Today, Andrew Roberts asks an exiled Iranian scholar whether the war has brought Iran’s regime to the point of collapse; Herbert Lin examines the causes and consequences of persistent optimism about technology in US defense policy; Patrick McLaughlin explains how Congress could meaningfully improve railway safety; and a panel of Hoover scholars explore the possible pitfalls and opportunities for industrial policy in the context of US national security.
War in Iran
Shay Khatiri, a senior fellow at the Yorktown Institute, returns to Secrets of Statecraft to examine the internal dynamics of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the current context of war, protest, and long-term political decay. Reflecting on his experience in the 2009 Green Movement and subsequent exile, Khatiri argues that the regime has evolved into a security state dominated by military interests, while losing both public trust and religious legitimacy. The discussion explores the prospects for regime change, the role of opposition figures, the risks of civil conflict, and the broader geopolitical implications of this war—including for Iran’s nuclear program and control of the Strait of Hormuz. This conversation offers a detailed and sobering assessment of Iran’s present—and its uncertain future. Listen here.
Security and Defense
In a new article for the Texas National Security Review, Research Fellow Herbert Lin identifies “psychological, cultural, and organizational factors that drive optimism about emerging military technologies.” Lin concludes that in the military realm, “the United States is often overly optimistic about technology in the short term.” Lin finds that while “short-term impacts are [often] overestimated . . . long-term effects are underestimated.” Lin identifies two policy imperatives based on this research. First, he says, defense policy makers should “make every effort to assess technological promise realistically and invest accordingly.” Second, he argues, they should consider “decentralized experimentation enabling rapid local adaptation” in addition to “traditional top-down innovation.” Read more here.
Regulation and Railroad Safety
Research Fellow Patrick McLaughlin writes at the Third Order Substack about the Railway Safety Act of 2026, introduced in response to the highly publicized train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023. In regulation, “Good intentions do not guarantee good results,” McLaughlin warns. While a “serious agenda” for railway safety would “target demonstrated failure modes, rely on performance standards where possible, and preserve flexibility in how railroads combine labor, capital, and technology,” McLaughlin says that leading proposals today focus more on “visible inputs rather than system performance.” He concludes, “If Congress wants safer railroads, it should ask which policies increase the sector’s capacity to invest in detection, maintenance, infrastructure, and operational learning.” Read more here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
The Hoover Institution hosted a panel of expert scholars in a discussion of how economic and industrial policy impacts US national security. Senior Fellow and Director of Research Steven J. Davis highlighted the challenges of industrial policies: They are hard for the political process to assess, rife with unintended consequences, hard to fix, and hard to end when obsolete. Senior Fellow Joshua Rauh examined the conditions under which the assumptions justifying free trade may break down in relation to strategic rivals like China. Senior Fellow Philip Zelikow noted important differences between industrial policy to improve national competitiveness and industrial policy for national security. And Research Fellow Dan Wang spoke about China's long record of using industrial policy to pursue technological ambitions. Watch or read more here.
Writing for the Columbia Law School’s Blue Sky Blog, Distinguished Visiting Fellow David F. Larcker, Senior Fellow Amit Seru, and Stanford researcher Brian Tayan examine the practice of corporations paying “mega grants” to CEOs, like Tesla’s “10-year, $2.3 billion equity award” for Elon Musk. The authors find that performance-oriented awards “did not, in the median case, produce substantial positive stock-price performance.” They further note that in most cases, “the realizable payout to the CEO was considerably lower than expected value.” The scholars consider whether awarding mega grants to CEOs is an effective way for corporate directors to incentivize strong performance, writing that the cases they studied were “characterized by a small number of winners among a substantial number of losers.” Read more here.
Education Politics & Policy
The Wall Street Journal published an opinion letter from Hoover Fellow Michael T. Hartney in response to an editorial about “efforts to target the Freedom Foundation, a group that alerts public employees that they can opt out of paying union dues.” Hartney explains how his research “shows that teachers and other public-employee unions have long been state-subsidized political actors.” Hartney says that starting in the 1970s, “many states adopted labor laws and bargaining arrangements that made it cheaper and easier for these unions to recruit members, collect dues and mobilize members in politics.” He argues that efforts underway “to create new civil penalties for alleged impersonation of a labor union in worker outreach are less about preventing deception than protecting already advantaged political actors from competition.” The education scholar concludes that states should not unduly insulate “one side of a political debate from challenge.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
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