Today, H.R. McMaster tells readers why he believes the ruling authoritarian regime in Iran is more fragile than it appears; two decades after coming together to support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Bono and Condoleezza Rice reflect on their partnership; and Peter Berkowitz discusses the history and future of American conservatism in an article based on remarks he recently gave to the Public Interest Fellowship’s Annual Forum.
US Foreign Policy
Writing for his Substack History We Don’t Know, Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster examines the timely question of “whether or not the Islamic Republic will endure” under its current government. McMaster provides an excerpt from his book Battlegrounds supporting the historical contention that in Iran, changes in power “can be sudden and violent,” especially when corruption and poor conditions for wide swaths of society fester for years. Any change in government will come from the Iranian people, McMaster reiterates, also pointing out the possible role of US policy in supporting that end. The former national security advisor concludes, “Given the regime’s hostility to the United States and our allies, Washington should evaluate its policies, actions, programs, and initiatives based on whether they contribute to or detract from the desired change in the nature of the theocratic dictatorship that has caused so much suffering in Iran, the Middle East, and across the world.”
Revitalizing American Institutions
In a clip from the new CNN Original Series Live Aid: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took On the World, U2 frontman Bono and Hoover Institution Director and former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reflect on their early 2000s partnership around HIV/AIDS relief work. Rice and Bono discuss how their unlikely meeting came to be, and how they overcame political challenges to effectuate and promote a significant shift in US global health policy. Hoover Institution Distinguished Visiting Fellow Jendayi Frazer, noting her initial skepticism toward the idea, also recounts her role in connecting Bono with Rice, at that time her boss in the Bush administration. As Rice notes, global health programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) demonstrated US leadership and a commitment to making the world, in President Bush’s words, “not only safer, but better.” Watch here.
In his regular column for RealClearPolitics, Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz shares a lightly edited transcript of remarks he gave to the Annual Forum of the Public Interest Fellowship (TPIF). For most of the last ten years, Berkowitz has served as director of studies for TPIF’s flagship fellowship program. Berkowitz’s speech reflects on the political changes he’s witnessed over the last decade, and he attempts to place various strands of current right-of-center thought in the broader context of the intellectual history of American conservatism. Berkowitz notes the historical uniqueness of American constitutional government not seeking to “legislate or enforce a settled doctrine about the perfection or salvation of the soul,” and argues that the “common good” for American citizens “consists in the preservation and improvement of a political order that secures citizens’ unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
In his weekly China Articles newsletter, Visiting Fellow Matthew Turpin leads with his analysis of a US Department of Defense magnet production deal that has largely flown under the radar amid many other recent global news events. Turpin shows how China’s strategic dumping of cheap, state-subsidized rare earth magnets on the global market has been a coordinated attempt to corner the global supply of those essential military inputs, used in a variety of defense systems. A new $500–600 million investment by the Defense Department “into this narrow slice of the mining industry helps provide a sustainable source of supply over the next decade to the American defense, aerospace, electronics and automotive industries that have a combined value of about $3 trillion.” Turpin celebrates the strategic logic and impact of the mining deal, which will facilitate expansions at facilities in Texas and California. Also in the newsletter, Turpin takes a look a possible “turn inward” by Chinese leadership. Read more here.
Writing at Forbes, Visiting Fellow Frank Lavin tries to anticipate the foreign policy consequences of China’s “worsening” demographic position, which the government has so far been unable to mitigate with pro-natal policy. He notes that “in 2024, China’s total fertility rate stood at approximately 1.1, roughly half the 2.1 replacement level required for population stability.” Carried forward 80 years, this trend could see China’s population fall to around half a billion from its current level of 1.4 billion people. Lavin shows how this predicament will have dire implications for Chinese military recruitment, military budgets, and even People’s Liberation Army doctrine, as the reality of fewer available soldiers clashes with leaders’ aspirations to regional and global military supremacy. While noting the multiple possible ways China’s demographic decline could play out on the world stage, Lavin ultimately suggests that “an increase in costs and a decrease in options could constrain [China’s] behavior over the long run.” Read more here.
Related Commentary