Talks from the Hoover Institution

Cyberspace and Public-Private Innovation

Friday, March 19, 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, and March 19, 2020.

The March 19 session focuses on the role of public-private partnerships and innovation in defense cyber strategy.

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 

Defending Media Freedom In Taiwan

Thursday, March 18, 2021

The Hoover Institution hosts Defending Media Freedom in Taiwan on Thursday, March 18, 2021 from 4:30 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. PDT.

In December 2020, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission voted to deny a broadcast license to CTiTV, a pro-China news channel that had been highly critical of the Taiwanese government and ruling party, the DPP. This decision marks the first time a TV channel has been forced off the air for violation of the terms of its license since Taiwan became a democracy. CTiTV is part of the Want Want China Times group, a media conglomerate owned and run by the pro-unification snack foods magnate Tsai Eng-meng, and it has been accused of coordinating its reporting with the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing. However, until being forced off the air, it was also a popular source of news among supporters of the opposition KMT and an important voice in Taiwan’s diverse and critical TV landscape.

In this moderated discussion, three panelists from Taiwan consider the complex issues this decision raises and debate when -- and if -- it is ever appropriate for government to regulate media content and limit access to the broadcast spectrum in a liberal democracy.

Click the following link for more information about the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region

https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/hoover-institution-project-taiwan-indo-pacific-region

The Syrian Requiem: The Civil War And Its Aftermath

The Hoover Institution’s Working Group on the Middle East and the Islamic World held a discussion on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 from 8:30-9:30am PST with Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and Dr Carmit Valensi, Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

The crisis in Syria has festered for ten years now. The addition of Russian and Iranian support in 2016 has kept the Asad regime in power but has never been enough to win the country. As the impasse lingers, instability locally and internationally is exacerbated, and another humanitarian catastrophe may be around the corner. Both the Obama and Trump administrations, reluctant to be drawn into yet another military conflict in the Middle East, were hard put to formulate an effective policy in Syria. The Biden administration must now confront the challenge of coming up with an effective strategy.

Followed by conversation with Russell Berman, Senior Fellow, Co-Chair of Working Group on the Middle East and Islamic World and H.R. McMaster, the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Russell A. Berman is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, professor of German studies and comparative literature, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and cochair of its Working Group on the Middle East and the Islamic World. He served as senior advisor in policy planning at the Department of State and has written widely on topics concerning Germany, transatlantic relations, and Islamism. His books include Freedom or Terror: Europe Faces Jihad and Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem.

H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.  He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.

Itamar Rabinovich is Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University, Vice Chair of the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and Distinguished non-resident Foreign Policy Fellow at Brookings Institution. He was Israel’s ambassador in Washington, chief negotiator with Syria and President of Tel Aviv University. He is the author among other books of Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, The View from Damascus: State, Political Community and Foreign Relations in Twentieth-Century Syria and Israel Facing a New Middle East: In Search of a National Security Strategy.

Dr. Carmit Valensi, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), the director of Syria research program and editor of "Strategic Assessment" specializes in contemporary Middle East, strategic studies, military concepts, and terrorism. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on "hybrid actors" such as Hamas, Hizbollah, and FARC. She holds a B.A. in Middle East history and political science, and an M.A. in diplomacy studies from Tel Aviv University. In 2010-2011 she was a research fellow within the Fox Fellowship program in regional and international studies at Yale University.

Cyberspace and Talent

Cyberspace and Talent

 

Friday, March 12, 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, and March 19, 2020.

The March 12 session focuses on how cyber strategy can be used to recruit, retain, and best employ cybersecurity talent for the Department of Defense.

PANELISTS
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider | Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Raj Shah | Shield Capital; Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Dr. Chaitra Hardison | RAND Behavioral Scientist

Tim Booher | HSBC Bank’s Global Chief Technology Officer for Cybersecurity For more information visit

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

Reflections on U.S.-China Relations

Reflections on U.S.-China Relations

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

The Hoover Institution hosts Reflections on U.S.-China Relations on Wednesday, March 10 from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. PST.

A discussion about the great-power competition between the United States and China, the rising risks for Western businesses in China, and the strategic pitfalls the West must avoid. 

After his remarks, Matt Pottinger will join Hoover Institution Fellows Elizabeth Economy and H.R. McMaster in conversation.

Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Matt served at the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as deputy national security advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, Matt coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. Before that he served as senior director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific region, and in particular its shift on China policy.

Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2020, she was awarded the Richard C. Holbrooke Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. An expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Economy is the author of several books, most recently The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018).

H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michele Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and was the twenty-sixth assistant to the president for national security affairs. He served as a commissioned officer in the US Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a lieutenant general in June 2018. He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (2020).

International Women's Day @ The Hoover Institution | A Focus On Women In National Security

International Women's Day @ The Hoover Institution | A Focus On Women In National Security

 

Monday, March 8, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

To celebrate International Women’s Day, the Director of the Hoover Institution and the 66th Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, hosted a conversation with four of our leading female national security and foreign policy scholars: Elizabeth Economy, Rose Gottemoeller, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Amy Zegart on March 8 from 2:15 - 3:30PM PT.

Each of these esteemed Hoover Fellows is releasing a book this year addressing the vital issues of our day. Through the lens of their own experiences, Secretary Rice and these scholars will discuss women's leadership, diversity, talent, and accomplishments in national security, as well as the challenges and rewards of working in this environment.  

We honor the contributions of women at every level and in every facet of national security. Our Hoover Fellows’ commitment to continued research increasingly shapes the narratives, priorities, rules, and assessments of policy making. 

