This Friday, Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani explain the broader geopolitical implications of Russia’s recent strategic failures in the Middle East; David L. Leal considers the political future of the United Kingdom as it faces chronic fiscal and leadership challenges; and Vivek Lall and astronaut Buzz Aldrin outline the requirements for American success and strategic leadership in the new space age.
US Foreign Policy
At Foreign Affairs, Senior Fellow Michael McFaul and Research Fellow Abbas Milani argue that, despite Russia’s apparent buildup of power and influence in the Middle East in recent years, “over the past 20 months, Russia’s standing in the Middle East has cratered.” Russia’s client in Syria, the Assad regime, “collapsed spectacularly,” and Moscow did not try to help save it. McFaul and Milani argue that this Middle Eastern “abandonment” demonstrates that Russia cannot be counted on during crises, which should serve as a warning to China about relying on Moscow for support during an attempted Taiwan invasion. The authors conclude that the Trump administration should heed a similar lesson and cease attempts “to peel Moscow away from Beijing,” because Russia’s grand strategy in the Middle East has proven a failure. Read more here.
UK Politics and Policy
At Defining Ideas, Senior Fellow David L. Leal writes that just one year after the UK’s last national election, “which saw Keir Starmer lead the Labour Party to a landslide victory, the media are dogpiling onto a prime minister with low poll ratings, a rebellious party, and a string of policy reversals.” Against a backdrop of successive unpopular governments, Leal argues that the “nightmare scenario for Britain is that nobody knows what to do about its fiscal problems, and the nation therefore lurches from leader to leader, from party to party, and from promise to promise.” In Leal’s view, the “central tension in British politics, which underlies its many specific problems, is that the sum total of government is unaffordable and unsustainable, and nobody knows what to do about it.” Leal suggests that the presence or absence of a refreshed policy program from the Conservative party, addressing these core fiscal problems, “may shape the future of Britain.” Read more here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
A new paper from Senior Fellow John H. Cochrane, Distinguished Visiting Fellow Michael D. Bordo, and Policy Fellow Jon Hartley celebrates the extraordinary career and scholarly contributions of Senior Fellow John B. Taylor. As the authors write, Taylor is one of the greatest macroeconomists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This paper surveys his seminal contributions to monetary theory, policy rules, and macroeconomic modeling. Taylor’s work on rational expectations, staggered contracts, and the development of the Taylor Rule transformed the theory and practice of monetary policy. Through scholarship, policy engagement, and public service, Taylor has profoundly influenced academic research and central banking practice, establishing rules-based policy as a central paradigm in macroeconomics. Read more here.
On the latest episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, Policy Fellow Jon Hartley and Senior Fellow Richard A. Epstein discuss Epstein’s early interest in legal studies and his distinguished career as a legal scholar. Epstein and Hartley then dive into the Takings Clause, state monopoly power, and Richard’s property-driven theory of constitutional interpretation—considering how it contrasts with the originalism of Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork as well as living constitution theories. The episode concludes with the two scholars considering the Coase theorem and classical liberalism versus anarcho-capitalism. Watch or listen here.
Space, Innovation, and Defense
In a guest column for the Financial Times, Distinguished Visiting Fellow Vivek Lall and former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin argue that “the once-separate worlds of NASA explorers, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and military space operators are converging in a new space age.” Central to continued American success and leadership in this dawning era, the authors suggest, are public-private partnerships around emerging space technologies. “The formula” for such partnerships, per Aldrin and Lall, “is clear: share development costs, tie funding to performance milestones, and streamline regulatory obstacles.” Noting that “America’s next giant leap will require a coalition of space pioneers,” the authors conclude with a call for engaging US allies and international partners in space exploration and technology development. Read more here. [Subscription required]
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