Today, Condoleezza Rice announces the launch of the 2026 Stanford Emerging Technology Review; Raghuram Rajan argues that all Americans benefit from a competent Federal Reserve independent from partisan political interference; and Ralph Richard Banks and coauthor Dan Sutton share a new tool that helps citizens view and understand the policies governing police uses of force in different jurisdictions across the country.
Freedom Frequency
Reflecting on the founding of the United States at Freedom Frequency, Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice points out that bold, far-reaching action is in the American bloodstream—and that the heirs of the leaders who created a free society 250 years ago are today setting a course for the future of technology. Breakthroughs in many critical fields are coming by the day, and Rice argues that these innovations will unfold in ways that either strengthen or undermine freedom, security, and human dignity. In this essay, Rice introduces the new edition of the Stanford Emerging Technology Review, stressing the importance of clear, neutral information about the technologies that will change all of our lives—and of renewing the research that, more than ever, demands US leadership. Read more here.
Technology Policy Accelerator
The 2026 edition of the Stanford Emerging Technology Review (SETR) report is now available, offering citizens, policymakers, and business leaders a comprehensive overview of how 10 frontier technologies, from artificial intelligence and biotech to robotics and space tech, are transforming the world. A collaboration between the Hoover Institution, the Stanford School of Engineering, and Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, the report—based on leading research from Stanford scientists, engineers, and policy experts—serves as a one-stop primer into state-of-the-art innovations in these key domains, and what to watch for in the future. Each chapter of SETR provides an easy-to-understand explanation of a frontier technology’s foundational concepts, important recent advancements in the field, key developments to watch for in the next few years, and an overview of area-specific technical, policy, legal, and regulatory issues. Read more here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
“It is reasonable for a political movement to question the need for old institutions,” argues Senior Fellow Raghuram Rajan in an article at Time. But some institutions “are worth preserving,” Rajan says, and in his view “an independent Fed is one of them.” Rajan emphasizes that “the primary role of a modern central bank has shifted towards stabilizing the value of the domestic currency by keeping price increases, that is, inflation, at a low level: around 2% in the case of the Fed.” But since bringing down inflation usually requires the “painful” step of keeping “interest rates high so that consumers and firms borrow less and curtail their spending,” a political temptation exists “to let the economy run ‘hot’ and deal with rising inflation after the next election.” Rajan concludes that today, “it is in the best interest of all Americans that Trump let the Fed do its job” without political pressure or interference, so the US central bank can professionally manage monetary policy. Read more here.
State and Local Governance
As the nation grapples with troubling shootings and uses of force by federal law enforcement officials in Minnesota, Senior Fellow Ralph Richard Banks and coauthor Dan Sutton present in an op-ed at USAToday a new tool they have created to help citizens better understand the polices governing police uses of force across jurisdictions. Banks and Sutton note that police policies on using or threatening force vary widely across states and agencies and “are often buried in bureaucratic documents and hard to interpret.” The same action by an officer “can be a policy violation in one city and standard procedure in another.” That’s why Banks and Sutton “built the Use of Force Policy Explorer, an interactive database covering 22 policy features across the 100 largest cities” in the US. This tool, available to the public, empowers citizens to understand the policies governing police activity in their area. The piece concludes, “You can't hold agencies accountable to standards that communities don't understand.” Read more here.
International Affairs
In an article for The Free Press, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson argues that President Trump “won” the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by “completely dominat[ing] this vast bazaar of the powerful, the wealthy, the famous, and the self-important.” Ferguson argues that Trump’s threats of taking over Greenland by force or coercion were part of an effort “to wind up Europe’s elite” as well as that of Canada; and that the president never “seriously meant to annex Greenland or to impose new tariffs on the Europeans.” “On this occasion,” Ferguson writes, “Trump was bluffing,” but the historian also sees something else at play. “The reason Trump forced Greenland to be the No. 1 topic at Davos . . . was to keep European leaders from meddling in America’s Middle Eastern and Eastern European policy,” Ferguson says. Ferguson concludes that this “distraction” was calculated to keep the focus away from ongoing diplomatic and military developments in Iran and Ukraine. Read more here. [Subscription required.]
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