ABOUT THE BOOKS

The World According to China, by Elizabeth Economy
The World According to China explores China's ambitions to transform the international system by reclaiming contested territories, reshaping the geostrategic landscape, and reforming the system of global governance to reflect Chinese norms and values. It argues that China's well-defined and highly-coordinated foreign policy playbook has contributed to significant progress in realizing the country's strategic objectives, while at the same time creating the conditions that are likely to undermine its future success.

Negotiating the New START Treaty, by Rose Gottemoeller
An invaluable insider’s account of the New START treaty negotiations between the US and Russian delegations in Geneva in 2009 and 2010. It examines the crucially important discussions about the treaty between President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev, and it describes the tough negotiations needed to gain the support of the Senate for the treaty. And importantly, at a time when the US Congress stands deeply divided, it tells the story of how, in a previous time of partisan division, Republicans and Democrats came together to ratify a treaty to safeguard the future of all Americans. >> Book Details

Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Deeply researched and featuring fresh and often shocking revelations, Prey uncovers a sexual assault and harassment crisis in Europe that is turning the clock on women’s rights much further back than the #MeToo movement is advancing it. No one in a position of power wants to admit that the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities is linked to the arrival of several million migrants—most of them young men—from Muslim-majority countries. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist is the surest way to empower not only the far right but also the Islamists, whose solution entails even greater restrictions on female freedom. >> Book Details

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence, by Amy Zegart
America’s spy agencies face a moment of reckoning. Although espionage has always been part of great power conflict, emerging technologies like AI, commercial satellites, and social media are empowering new enemies and opportunities, generating crushing volumes of data and tools to understand it, putting information at everyone’s fingertips, and creating powerful new decision-makers outside of governments. Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence is designed to be a fun read with a serious purpose: examining the history of the CIA and America’s 16 other intelligence agencies and assessing the challenges they confront in the digital age.

MODERATED BY
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States (2005-2009) and as President George W. Bush’s national security adviser (2001 to 2005).

Supporting the Faith, Building the Empire: Imperial Japan’s Islamic Policies in World War II

Supporting the Faith, Building the Empire: Imperial Japan’s Islamic Policies in World War II

 

Friday, March 5, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

Leading up to and through World War II, the Japanese Empire curried favor with Muslims in China and in East Asia. Drawing on examples from Prof. Hammond’s recent book, China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, the talk discusses Japanese policies and the ways in which the Japanese Government saw itself as the protector of Islam, while simultaneously advancing its imperial vision. For their part, Muslims from the colonial world found Japan’s anti-Western and anti-Soviet rhetoric appealing to a certain extent. By placing Muslims at the center of Japan’s imperial ambitions, it becomes clear that those ambitions extended beyond the boundaries of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and into predominantly Islamic spaces like Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Kelly Hammond is Assistant Professor of East Asian history at the University of Arkansas, an associate editor for the Journal of Asian Studies, and serves on the Public Intellectual Program for the National Committee on US-China Relations. Her recent work has been supported by the ACLS/Luce Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the American Philosophical Foundation, and the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

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.

Cyberspace and Warfare

Cyberspace and Warfare

Friday, February 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, and March 19, 2020.

The February 26 session focuses on how cyber operations affect warfare and how cyber strategy helps (or hurts) the integration of cyber operations in warfighting campaigns, leads to new tactics or operations, and ultimately impacts military effectiveness.

PANELISTS

Dr. Josh Rovner | Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University

VADM (ret.) T. J. White | Former Commander of US Fleet Cyber Command/ US 10th Fleet

Aaron Hughes | Former DASD

Lt Gen Timothy Haugh | Commander, Sixteenth Air Force, Commander, Air Forces Cyber, and Commander, Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas

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

Age of Monetarism

Age of Monetarism

Friday, February 19, 2021
Hoover Institution, Stanford University

In a draft chapter from her forthcoming biography of Milton Friedman, Jennifer Burns examines Friedman’s influence on Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, comparing their engagement with monetarism in the 1980s. 

Jennifer Burns is the leading independent expert on Ayn Rand and the American conservative movement. She is author of the acclaimed biography Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. Currently, she is writing an intellectual biography of Milton Friedman. At the Hoover Institution, she directs the annual summer Workshop on Political Economy.

ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP

https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group 

This interview 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.

US-Taiwan Relations and Taiwan’s International Status

Thursday, February 18, 2021

The Hoover Institution hosted US-Taiwan Relations and Taiwan’s International Status on Thursday, February 18, 2021 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PST.

During the Trump administration, bipartisan support for Taiwan grew in the US, partly in response to Beijing’s increasing pressure on Taiwan following the election of Tsai Ing-wen.  The US reduced restrictions on high-level official contacts with Taiwan, many of which had been put in place more than 40 years ago when the US ended formal relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and normalized relations with the People’s Republic of China.  Washington moved to increase bilateral defense cooperation, support for Taiwan’s international participation, and more.  The Biden administration has indicated that it will not reverse many of these developments and has pledged greater engagement with fellow democracies in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.  Are these developments a sign of a significant deepening of the unofficial partnership between Washington and Taipei?  What do they portend for Taiwan’s international status and security?  In this talk, Jacques deLisle will address these issues in the context of Taiwan’s complicated status in US and international law, and Taiwan’s ongoing quest for international space and stature.

Featured Speaker
Jacques deLisle is the Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law & Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. Jacques deLisle’s research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including: legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong under Chinese rule, and U.S.-China relations. His writings on these subjects appear in a variety of fora, including international relations journals, edited volumes of multidisciplinary scholarship, and Asian studies journals, as well as law reviews. DeLisle is also professor of political science, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Penn, deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has served frequently as an expert witness on issues of P.R.C. law and government policies and is a consultant, lecturer and advisor to legal reform, development and education programs, primarily in China.