This Friday, a national security expert argues that military victory in Iran will not necessarily lead to long-term strategic success; Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains her concerns about the recent cease-fire deal with the remnants of the Islamic Republic; and Niall Ferguson, Philip Zelikow, and Richard Haass propose a new multinational institution to oversee shipping in the Strait of Hormuz following the end of the Iran war.
Freedom Frequency
“Wars can remove regimes in months,” writes national security practitioner Carey Zott at Freedom Frequency. But “rebuilding administrative capacity takes decades.” No matter how thorough or crushing American power might be in places like Iran, such firepower on its own cannot bring about lasting change, this piece warns. Zott explains that the leaders of groups such as ISIS, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have prepared entire networks held together by ideology and institutions. Removing top leaders of radical groups does nothing to dismantle the network, Zott writes, and killing terrorist chiefs often results in a power vacuum that others—equally radical—rush to fill. The lesson for the United States is to concentrate not just on military victory but on making postconflict strategy a priority, Zott writes. “Without that effort, kinetic success risks becoming a mirage.” Read more here.
In a new essay, Research Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that the cease-fire in the Iran war can’t be expected to succeed—any more than the past decades of US diplomacy have succeeded—because Iran can’t be deterred from its Islamist project by diplomacy. Tehran has never honored its agreements, she writes, though it has mastered the art of appearing to do so. The negotiations due to open in Pakistan this weekend are more of the same, Hirsi Ali says, and serve to cloak Iran’s self-proclaimed divine mission within the language of foreign policy. In her assessment, the vaunted cease-fire is merely a tactical retreat, if that, and the momentum of Islamist aggression and ideological capture will continue in the United States and Europe. Read more here.
International Affairs
Ahead of crucial talks between the US and Iran in Islamabad this weekend, Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson and Philip Zelikow, along with Richard N. Haass, urge the US and allied partners to take steps to ensure the free flow of goods, principally oil and gas, through the Strait of Hormuz. To do so, they suggest a “military undertaking” to demonstrate to Iran that the US is willing to use force to facilitate maritime transit through the strait. Next, they suggest a tacit arrangement with Iran, similar to the Black Sea grain export understanding between Russia and Ukraine, to get ships moving. Third, they propose a new multilateral organization to codify and enforce terms of open navigation of the strait. “For the US and its friends, since there is no good way to minimize the economic costs of the war, they may as well develop a strategy that charts a new course through the storm—and envisions a safer and more stable harbor on the other side,” the authors conclude. Read more here. [Subscription required.]
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
On the latest episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the Twenty-First Century, Policy Fellow Jon Hartley speaks with Stephen Miran, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and, prior to September 2025, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Hartley and Miran discuss the latter’s new paper on strategies to reduce the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet—also the subject of a Weekly Rant from John H. Cochrane earlier this week. Host and guest then delve into the state of inflation and the labor market in the US economy, estimating the neutral rate of interest, the stance of current monetary policy, and how the rise of AI and the public debt may influence monetary policy in the future. Watch or listen here.
Defense Technology & Innovation
While scientists focus on the revolutionary future of quantum computing, a related technology—quantum sensing—is available now, explain Distinguished Visiting Fellow Vivek Lall and coauthor Haibo Huang. Quantum sensors offer transformative advantages in navigation, communications, exploration for resources, and defense, they write. These sensors are already proving their worth in basic science, but their real worth will come when they’re used in the real world, say Lall and Huang. The implications include systems immune to the jamming and spoofing that already plague GPS, precise tools to locate minerals and hidden infrastructure, and a host of industrial applications. The United States already holds the lead over China in this critical realm, the authors point out, but they call on both government and industry to increase investment in this area to sustain this advantage. Read more here.
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