Today, Nadia Schadlow argues that today’s conflict with Iran illustrates the limits of an excessive reliance on multilateral institutions in resolving international disputes; Russ Roberts shares his reflections on life in Israel during wartime; and Morris Fiorina explains the implications of continued political sorting for America’s electoral future.
Freedom Frequency
Leaders at the Munich Security Conference warned that the post–Cold War international order is being demolished—but what if that order deserves to be called “failed”? At Freedom Frequency, National Security Visiting Fellow Nadia Schadlow measures the record of multilateral institutions and finds it wanting. Carbon reduction goals? Unmet. Campaigns against AIDS and poverty and in support of human rights? Unfulfilled. And even now, she writes, in a particularly acute case of failed talks and sanctions, Iran’s refusal to scrap its nuclear ambitions has collapsed into war. What Schadlow calls the “deep dysfunction of current global frameworks” suggests that the limits to a global-first approach have been reached. Schadlow says a state-centered strategy is a more promising way to reach durable outcomes, because states alone “possess the political authority, citizen accountability, and implementation capacity to act.” Read more here.
The Middle East
Writing at his Substack, Visiting Fellow Russ Roberts shares a deeply personal reflection on what life has been like in Israel during the current conflict with Iran, known there as the Second Iran War. “Eventually we will know the consequences of this war and of killing Khamenei,” writes Roberts. “But it may take a very long time to have a good idea of what has been set in motion this week. Yes, it will remake the Middle East as people are claiming. But whether it remakes it the way they desire remains uncertain.” Roberts shares his experience of repeatedly seeking refuge in bomb shelters, day after day and night after night, and notes the toll this takes on civilians in Israel. Yet he closes by noting “the Iranians have a much harder road to travel, a road my trips to the bomb shelter can barely help me imagine. Every night, the booms there are non-stop.” Roberts expresses hope that Iran will soon have a leader “who cares more about the flourishing of [Iran’s] people than building a ring of fire around Israel.” Read more here.
Politics, Institutions, and Public Opinion
Americans believe their country is sharply polarized, says Senior Fellow Morris Fiorina in a Q&A published in Defining Ideas, but that’s more an artifact of party sorting than it is a change in the great middle of US political beliefs. Moderates are still the plurality of the electorate, he stresses, but what has shifted is the two parties’ intolerance of variety in their ranks. Each party then aims for total domination when in power, he says, even though such ideological extremism alienates voters and leads to the party’s undoing: hence the “unstable” in the title of his new book, Unstable Majorities Continue: The Trump Era. He also looks ahead to coming elections and points out why Democrats might be unable to take advantage of the GOP’s problems unless Democratic elites “get back somewhere near the center of the country.” Read more here.
Hoover Institution News
Twenty mid-to senior-level congressional staff from both major political parties, both chambers of Congress, and relevant committees attended two days of intensive biotechnology discussions at Stanford University. Bio-Strategies and Leadership (BSL) at the Hoover Institution hosted its second “bio boot camp” (formally known as the Congressional Leadership Accelerator for Biotechnology, or C-LAB) February 19–20, 2026. Participants represented more than a dozen member offices as well as the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Read more here.
Technology, Economics, and Governance
Writing at the Free Systems Substack, Senior Fellow Andrew B. Hall and coauthor Branden Bohrnsen examine the design characteristics within games marketed for children on the popular Roblox platform that resemble regulated gambling activity. “The question is no longer just whether the platform hosts manipulative games,” the authors write. “It is whether one of the core economic systems through which children experience Roblox is, in legal terms, edging into gambling.” Hall and Bohrnsen report findings from their exploration of 30 Roblox games, noting the recurrence of “the same underlying architecture” across most games. “The central finding of our research is simple: gambling-like mechanics aren’t scattered randomly across Roblox’s trending charts,” the authors write. “They’re concentrated, they cluster together, and they’ve intensified sharply in games published after Roblox overhauled its Creator Rewards system in 2025.” Read more here.
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