Hoover Institution

04/16/2026

Writing in Military History in the News, Ralph Peters draws on the battle of Thermopylae to argue that the United States entered a war in the Persian Gulf without a plan to secure the Strait of Hormuz, and without a willingness to see the conflict through its enemy's eyes.

Classical Greek historians had an ear for dialogue—real or invented—to rival the best Hollywood screenwriters. One of the exchanges attached to the 480 BCE battle of Thermopylae has a Persian emissary warning the Greeks that Xerxes’ archers were so numerous their volleys would blot out the sun...

04/16/2026

On the latest episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Ben Shapiro argues that critiques of "cancel culture" have been so overextended by the right that criticism itself is now treated like cancellation. Watch the full conversation with Peter Robinson here: https://www.hoover.org/research/ben-shapiro-and-battle-soul-conservatism

04/15/2026

The promise of robotics is coming into focus, says expert Allison Okamura, but there are many needs that must be met for the United States to pull ahead in this technology. These include tax incentives for investment and production, research grants, and a deep look into how robots will change and displace jobs, she says in a new Hoover Institution Q&A.

Read the full interview in in Defining Ideas:

“We need to create an optimistic environment surrounding robotics.”

04/15/2026

This brochure for America-funded Radio Free Europe features transmission towers broadcasting behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The back cover declares that "so long as the Iron Curtain…continues to divide East from West…there will be a need for the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe," emphasizing radio’s role as a "voice of the free world." In 2000, an agreement transferred the broadcast records (through 1995) of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, where this essential documentation is now preserved and made available to researchers worldwide.

The American Story. One Image at a Time.

For more on USA@250, visit: https://www.hoover.org/usa-at-250

04/15/2026

The Philippines' language system emerged from a long history of colonial rule, internal diversity, and the growing dominance of English in education and economic life. As English became more closely tied to mobility and overseas employment, Filipino and indigenous languages lost institutional ground, with serious consequences for national cohesion and long-term development. Constitutional reform and stronger mechanisms for enforcing language policy offer a path to protect national heritage while preserving the practical advantages of English proficiency.

Watch a new Policy in Brief with Hoover History Lab Student Fellow Mikhail Roshan Tupaz:

04/15/2026

On a new episode of Today's Battlegrounds, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Anders Fogh Rasmussen (former Prime Minister of Denmark and NATO Secretary General) discuss international security, the prospects for the US-Danish relationship, and the health of the transatlantic relationship as wars continue in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Watch the full conversation here:

04/15/2026

GoodFellows is coming to a live audience for the first time. On April 22, historian Niall Ferguson, geopolitical strategist HR McMaster, and economist John H. Cochrane join moderator Bill Whalen on the Stanford University campus to explore the United States Constitution as one of the most consequential frameworks ever devised for governing a nation.

Through three perspectives—historical innovation, national power, and economic design—the conversation will examine:

🇺🇸 Why the Constitution was a radical departure from previous systems of government.

🇺🇸 How it was designed to preserve a strong union while limiting and dividing power, including authority over war and the military.

🇺🇸 The economic foundations it established for long-term prosperity, including trade, property rights, and a national currency.

Please plan to arrive early. Seating is first-come, first-served. Register here:

Located on the campus of Stanford University and in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution is the nation’s preeminent research center dedicated to generating policy ideas that promote economic prosperity, national security, and democratic governance.

04/14/2026

Former Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on the policy and leadership decisions shaping AI's impact on the workforce. Watch her full panel discussion from the Hoover Institution's AI and Jobs event: https://www.hoover.org/events/productivity-gains-and-labor-pains-what-will-ai-do-jobs

04/14/2026

Is the Federal Reserve bigger than it needs to be? Fed assets, purchased to help the economy, led to a huge increase of reserve balances, which now total $3 trillion. Could the Fed change course so that banks would need to hold less in reserve? Read a new piece by Darrell Duffie in Freedom Frequency:

Reserve balances took a giant leap to meet liquidity needs. Here are some practical alternatives.

04/14/2026

Halima Kazem conducting an interview for the Hoover Afghanistan Research & Relief Team (HART) Oral History Project. HART has conducted dozens of interviews with Afghans and others about their experiences in Afghanistan in recent decades. Senior Fellow and retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster directs HART, which was established in the wake of the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, when the Taliban swept to power. HART, which began as an emergency initiative to support and fill gaps in the US government’s efforts to evacuate refugees, transitioned to collect and preserve historical materials on the war in Afghanistan, including oral histories, at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. McMaster has said that the oral history archive contains "a lot of very positive stories about people who dedicated themselves to building a country basis of fundamental, or universal, human rights, or freedom."

The American Story. One Image at a Time.

For more on USA@250, visit: https://www.hoover.org/usa-at-250

04/14/2026

The O-1A extraordinary ability visa is a powerful pathway for hiring international STEM talent. Immigration law and policy expert Amy Nice makes the case for using the tools already available within the existing U.S. immigration system:

04/14/2026

Writing in Military History in the News, Ralph Peters examines what political and military leaders fail to reckon with when they dismiss scenarios as "unthinkable." Drawing on examples from the Holocaust to Afghanistan, Peters argues that the unthinkable is most likely to become real precisely when those responsible for thinking about it refuse to do so.

Words themselves can be inherently dishonest. Perhaps the cardinal example relative to our times is “unthinkable,” trailed closely by its sibling, “unimaginable.”