Today, Steven Davis honors the sacrifices of everyday American patriots that made independence from Great Britain a political reality; Lanhee Chen sits down with Andew Roberts for a wide-ranging conversation on policy, history, and California’s future; and Condoleezza Rice speaks at Stanford about AI risks, Ukraine, and Israel.
Freedom Frequency
In this essay for the Founders & Fellows series, Senior Fellow and Director of Research Steven J. Davis reminds Americans that the cause of liberty and self-government would have died in infancy without the courage and sacrifice of ordinary Americans. The obscure heroes include Isaac Davis, leader of the minuteman company that intercepted British troops on the way to Concord and Lexington, and Abigail and Zachariah Rice, who set up the first military hospital during the ordeal of Valley Forge. These figures qualify as founders, too, Davis writes, and they deserve to be remembered as such by modern Americans. Read more here.
History and Policy
Research Fellow Lanhee Chen, a veteran of four presidential campaigns and the George W. Bush administration, joins Distinguished Visiting Fellow Andrew Roberts on Secrets of Statecraft to discuss why good policy so often fails politically. Drawing on his time as Mitt Romney’s chief policy advisor and his experience running for California State Controller, Chen discusses bipartisan healthcare reform, tax simplification, and the threat to Taiwan. He also criticizes California’s Prop 50 redistricting push, the muddled war in Iran, and Trump’s hold over the 2028 Republican nomination. He closes with reflections on California’s future, and what might have been had Romney won in the Presidential election in 2012. Watch or listen here.
Technology and Foreign Policy
Yesterday, as part of a Stanford speaker series, Director Condoleezza Rice discussed artificial intelligence and US foreign policy with longtime New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The pair spoke about the imperial ambitions of Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin, with Rice emphasizing that Ukraine could successfully wear down the Russian assault if it can weather strikes until the next fighting season. Turning to the Middle East, Rice argued that Israel’s security situation is nearly the best that it has ever been, following the degradation of Iranian proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. But “Hatred for Israel, particularly in Europe, has been given fuel,” Rice said. She argued that what is keeping “the Palestinian people down in Gaza is not Israel; it’s Hamas.” Read more here.
Literature and Philosophy
What if you did everything right and discovered on your deathbed that you've wasted your life?
The Big Idea: Rabbi and author David Wolpe joins Visiting Fellow Russ Roberts on EconTalk to talk about Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Weaving Rabbi Wolpe’s own brushes with mortality and his years at the bedsides of the dying into Tolstoy's masterpiece, the conversation examines the lies we tell ourselves about death, our longing for honesty and human touch at the end of life, and the way that death forces us to take a clear-eyed look at how we’ve lived. Roberts and Wolpe conclude by offering advice on how we can avoid Ivan’s regrets. Watch or listen here.
Hoover Institution News
More than a dozen Hoover Institution fellows and affiliated scholars from Stanford University completed a multi-city tour of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea in September. Participants discussed issues ranging from the future of America’s Asian alliances to resilient supply chains and how to ensure peace in the Indo-Pacific with academics, elected leaders, and policymakers in each country. The tour, which involved meetings with Taiwan’s vice president and Japan’s defense minister, was primarily aimed at encouraging and supporting three of America’s principal allies in the Asia-Pacific region to continue hardening themselves against coercion, interference, and intimidation by China. “Our meetings in Taiwan and Japan reinforced our sense that both countries are moving in the right direction to enhance their defenses, deterrence, and resilience in the face of rapidly mounting threats and military deployments from the People’s Republic of China,” Senior Fellow Larry Diamond said of the tour’s aims. “Time is of the essence in meeting this challenge, and the support and partnership of the United States is crucial to both countries and the region.” Read more here.
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