This Friday, the Liberty Amplified column at Freedom Frequency spotlights the civil rights abuses that have accompanied El Salvador’s successful dismantling of criminal organizations in recent years; Stephen Kotkin answers five more geopolitical questions from Peter Robinson and reflects on what Americans need to remember about the nation’s role in the world; and Brandice Canes-Wrone speaks with Michael Auslin before a Hoover audience about the latter’s new comprehensive history of the Declaration of Independence.
Freedom Frequency
After years of bloodshed and disruption caused by gangs, El Salvador’s popular president and his government used a state of emergency to dismantle the criminal organizations. At the same time, mass arrests and suspensions of civil rights have caught up vast numbers of innocent people, many of whom languish indefinitely in prison. At Freedom Frequency, Honduran writer Dany Díaz Mejía spotlights the stories of people—election observers and ordinary citizens—who persist in pointing out the civil rights violations and the slide toward authoritarianism that have accompanied the security operations. Mejía frames their reporting in a classic context: the ancient Greek virtue of parrhesia, or speaking truth to power, even at great risk. “This stands in contrast to the Salvadoran government’s powerful communication apparatus,” he writes, “which admits only one beautiful truth of success and disregards all others.” Read more here.
Revitalizing History
This week, Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin returns to Uncommon Knowledge for another round of five questions, this time on Iran, China, Ukraine, and the future of the American republic. Kotkin argues that the United States still possesses unmatched strengths — economic, technological, military, and cultural — but warns that self-inflicted political dysfunction could squander them. Kotkin dissects Trump’s Iran strategy, explains why China wants Taiwan “for free,” argues that Ukraine has already won the sovereignty war against Russia, and delivers a powerful defense of America’s founding ideals at a moment when both authoritarian regimes abroad and political extremism at home are testing them. Sharp, provocative, and deeply informed, this is classic Kotkin: using history as a guide to the geopolitical storms of the present. Watch or listen here.
On Tuesday, May 26, the Hoover History Lab and the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions held a special book launch talk for Distinguished Research Fellow Michael Auslin’s National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America. In conversation with Senior Fellow Brandice Canes-Wrone, Auslin takes the audience from the boarding house in Philadelphia where Jefferson put quill to paper to the Declaration’s covert signing, as well as its long, harrowing, and ultimately hallowed afterlife. Across the Declaration’s history, Auslin shows, Jefferson’s words have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the US government. As Jefferson had hoped, the principles enshrined in the Declaration became a beacon to the world. But what lessons should we take from it today? As we celebrate 250 years of the founders’ bold experiment in democracy, Auslin’s new book reminds us that this enduring document was not just a call for freedom and equality but an eloquent statement of the principles that bind us together. Watch here.
At his Substack Wiser Way, National Security Visiting Fellow Zachary Shore introduces a series of essays “on connections in nature that have only recently been uncovered” that he plans to post over the weeks ahead. Noting his training as a historian and not a scientist, Shore points out that “an outsider can ask unusual questions that cause us to consider old problems in a new light.” He focuses on cases where scientific discoveries have only belatedly recognized phenomena in the natural world, like elephants’ ability to detect one another’s “rumbles through the earth” from up to a few miles away. Why did it take so long to notice? “We heard [elephants’] trumpet calls; we could not have missed those if we tried,” Shore notes. “But then we stopped wondering what else might connect them.” The essay series will explore other examples of scientists eventually recognizing more complex patterns and events playing out in plain view yet beyond the bounds of status quo understandings. Read more here.
Security and Defense
Visiting Fellow Christian Brose joined New York Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat’s Interesting Times podcast to discuss insights from his senior leadership role at defense company Anduril Industries. Noting how drone warfare has significantly shaped the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Douthat asks Brose: Is the US positioned to win wars in this new era, and are we approaching increasing autonomy in warfare with the right ethical limits? Brose and Douthat also discuss the impact of the Iran war on US munitions stockpiles; what it is like to sell arms to the Trump administration; what kinds of products Anduril plans to build more of; and whether autonomous weapons are the modern-day equivalents of mustard gas or nuclear bombs. Watch or listen here.
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