Today, Gen. Jim Mattis and author Ryan Holiday speak about Stoicism, polarization, change, and confronting uncertainty during a live taping of The Firing Line with Margaret Hoover. Zohar Palti tells Peter Robinson how the October 7 attacks changed Israel’s thinking about war, deterrence, and survival. And Paola Sapienza draws attention to a new proposal from the Department of Homeland Security that she says would drive talented STEM graduates to conduct their research outside the United States.
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Confronted with internal polarization, discontent, a rapidly changing economy, and turmoil in the Middle East, Americans should consider the appeal of Stoicism, according to Gen. Jim Mattis and Ryan Holiday, author and host of the Daily Stoic podcast. Their discussion was part of the Hoover Institution’s lecture series Ideas that Made U.S.: Dialogues on Freedom, with this session focusing on “the responsibilities of American leadership.” The conversation was moderated by Margaret Hoover, an Institution overseer, during a live taping of her PBS show Firing Line in Hauck Auditorium on March 18, 2026. Hoover said writer and podcast host Holiday and former Defense Secretary Mattis appear to have little in common until their shared admiration of the Stoics is examined. “The two of you to the uninitiated may seem like an odd couple in terms of your pairing, but the truth is that you have found one another in a shared passion for Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that emphasizes key virtues, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom, in pursuit of the better life,” Hoover said. Read more here.
Israel
On the latest episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson is joined by Zohar Palti— distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and former head of the Intelligence Directorate in Israel’s Mossad—for a rare, inside account of how Israel thinks about war, deterrence, and survival. From the shock of October 7 to the current campaign against Iran, Palti explains why Israel sees both nuclear capability and ballistic missiles as existential threats—and why waiting is not an option. The conversation explores the logic of preemptive war, the limits of intelligence when it comes to predicting regime change, and the realities of fighting a modern conflict—from missile defense and drone warfare to the vulnerability of global energy routes. Palti also reflects on Israel’s internal challenges, the resilience of its people under constant attack, and the enduring partnership with the United States. Read more here.
Why would a group of young Jews who escaped the Holocaust choose to parachute back into Nazi-occupied Europe? How did they become heroes despite the failure of that mission? Author Matti Friedman joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to unravel these mysteries through his book Out of the Sky, revealing why a failed mission became one of Israel's most powerful founding myths. At the heart of the story is Hannah Senesh, a 23-year-old Hungarian poet who traded her Budapest life for a kibbutz, then traded the kibbutz for a parachute and a near-certain death sentence—and whose poems, scribbled on scraps of paper in forests near the Hungarian border, became some of the most famous texts in modern Hebrew. Watch or listen to the episode here.
Immigration
A Department of Homeland Security proposal to cap international student visas—and limit the amount of time students can study here—is due for a decision soon. Although launched as a way to help American students, it addresses a nonexistent problem, says Hoover Senior Fellow Paola Sapienza. It would do virtually nothing to widen undergraduate access for American applicants, she says, but would create harm at the graduate level, where great numbers of international students study in the United States. If the limits pass, America would lose the benefit of hosting and keeping many of the motivated, highly trained foreigners who could choose to take their careers elsewhere. This loss would be particularly acute in math, science, and other STEM fields, she says, and would hit hard as the US tech industry competes with the world to reap the gains expected in artificial intelligence. Read more here.
Artificial Intelligence
Writing in The Times (UK), Distinguished Visiting Fellow Rishi Sunak argues that the way we tax labor must change as AI comes to replace whole swaths of the workforce. He contrasts how when a business hires an employee in the US or the UK, they must immediately start paying payroll taxes on behalf of that employee, raising their net input costs beyond that of the employee’s actual wages. Meanwhile, purchases of capital such as a new piece of AI-enabled software, which may be able to replace the labor of an employee, can often be tax-deductible through depreciation, capital cost allowance, and other measures. “Given the existential risk to the social contract posed by an AI-induced spike in structural unemployment, the government should be looking to rebalance the tax system: reducing, and ideally eventually removing, taxes on employment and raising that revenue elsewhere,” Sunak writes. Read more here.
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