Talks from the Hoover Institution

International Women’s Day @ The Hoover Institution | Notes From The U.S. State Department

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

To celebrate International Women’s Day, please join us for a conversation with Katharine Beamer, Jendayi Frazer, Condoleezza Rice, and Kiron Skinner on March 8 from 3:00 - 4:30PM PT. Moderated by Jacquelyn Schneider, the group will discuss their experiences when working at the State Department and their roles in affecting change in America’s foreign policy through diplomacy and advocacy on the national and global stage. We celebrate the women who increasingly influence and shape the priorities, rules, and assessments of U.S. foreign policymaking.

Hoover Book Club: Tim Kane on The Immigrant Superpower

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.

A discussion with Tim Kane on his latest book, The Immigrant Superpower moderated by Bill Whalen on Tuesday, March 8 at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.

Historical Conversations: Russia vs. Ukraine

Friday, March 4, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

It should come as no surprise that history is at the heart of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladmir Putin in July of last year argued as much in his essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” But few if any Ukrainian or Western historians regard Putin’s argument as anything other than propaganda. Join us for a Historical Conversation with two distinguished scholars as we explore the end of the Cold War, NATO expansion, the rise of Vladmir Putin, and the events leading to today’s conflict.

---

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Mary Sarotte is the Kravis Distinguished Professor at Hopkins-SAIS, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a visiting faculty fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies. She is the author of Not One Inch, which uses new evidence and interviews to show how, in the decade that culminated in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the United States and Russia undermined a potentially lasting partnership.

Chris Miller is Assistant Professor of international history at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and co-director of the school's Russia and Eurasia Program. His upcoming book, Chip War, explores how Soviet shortcomings in microchip production helped usher the end of the Cold War. He is author of We Shall Be Masters: Russia's Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin (2021), Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia(2018) and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy (2016).

ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of sixteen books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. He is a renowned historian of finance, war, and international relations, having written The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization, and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize.

---

ABOUT THE PROGRAM
This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.

Antitrust & the Future of Big Tech

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

The Hoover Institution Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group invites you to a virtual discussion on Antitrust & the Future of Big Tech on Thursday, March 3, 2022 from 9:00 am - 10:00 am Pacific.

It’s no secret that the Biden administration and 117th Congress are targeting Big Tech. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are pursuing legislation that targets the market power amassed by companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Leaders at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division–key enforcement agencies–are also aligned against Big Tech; the FTC is actively prosecuting a lawsuit against Facebook for monopoly behavior. 

Joe Lonsdale, Managing Partner at 8VC and Co-Founder of Palantir, joins us virtually to discuss how antitrust law may impact high-tech firms’ size and sway. He recently proposed in a February 7, 2022 Wall Street Journal article that Amazon should be split into two businesses – AWS and Amazon.com – not because big is “bad,” but because Amazon’s ability to undercut its competitors with below-cost prices may stifle the scope and speed of innovation in areas like logistics. We hope you will join us to learn more about what antitrust advocates are getting right, what they are getting wrong, and the potential impact of breaking up Big Tech.

---

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joe Lonsdale is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He is the managing partner at 8VC, a US-based venture capital firm that manages several billion dollars in committed capital. He was an early institutional investor in many notable technology start-ups including Oculus (acq.FB), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Oscar (NYSE: OSCR), Illumio, Anduril, Wish (NASDAQ: WISH), JoyTunes, Blend (NASDAQ: BLND), Flexport, Joby Aviation (NASDAQ: JOBY), Cityblock, Orca Bio, Qualia, Synthego, RelateIQ (acq.CRM), and many others. Joe has been on the Forbes 100 Midas List since 2016 and was the youngest member included in 2016 and 2017, and ranked 18th in the world last year.

Before focusing on institutional investing, Joe co-founded Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) a global software company known for its work in defense and other industries, as well as for providing the platform to run the COVID-19 common operating picture for key decision makers in over 35 countries. After Palantir, he founded and remains as Chairman of both Addepar, which has over $3 trillion USD managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which provides software for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies. More recently, he is also a co-founder of Affinity, Epirus, Resilience Bio, and other mission-driven technology companies, which he continues to create with his team out of the 8VC Build program. Joe began his career as an early executive at Clarium Capital, which he helped grow into a large global macro hedge fund. He also worked with PayPal while he attended Stanford.

---

PARTICIPANTS

Bradley Body, Mark Brilliant, Tom Gilligan, Taylor McLamb, Max Meyer, Elena Pastorino, Meghana Reddy, Manny Rincon-Cruz, Marie-Christine Slakey, John Taylor, Amy Zegart

 

Freedom Isn’t Free: The Conflicts and Costs for World Order and National Interests

Freedom Isn’t Free takes an analytical look at political, economic, social and moral trade-offs in a world in flux. 

