Talks from the Hoover Institution

A Conversation With Senator Rick Scott

Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Senator Rick Scott in conversation with Niall Ferguson on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 12:00 PM ET.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Niall Ferguson MA, D.Phil., is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior fellow of the Center for European Studies, Harvard, where he served for twelve years as the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. His next book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, will be released on May 4, 2021.

Rick Scott was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 and is currently serving his first term representing the state of Florida. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Rick Scott served two terms as the 45th Governor of Florida, working every day to turn around Florida’s economy and secure the state’s future as the best place for families and businesses to succeed.

For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations 

The United States, China, And Taiwan—A Strategy To Prevent War

Thursday, April 15, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

The Hoover Institution hosts The United States, China, and Taiwan—A Strategy to Prevent War on Thursday, April 15 from 9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. PT.

On behalf of its projects on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to The United States, China, and Taiwan—A Strategy to Prevent War.

Robert Blackwill and Philip Zelikow introduce their recent report on the growing danger of war between China and the United States over Taiwan and propose a new US strategy to prevent it. Following their presentation, Hoover Institution fellows General James Mattis (ret.) and Admiral James Ellis (ret.) will offer remarks. The program will conclude with audience questions.

Featuring Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, and Philip D. Zelikow, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance, Miller Center, University of Virginia.

Followed by remarks from Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. (ret), Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, and General James Mattis (ret), Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution. Moderated by Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Robert D. Blackwill is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Diller–von Furstenberg Family Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His current work focuses on US foreign policy writ large as well as on China, Russia, the Middle East, South Asia, and geoeconomics. As deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, Blackwill was responsible for governmentwide policy planning to help develop and coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of US foreign policy. He also served as presidential envoy to Iraq. Blackwill went to the National Security Council after serving as the US ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003. He is the recipient of the 2007 Bridge-Builder Award for his role in transforming US-India relations. In 2016 he became the first US ambassador to India since John Kenneth Galbraith to receive the Padma Bhushan Award from the government of India for distinguished service of a high order.

Philip Zelikow is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center, both University of Virginia, where he has also served as dean of the graduate school and director of the Miller Center. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history. He was a trial and appellate lawyer and then a career diplomat before taking academic positions at Harvard, then Virginia. Before and during his academic career, he has served at all levels of American government. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon. His last full-time government position was as counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Zelikow is one of the few individuals ever to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board under presidents of both major parties, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has also been a member of the Defense Policy Board for Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and a member of the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2020, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

James O. Ellis Jr. is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, focusing on energy and national security policies. In 2004, Admiral Ellis completed his 39-year US Navy career as commander of US Strategic Command. His service included carrier-based tours with three fighter squadrons and command of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. He has two graduate engineering degrees, is a graduate of the Navy Nuclear Power Training Program, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. From 2005 to 2012, he led the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, during the Fukushima response.

General James Mattis, US Marine Corps (ret.), is the Hoover Institution's Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, after having served as the nation’s 26th Secretary of Defense. He served for over 40 years in the US Marine Corps as an infantry officer, plus duty in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as NATO supreme allied commander, and as commander of US Central Command, directing 250,000 US and allied troops in combat across the Middle East and South Asia.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He chairs the Hoover Institution's projects on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. He has authored or edited more than fifty books on democracy, including his recent Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency. During 2017–18, he cochaired, with Orville Schell, a Hoover Institution–Asia Society working group, which produced the report China’s Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance.

State Of Education: One Year Into COVID

Thursday, April 15, 2021
Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Senior Chancellor Eric Hall and Education Commissioner Michael Johnson in conversation with Caroline Hoxby on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 2:00 PM ET.

For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations

Grain, Globalization, and Gallipoli

Monday, March 15, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Globalization dominates our world today--yet its strategic implications are rarely considered.  What happens when a globalized economic system receives a shock not from an economic or epidemiological event, but from a war, when actors are deliberately attempting to exacerbate the derangement?  This talk explores efforts by the British government to ensure food security, especially the critically important supply of grain, first in the pre-1914 globalized economy and then after the outbreak of World War I.  The history of these efforts may help us to think through the scale and scope of possible international conflict in the 21st century. 

Nick Lambert was educated at the University of Oxford in economics and in history.  He subsequently held fellowships at Yale, Oxford, and Australian National University.  Between 2016 and 2018, he was the “Class of 1957 Chair in Naval History and Heritage” at the United States Naval Academy.  His major publications include Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (1999) and Planning Armageddon (2012).  His most recent book, The War Lords and the Gallipoli Disaster (2021), was published last month by Oxford University Press. 

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.

China's Battle For Global Public Opinion

The Hoover Institution hosts China's Battle for Global Public Opinion on Tuesday, April 13 from 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. PT.

The Chinese Communist Party's efforts to shape global narratives go beyond just “telling China’s story.” They also include coercive and covert tactics that may undermine democratic norms, violate local laws, and weaken independent media. Ms. Cook will unpack the challenges that Xi Jinping’s self-described campaign to win the public opinion “battlefield” poses to media freedom worldwide, address how governments, tech firms, and civil society organizations are responding, and offer recommendations for effectively enhancing those initiatives.

