This Friday, Barry Strauss speaks with Bill Whalen about what ancient Roman warfare, diplomacy, and grand strategy can teach students of contemporary conflicts; H.R. McMaster speaks with the former foreign minister of the Republic of Korea about the core strategic alignments underlying US-South Korea relations; and Joshua Rauh, Benjamin Jaros, and Daniel Heil commend the Congressional Budget Office for sharing some of the models it uses to assess the impact of potential legislation.
Revitalizing History
How does ancient Rome’s treatment of its adversaries and allies compare to the current American war in Iran and overall US foreign policy? Senior Fellow Barry Strauss, a military historian specializing in the rise and fall of Rome, joins Matters of Policy & Politics to separate fact from fiction regarding the events leading up to Caesar’s assassination as well as Rome’s belief in “preventive” wars, strategic alliances, and great-power competition. Strauss and host Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen also discuss Hollywood’s fascination with all things Rome; similarities between Caesar and Donald Trump (including communication skills, strategic risk-taking, and neither suffering from a lack of self-esteem); and how the history of the Roman republic might have differed if Caesar hadn’t met up with a horde of knife-wielding senators one fateful day in mid-March. Watch or listen here.
US Foreign Policy
On the latest episode of Today’s Battlegrounds, Chung Eui-yong, former minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Korea, speaks with Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster about the future of the US–ROK alliance in the face of North Korea’s accelerating weapons programs, the implications of a growing Russia–North Korea partnership, and how Washington and Seoul can strengthen deterrence while preserving space for diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. Ahead of President Trump's upcoming visit to Beijing, Chung shares what he hopes will be on the agenda, including regional security and relations with China and North Korea. He discusses the importance of cooperation among the United States, South Korea, and Japan and the need for allies to work together on issues such as supply chain resilience, defense manufacturing capacity, and energy security. Chung also shares his assessment of the current conflict in the Middle East and what it means for global stability. Watch or listen here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
In a post at the Liberty Lens Substack, Senior Fellow Joshua Rauh and coauthors Benjamin Jaros and Daniel Heil follow up on their multi-part series calling for greater transparency from America’s fiscal “scorekeepers,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. These entities analyze the probable impacts of legislation on the nation’s finances. In this post, the authors commend the CBO for making good on its promise last year to provide greater insight into the models used to make projections. “This is real, tangible progress and the CBO deserves credit for it,” they write. The series is motivated by the fact that the assumptions, methods, and data used to project the fiscal and economic impacts of legislation are consequential to the scorekeepers’ final results. “We hope the scorekeepers continue on this path, and that Congress keeps pressing them to show their work,” the authors conclude. Read more here.
The Middle East
Writing in mid-February 2026 for the latest edition of The Caravan, Senior Fellow Russell Berman analyzes the prospects for a new regional order in the Middle East following the degradation or downfall of the Iranian revolutionary regime still clinging to power. Berman notes that “the US has geostrategic interests in the region: the Middle East was a key terrain in which the US and Russia competed for influence during the Cold War, and that phenomenon has returned in the current age of ‘Great Power Competition,’ now with both Russia and China opposing American influence.” Berman cites the destruction of Iran’s regional proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah as a key indicator of a region ripe for a new order. Berman concludes that “the fragile Levantine order emerging now might be threatened by a resurgence of the defeated militias or a revanchist Iran, but it could also be undermined by a decision by the US to walk away” from the region. Read more here.
Healthcare Policy
In a new article at the journal Health Affairs Scholar, Visiting Fellow Brian J. Miller and coauthors extract lessons for AI regulation from the history of state and federal regulation of medical devices. “Prior to 1976,” the authors note in their abstract, “inconsistent rules” for medical devices across states “increased compliance burdens and undermined patient safety.” Today, lacking “clear federal product standards, some states have advanced broad and inconsistent regulatory schemes that often sweep AI-enabled medical devices into consumer-protection frameworks not designed for clinically used technologies.” In this article, the authors propose “a preemption clause limited to health care-related AI that is coupled with a modernized, flexible federal product oversight framework.” This would, they argue, provide “regulatory clarity, reduced compliance fragmentation, and a supportive regulatory environment for pragmatic, responsible technological advancement.” Read more here.
Related Commentary