Defense, directors of the CIA, Pulitzer-prize winners, and senior intelligence officials.
Publications
Inboden is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine, and his commentary has appeared in numerous outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Sky News, BBC, and CNN.
Books and Book Chapters
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in Sustainable Security:Rethinking American National Security Strategy, edited by Jeremi Suri and Benjamin Valentino, The Tobin Project, 2016.
In The Power of the Past: History and Statecraft, edited by Hal Brands and Jeremi Suri, 151–80. Brookings Institution Press, 2016.
in Law and Religion: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Gerald Bradley, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
(Co-Author with Peter Feaver: in Avoiding Trivia: The Role of Strategic Planning in American Foreign Policy, edited by Daniel Drezner, Brookings Institution Press, 2009.