Wargame Design and Social Science

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

The Hoover Institution hosts Wargaming: Its History, Application, and Future Use on February 16, February 23, and March 16, 2022.

The February 23 session focuses on a discussion about wargame design and analysis and the role of social science and experimental research in wargame development.

The Hoover Institution invites you to join leading historians, political scientists, and national security decision-makers as they discuss the role that wargames that have played in international relations, how social science can help guide wargame design and analysis, and the future applications of wargames for policy problems and academic research. Based off the recently published article, "Wargaming for International Relations," the series is moderated by authors, Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Dr. Reid Pauly, Brown University, and Dr. Erik Lin-Greenberg, MIT.

Spies, Lies, And Algorithms: A Conversation With Amy Zegart And Condoleezza Rice

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

The Hoover Institution hosts Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: A Conversation with Amy Zegart and Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday, February 22 from 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. PT. 

Please join us for a conversation with Amy Zegart as part of her tour with her new book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. The conversation will be moderated by Director Condoleezza Rice with an introduction by Michael McFaul.

“Today we face a critical juncture for American spy agencies, as big as 9/11 — only most people don’t know it,” says Amy B. Zegart, one of the country’s leading experts on intelligence and a professor at Stanford University. “New dangers come from tech, not terrorists. Emerging technologies like AI and social media are weakening the strong and empowering the weak, fundamentally changing dynamics of international conflict. To be blunt: The U.S. is losing its intelligence advantage.”

To help us better understand these looming threats, Zegart has written Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence (Princeton University Press; February 1, 2022). It’s the first comprehensive book on the past, present, and future of American intelligence—and outlines what’s urgently needed to protect our nation today. The book draws on over thirty years of research (including new research just for this book) and hundreds of interviews with current and former intelligence officials. 

Weak intelligence makes us more vulnerable to attacks on our power grids, water supply, elections, corporate network servers, and nuclear weapons. Helping the American public better understand these evolving threats is crucial.

---

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management. The author of five books, Zegart’s award-winning research includes the leading academic study of intelligence failures before 9/11 — Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton 2007). Her forthcoming book, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms (Princeton 2022) examines technological challenges to American intelligence. Zegart’s research has been published in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She has served on the NSC staff, advised senior officials about intelligence and foreign policy, and most recently served as a commissioner on the 2020 CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force. She received an A.B. in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.

Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and its Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is also a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice currently serves on the board of online-storage technology company Dropbox, energy software company C3, and Makena Capital, a private endowment firm; and is a member of the boards of the George W. Bush Institute, the Commonwealth Club, the Aspen Institute, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Previously, Rice served on various additional boards, including those of KiOR Inc., the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the Transamerica Corporation, the Hewlett-Packard Company, the University of Notre Dame, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. From 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as assistant to the president for National Security Affairs for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold this position.

Michael A. McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He also currently works as a news analyst for NBC.  His areas of expertise include international relations, Russian politics, comparative democratization, and American foreign policy.  From January 2012 to February 2014, he served as the US ambassador to the Russian Federation.  Before becoming ambassador, he served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council. 

A Discussion On Russia And Ukraine

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Peter Meijer in conversation with Michael McFaul on Thursday, February 17, 2022 at 1:00 PM ET.

---

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Peter Meijer represents Michigan’s Third Congressional District. He served in the Army Reserves and was deployed to Iraq as a non-commissioned officer conducting intelligence operations to protect American and allied forces. In Congress, Meijer serves on the Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, and Space, Science & Technology Committees.

Michael A. McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From January 2012 to February 2014, he served as the US ambassador to the Russian Federation.  Before that, he served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council.

Talking About Trade: Prospects And Challenges In U.S.-Taiwan Economic Ties

Monday, February 7, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

The Hoover Institution hosts Talking about Trade: Prospects and Challenges in U.S.-Taiwan Economic Ties on Monday, February 7, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. PT.

U.S.-Taiwan economic ties are at a crossroads. In 2020, President Tsai Ing-wen lifted a ban on U.S. pork imports containing the feed additive ractopamine, removing a long-standing irritant in trade relations with the United States. Last summer, the Biden administration held bilateral talks with their Taiwan counterparts under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) for the first time since 2016. In more recent months, the two sides have begun additional discussions about strengthening the resilience of global supply chains, including the supply of one of Taiwan’s most strategically important exports: semiconductors. In this discussion, Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society will comment on these developments and the prospects for deepening U.S.-Taiwan economic relations in a moderated conversation with Hoover Research Fellow Kharis Templeman.

Hoover Book Club: Amy B. Zegart On ”Spies, Lies, And Algorithms”

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.

A discussion with Amy B. Zegart on her latest book, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms moderated by Bill Whalen on Tuesday, February 1st at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.