Featuring Ms. Sarah Cook, Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Freedom House. Followed by conversation with Dr. Glenn Tiffert, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Sarah Cook is Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House, an NGO focused on political rights and civil liberties. She directs the China Media Bulletin, a monthly digest in English and Chinese providing news and analysis on media freedom developments related to China. Ms. Cook is the author of several Asian country reports for Freedom House’s annual publications, as well as four special reports about China, including: Beijing's Global Megaphone (2020), and The Battle for China’s Spirit (2017). She has twice served as an NGO delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva. In 2021, she published a report on China’s Global Media Footprint with the National Endowment for Democracy.

Dr. Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he manages its project on China’s Global Sharp Power. A historian of modern China, Dr. Tiffert works closely with government and civil society partners in the United States and elsewhere around the world to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions, particularly in the knowledge sector.

America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign policy, Robert B. Zoellick identifies five traditions that have emerged from America's encounters with the world: the importance of North America; the special roles trading, transnational, and technological relations play in defining ties with others; changing attitudes toward alliances and ways of ordering connections among states; the need for public support, especially through Congress; and the belief that American policy should serve a larger purpose. These traditions frame a closing review of post-Cold War presidencies, which Zoellick foresees serving as guideposts for the future.

Robert B. Zoellick is Senior Counselor at Brunswick Geopolitical, an advisory service of Brunswick Group, and a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center. In addition, Zoellick serves on the boards of Temasek and Twitter, chairs the International Advisory Council of Standard Chartered Bank, and is on the Advisory Board of Swiss Re. Zoellick was the President of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006. From 1985 to 1993, Zoellick served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and Under Secretary of State, as well as White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

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.

Executive Power Under The U.S. Constitution

Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Senator Mike Lee in conversation with Michael McConnell on Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 3:00 PM ET.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Senator Mike Lee was elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator. He has spent his career defending the basic liberties of all Americans and advocating for our founding constitutional principles.

Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early in life while watching his father, Rex Lee, serve as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique understanding of government up close.

Lee graduated from Brigham Young University Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. 

Michael McConnell is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and the director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.  

During his many years of government service, McConnell served as a circuit judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and as an assistant to Solicitor General Rex Lee at the Department of Justice.

Over his career he has argued fifteen cases in the U.S Supreme Court. His teaching focuses on constitutional law, constitutional history, the First Amendment, and interpretive theory. His most recent book is The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution published in November 2020; his next book will be released in 2021 the Establishment of Religion: Neutrality, Accommodation, and Separation.  

For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations 

Cyberspace and Strategy: Deterrence, Escalation, and the New Administration

Friday, March 26, 2021

The Hoover Institution hosts A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, March 19, and March 26, 2020.

The March 26 session focuses on how deterrence and escalation factor into US cyber strategy and have shaped the evolution of US cyber strategy with a concluding look to the future and cyber strategy under the Biden Administration.

This series of discussions will look at the evolution of US cyber strategy over the last decade. Join scholars and defense cyber leaders as they discuss chapters from the recently published book, Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace, all with an eye towards the future of US cyber strategy.

The series features authors from the volume, including both academics and Department of Defense cyber leaders, as well as Hoover experts that discuss the history of cyber strategy, cyber warfare, cyberspace talent, and public-private innovation in cyberspace and will be moderated by Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution.

For more information visit https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series 

U.S. Foreign Policy Strategy in the Indo-Pacific

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Bill Hagerty and Peter Berkowitz discuss U.S. Foreign Policy Strategy in the Indo-Pacific on Wednesday, March 24 at 3:30 PM Eastern.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Senator Bill Hagerty was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020, serving his first term representing Tennessee. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Bill served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. A life-long businessman he started his career with Boston Consulting Group, and later became a private equity investor. In 2011- 2014 he served as a member of the Governor’s Cabinet and commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.

 

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior. From 2019-2021, he served as Director of State Department Policy Planning Staff in the office of the Secretary. His research and writing have focused on, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in the United States, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.

 

For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations 

Office Hours: Macke Raymond Talks "Summer Slide" and the Learning Losses from Covid-19

Hoover Institution distinguished research fellow Macke Raymond answers the most frequently asked questions from her video "An Endless Summer: How COVID Has Reversed Academic Achievement."

 

1. (0:38) How do you measure learning loss?

2. (2:44) Do you have a best guess as to how much learning loss will have occurred by next fall for the average student? What will the distribution of learning loss look like?

3. (4:36) What would new approaches to classroom-based instruction look like? Who is preventing new approaches from being adopted?

4. (7:02) Estimates of learning loss come from standardized tests, but many people are skeptical of their ability to accurately measure learning gains. Are there other kinds of assessments that are helpful?

5. (10:33) How long do you think it will take to get education and academic achievement back on track once schools safely re-open?

6. (12:14) The news is full of stories of districts that are facing challenges getting schools up and running. What are the options for families in those situations?

 

Watch the original video here.