New month begins, kids here for rest of week. No more memos other than ones already written and set to mail.
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Dagny turns 9 and she and her mom, Abby, have a new friend.
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My kind of American. Wish I could vote for "kick ass" Big Dan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDxk66d4xh4
Finally:
The great tragedy sullen and unhappy Democrats/Liberals have fostered upon our nation is that everything must be run through a politically, racial dishwasher. They are consumed with color, with hypocrisy with racial bias and prejudice. It has divided our nation in irreparable ways that will not heal for decades, if at all. They have weakened us with their nonsense and contempt for logic and reason, all in the pursuit of sustained power.. The latest evidence is their reaction to voter ID proposals. It is simply another wedge issue meant to separate our people and create animosities and ill well.
I dare anyone, in their right mind, to find fault with the above cartoon's clear message.
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HOOVER Monthly Briefing on National Security:
Welcome to the Hoover Institution’s monthly briefing on national security. This month we listen to insights on the evolution of cyber policy strategy; celebrate the professional pathways of women in national security at Hoover; understand the importance of alliances and the role of the Quad; are reminded that democratic values are one of the best ways to challenge to China’s aggression; and reflect on the causes and impacts of the Syrian civil war. |
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Informing Future Cyber Strategy |
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In her cyber chat series, Hoover fellow Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider discusses the rapid evolution of cyber strategy with the aim to help inform future cyber policy. The March 19 talk, “Cyberspace and Public Private Innovation,” which included Hoover senior fellow Amy Zegart and research fellow Joseph Felter, noted the absence of the academy —“a third leg”—to address critical technology development in public-private partnerships. The current overclassification of information narrows the involvement of an array of necessary actors and makes the inclusion of academics difficult. The speakers also acknowledged the challenges and limitations to the Department of Defense (DoD) and corporate or defense industry base collaboration. Historically, the defense industry, driven by government directives, supplied the technology needed for defense superiority. Now the advances in technology needed to prevail in cyberspace have moved to commercial tech, where success is measured by profit, not impact. The DoD’s current defense acquisition system is not set up for acquisition at scale, a reality that makes cyberspace tech development more challenging. Find Dr. Schneider’s coauthored book on the same topics, Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace. |
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Women in National Security |
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To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, Hoover director Condoleezza Rice hosted an insightful conversation, “A Focus on Women in National Security,” with Hoover fellow Elizabeth Economy, Rose Gottemoeller, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Amy Zegart, all of whom are releasing books this year. From pursing early ambitions in Cold War arenas, made possible through the Defense Language Act, to establishing themselves in their often male-dominated fields (think nuclear-arms-treaty negotiations with the Russians), these very authentic women built their successful careers while navigating family responsibilities and, especially in Hirsi Ali’s case, escaping oppression. They also discussed the accomplishments of professional women in international politics despite the very real constraints they face in countries like China and Russia, and the opportunities that the COVID-19 environment may have brought to work life and flexibility. |
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The Ascendance of the Quad |
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Rebuilding ties with Indo-Pacific allies was top priority in the prelude to talks between Beijing and Washington this month. Hoover Institution fellows James Mattis, Michael Auslin, and Joseph Felter argue in their recent Foreign Policy article “Getting the Quad Right Is Biden’s Most Important Job” that the Quad “offers the best opportunity to lead a robust values-based partnership in the Indo-Pacific for those democracies and other like-minded nations.” The Quad comprises the region’s four largest democracies and strongest states—Australia, India, Japan and the United States—and highlights the potential that can be leveraged when the America works together with allies and partners. The authors write that the Quad approach “should complement to the United States’ current hub-and-spoke alliance system” as nations in the Indo-Pacific tackle near-term challenges to maritime security, supply chain vulnerability and technology cooperation. |
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China and the Importance of Democratic Values |
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The confrontational nature of the Biden administration’s first US-China summit this month amplifies the continuing need for collective and sustained action against China’s global hegemony. In her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this month, “Advancing Effective US Policy for Strategic Competition with China in the Twenty-First Century,” Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy explained how China’s leadership vision “translates into a significantly transformed international system. The United States is no longer the global hegemon. . . . Instead, a reunified and resurgent China is on par with, or even more powerful than, the United States.” She argues that “the United States should begin by reframing the U.S.-China competition away from the narrative of a bilateral rivalry to one rooted in values.”
Senior Fellow H. R. McMaster echoed similar points in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, “Look to the Reagan Administration for the Answer to the China Challenge,” in which he asserts, “The United States and like-minded liberal democracies must defend against the expansion of the party’s influence, thwart its ambitions to dominate the 21st century global economy, and convince Chinese leaders that they can fulfill enough of their aspirations without doing so at the expense of their own people’s rights or the sovereignty of other nations.”
The importance of the US domestic situation in the US-China competition was recently articulated by Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz in a recent Newsweek article. He describes how the State Department’s paper “The Elements of the China Challenge” argues that the United States must put its own house in order by rededicating itself to the principles of freedom and democracy, invigorating the domestic economy, ensuring that the US military remains the world’s most formidable fighting force, and reforming education—both the humanities and the sciences—to better equip students to understand and defend the principles of freedom.
To understand the impact of the US domestic situation on the China narrative, Visiting Fellow Miles Yu explains in the Hoover publication Strategika how “the massive summer protests across the U.S. provided the CCP with . . . evidence that the U.S. political system and social order were even more rapidly ‘decaying’” and that “such a decline stimulates the CCP’s strategic confidence that makes it more aggressive and reckless in its domestic repression and international behavior.” +++++++++++++++++++ More " Weekend" humor at the world's expense: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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