Today, Anne Neuberger warns that America lacks the domestic defenses and offensive capabilities necessary to deter and defeat China in cyber warfare; the Hoover Institution Press announces a new book on the role of technology and industry in US military strategy; and Victor Davis Hanson reflects on the state of military history, as the Hoover Institution celebrates the 100th issue of Strategika, its journal dedicated to informing and advancing the field.
Confronting and Competing with China
In a new essay for the September/October 2025 issue of Foreign Affairs, Distinguished Visiting Fellow Anne Neuberger argues that the United States “has fallen behind” China in the realm of cyber warfare by “failing to secure a vast digital home front” of critical infrastructure, otherwise vulnerable to disruption or destruction by cyberattack. “Every hospital, power grid, pipeline, water treatment plant, and telecommunications system is on the frontlines, and most of the United States’ critical infrastructure is unready for battle,” says Neuberger, a former deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology during the Biden administration. She suggests that American critical infrastructure vulnerabilities could deter or inhibit an effective US military response in the event of a Taiwan invasion or other crisis. To counter this lurking threat, Neuberger concludes the US “must ensure that it builds and maintains offensive cyber-capabilities that can hold at risk targets that Beijing values,” especially military targets that China’s leadership would count on in a crisis. Read more here.
The US military is at a critical inflection point. As China rapidly modernizes its armed forces and builds a vast defense industrial base, Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann and coauthor Harry Halem argue, the United States must undergo a transformation of its own to maintain credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. In a forthcoming book, The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices, Freymann and Halem examine the intersection of military technology, procurement, and strategic adaptation, arguing that incremental reform is insufficient to meet the rising challenge posed by China’s military expansion. The Arsenal of Democracy delves into the pressing need for defense industrial reform and concludes with a call for urgent action, arguing that the United States must reassert its position as the arsenal of democracy to deter a future great-power war. The book will be published by Hoover Institution Press in November of this year. Read more here.
Revitalizing History
In a new essay celebrating the 100th issue of Hoover’s Strategika journal of military history, Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson traces the origins, purpose, and development of the Military History Working Group, which he heads. Noting that “military history remains firmly lodged in the popular culture, and that works of military history remain popular among book purchasers, Hanson considers why the discipline has fallen out of favor in the modern academy. He also shows how the work of Hoover’s military history research team and contributors to Strategika is part of a broader revitalization of the discipline, encouraged by multiple generations of Hoover Institution leadership. “Military history is worthy of renewed academic study,” says Hanson, “to remind an increasingly uncurious and less well-educated generation of college students about unchanging human nature, and its oldest propensity of resorting to the use of arms to settle differences, both often to prevent evil—and sometimes to perpetuate it.” You can read the 100th issue of Strategika, dedicated to “The Current Status of Military History,” here. Read more here.
Security and Defense
A new episode of Hoover’s short video series UnArchived draws on the research of Senior Fellow and former US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster to examine the role of economic sanctions in US foreign policy. Sanctions can be formidable instruments of national power when used to advance security, deter aggression, and promote liberty. Their success depends on integration within a coherent strategy, rigorous targeting, and timely execution. Historical successes and failures, from the Cold War to Venezuela, demonstrate that sanctions, when precisely targeted and applied with strategic discipline, can weaken authoritarian regimes while limiting harm to civilian populations. Properly conceived and enforced, they remain an indispensable pillar of US foreign policy. Watch here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
In a Substack post announcing a new coauthored paper he has published at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Visiting Fellow Matthew E. Kahn provides a foundational overview of “50 years of economic demography research,” focusing on the incentives and opportunity costs facing working mothers. This literature provides the background context for Kahn’s new paper with Emma Harrington, which examines the impact of work from home (WFH) on the labor force participation of women with children. The findings suggest that WFH arrangements are associated with higher employment relative to working mothers with non-WFH occupations. Kahn’s literature review also examines the role of large urban labor markets with diverse employment opportunities in facilitating increased concentrations of “power couples” with demanding careers; and how changing labor force participation over time has impacted smaller cities with fewer employment options. Read more here.
Related Commentary