Today, the GoodFellows examine the aftermath of America’s powerful yet precise strikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons program; the Hoover Institution announces the launch of the Technology Policy Accelerator, a bold initiative to share Hoover’s unique expertise in tech innovation with policymakers and business leaders; and Larry Diamond reviews the status of democracy in Asia, finding reasons to remain hopeful about future pro-freedom developments even as authoritarian powers and political corruption remain significant challenges in the region.
Determining America’s Role in the World
Last week US forces launched bomb and missile strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. These were soon followed by an Iran-Israel ceasefire and the beginning of what could be a diplomatic realignment across the Middle East. In their latest GoodFellows conversation, Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster discuss the collateral impacts of the Trump administration’s move against the Iranian regime. The fallout includes: a possible expansion of Abraham Accords participants as the Gulf States help Iran pursue a more peaceful nuclear program; NATO members willing to invest more in military readiness; and the media second-guessing the effectiveness and wisdom of the B2 sorties. The panelists also consider what message Trump’s use of military might—as opposed to revolving-door diplomacy—sends to the world’s mischief-making capitals of Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang. Watch here.
Technology Policy Accelerator
On June 16, the Hoover Institution officially launched the Technology Policy Accelerator (TPA), a bold new initiative aimed at helping US government and business leaders navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of emerging technologies and their implications for national security, economic growth, and global leadership. The TPA’s mission is to support more informed policymaking by producing insights that clarify how emerging technologies are reshaping geopolitics, society, and the economy. It operates as a collaborative hub—connecting Silicon Valley and Washington, academia and industry, and science and strategy—to foster dialogue and advance understanding across sectors. Speaking at the launch event on Stanford’s campus, Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice emphasized why Stanford is singularly suited for this initiative. She noted that Stanford’s location in Silicon Valley, “the hub of innovation in the country and in the world,” provides Hoover the “unique ability to bring together the scientific community, the private sector, and the public sector to address the most pressing technological challenges and opportunities of our time.” Learn more here.
International Affairs
“Democracy in Asia is down but not out,” argues Senior Fellow Larry Diamond in a column for the East Asia Forum. “It faces challenges even where it is relatively liberal and strong. In most countries, it is weak, contested, retreating or non-existent.” Across the region, authoritarianism has a strong presence in nations including North Korea, China, Vietnam, and Laos, and compromised institutions of constitutionalism and political freedom plague burgeoning democracies. “The hopeful news,” according to Diamond, “is that ideas of popular sovereignty and accountability, according to the Asian Barometer Survey, enjoy substantial support outside the entrenched one-party states where it is methodologically difficult to measure.” Diamond, a longtime scholar of democratic movements, closes by reminding readers that autocratic rule can appear stable “for a long time,” until it suddenly becomes clear that it’s not. Diamond stresses that the possibility of “wild cards,” like the “2024 youth revolution in Bangladesh,” should not be overlooked. Read more here.
Writing for his weekly column at RealClearPolitics, Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz clarifies five points of widespread confusion regarding Iran and Israel. First up, Berkowitz argues that “Israel’s military operation did not involve an illegal ‘preventive war,’ but rather constitutes a legal act of self-defense in response to Tehran’s decades-long effort to eliminate the Jewish state.” After noting that the “vast majority” of the “approximately 1,000 ballistic missiles” Iran has fired at Israel constitute war crimes, since they deliberately target noncombatants, the former senior State Department official and law professor says that “President Trump did have constitutional authority to strike Iran.” Berkowitz points out that preventing regional nuclear proliferation among Iranian rivals in the Persian Gulf “protects American security and prosperity.” He concludes that the strikes were lawful and justified by the existential threat Iran’s nuclear program posed to the state of Israel, as well as American forces and interests in the Middle East. Read more here.
Military History
Hoover Veteran Fellow Dr. Jeremy Cannon offers an account of the evolution of battlefield medicine across military history, from the ancient world to the Global War on Terror. Throughout, Cannon advances his view that with the cessation of most combat operations worldwide, American military medicine “now stands in critical disrepair, having gradually slid into obsolescence over the past decade.” Cannon presents an argument he shared with the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year: “The United States must treat battlefield medical care not as an afterthought but as a foundational strategic priority.” Drawing a contrast with the historical challenge of managing disease, nutrition, and environmental conditions to prevent death in military campaigns, Cannon shows that “outmaneuvering death now centers principally on both injury prevention and expert trauma management from the point of injury to definitive care.” Cannon intersperses his own analysis with military history insights from Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson. Read more here.
US History and Immigration
A new article in the Journal of Early American History by Research Fellow Cody Nager examines immigration policy challenges in the early American republic. As Nager notes in his abstract, the growing borders of early America encompassed numerous tenuously affiliated migrants, who did not move but found themselves inside expanding national borders. These migrants presented a legal conundrum. Were they subject to the standard naturalization process, or were they considered citizens due to the treaties incorporating the territory on which they resided? Debates originated with the 1794 Jay Treaty and reached their zenith with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. The diversity of Louisiana proved an impediment to immediate naturalization until the War of 1812 marked the incorporation of the territory into the United States. Read more here.
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