Abbas Milani, a research fellow and codirector of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution, discusses ISIS, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the future of the Middle East. Successive US administrations have declared Iran to be one of America’s most serious national security threats. Yet the last four wars the US has fought in the region — in Afghanistan, in the two wars in Iraq and in the current war with ISIS—have resulted in either removing or containing Iran’s powerful adversaries. In...

Hoover research fellow Stephen Kotkin discusses Conquest’s revelatory work on life behind the Iron Curtain, and notes that Conquest definitively established the colossal scale of Soviet horrors, correctly identified their source in Marxist ideas and practices, and underscored the legions of Western dupes who retailed Soviet lies, from when Stalin was alive and decades thereafter.

Poet Sam Gwynn presented a talk Conquest’s literary achievements and his relationships with well-known writers such as Kingsley Amis. Among his considerable gifts, Bob was a superb conversationalist. He had a great sense of humor and he loved to laugh: the look of playful delight that animated his face as he nailed a punch line is impossible to forget.

Journalist John O’Sullivan investigates Conquest’s influence on Margaret Thatcher’s administration. Firm of conviction and excellently informed, he provided countless politicians including Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher with guidance about the roots of the USSR's policies around the world.

Hoover Institution fellow and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz illuminates Conquest’s far-reaching influence on Ronald Reagan’s administration. Robert Conquest set the gold standard for careful research, total integrity, and clarity of expression about the real Soviet Union. He provided guidance about the roots of the USSR's policies around the world.

Hoover Institution fellow and former United States Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, shares his thoughts on current US-Russian relations. As there was after Mr. Putin’s action in Ukraine last year, there has been a chorus of commentary on his supposed strategic genius. He is acting decisively, seizing the initiative and creating facts on the ground — so the narrative goes, in contrast with the West’s feckless pursuits in Syria. The opposite is true. Five years ago, Russia was in a much...

Hoover working group member and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Benjamin Wittes, along with author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, take a look at her book, the New York Times best-seller Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield. Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army...

Recorded on October 20, 2015 – Hoover Institution fellow Amy Zegart notes that during the past two years Hoover has conducted a cyber boot camp for senior congressional staff that has already paid dividends in legislation on Capitol Hill. Zegart notes that cyber threats are everywhere and that we need to know about them. The threat environment the United States confronts today is unprecedented. During the Cold War we faced the grave prospect of nuclear Armageddon. But in terms of the threat...

Recorded on October 19, 2015 – Hoover Institution fellow Gary Roughead discusses China’s importance and the strategic competition in the next 100 years between the United States and China. The last transfer of strategic power, between Great Britain and the United States was relatively seamless. We came from similar foundations, similar legal structures, similar ideas on trade, and so on. That is not the case with China, where demography is a problem, meaning, we need to look at the playing...

Recorded on October 19, 2015 - Hoover Institution fellow Michael McConnell discusses the US Supreme Court, noting that the New York Times refers to the past term as the most liberal term since the Warren Court in the 1960s. During the past term, the justice most often voting with the majority decision was Stephen Breyer; number two was Sonia Sotomayor. It was also a divisive term. Will that be a blip or the new normal for the Court? It is hard to tell because the Supreme Court does not hear...

Recorded on October 19, 2015 – Hoover Institution fellow Kori Schake discusses the importance of defense spending, noting that we have bigger problems than defense spending and are not likely to solve those problems until we can agree on entitlement spending. Such an agreement will make it possible to get the resources for more defense spending. The United States enjoys a wide margin of error in defense policy, but we are playing a strong hand weakly. Geoffrey Blainey wrote that wars are...

In 'The Heroic Heart', Tod Lindberg traces the quality of heroic greatness from its origin in prehistory to the present day. The designation of “hero” once conjured mainly the prowess of conquerors and kings acting out of boundless personal ambition. Heroes in the modern world come in many varieties, from teachers and mentors to firefighters and warriors; but the modern heroic heart acts to serve others and save others.

The Hoover Institution’s David Brady and Douglas Rivers look at the results of new polling to examine where Donald Trump’s support comes from and explain the ramifications for the broader GOP presidential field.

Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses the 2016 presidential race and believes it will be the most interesting, controversial contest of our lives. The key will be to what degree Obama’s charisma is transferrable. In 2008, after his stunning victory, some people said that Obama was the new face of America. Hanson notes that the Republican candidates are more representative of the new face than the Democrats. Each party has its burdens; for the Republicans it is Donald Trump....

Hoover Institution fellow Kori Schake discusses the rise of China and what that means for the United States. A rising China can be a responsible stakeholder if it rises on our terms and upholds our rules of order. That kind of China displacing would suit US interests. But Schake’s research shows that hegemonic control of the international order results in the country in control remaking the international order as a microcosm of its own domestic and political structures. China is therefore...

Hoover Institution fellow Bill Whalen gave bullish forecast last year concerning Republican fortunes that turned out to be remarkably accurate. Whalen notes that the Republican presidential race of seventeen candidates it is not quite a crowd. Seventeen Republicans are running for president in a diverse field, but the Democratic field is old, white, and looks like a North Eastern Amtrak schedule. Both parties have one woman running for president, but the Republicans have many minority...

Retired Navy Admiral and former INPO head James Ellis introduces a Hoover Institution Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy series exploring how innovation in civilian nuclear power technology and business cases might play a role in the rapidly changing United States energy system

Former Secretary of State George Shultz and retired Navy Admiral James Ellis in a conversation about small modular nuclear reactors: why people are interested again today and how they might measure up to the rest of the American energy landscape in terms of security, economics, and the environment.

William Madia and Regis Matzie discuss small modular reactors (SMRs), technology that has the potential to revolutionize the production of nuclear energy in the United States.

Stephen D. Krasner, chair of Hoover’s Working Group on Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy, examines the economic and security challenges to America’s continuing global preeminence.

Abraham D. Sofaer, the Hoover Institution’s George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, explains how international cooperation is possible in specialized institutions that abjure political controversies.

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution whose focus is classics and military history. Hanson notes that it should be a good time for Republicans because Barak Obama has essentially destroyed the Democratic Party. State legislators are more than 70 percent Republican; governors are more than 60 percent Republican. But challenges remain for the Republicans because President Obama has moved the goal posts far to the left, and the national debt...

Abbas Milani, a research fellow and codirector of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution, discusses ISIS, terrorism, and the Middle East. Milani is not optimistic about the future of the Middle East, saying he has never seen so much turmoil. The social and cultural systems and boundaries that were implemented after World War I are now coming apart. Seven to ten countries in the Middle East are failed states; then you have nonstate actors such as ISIS. The sand is shifting in the...

Victor Davis Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Hoover, presents a brief history and geography of California before launching into his talk about California droughts. Hanson notes that people in California live in places where there is no precipitation and that droughts are not unusual. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California droughts are both age-old and common. What is new is that the state has never had 40 million residents during a...

Michael McFaul, the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science at Stanford, and director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, discusses Putin and his worldview, and how to contain him. McFaul discourses on what led to the precarious situation of US-Russia relations and how to change the trajectory of the relationship.