Latest / Hoover Daily Report / Hoover Daily Report | May 21, 2026

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Hoover Daily Report | May 21, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

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  Welcome to "the Hoover Daily Report". Ideas Advancing
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  Freedom. It's Thursday, May 21st, twenty twenty six .
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  Today,
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  Gary Roughead explains
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  why speed of adaptation, not sheer scale of military might, will be critical in
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  future military conflicts; Elizabeth Economy speaks with a former senior US
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  diplomat about the importance of engaging allies in America’s geopolitical
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  competition with China; and Matthew Kahn points out the issues in California’s
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  state-centric model of wildfire risk reduction, as well as superior
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  market-driven policy options.
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  Speed, Not Scale, Will Decide the Next War.
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  Writing for RealClearWorld, Distinguished Military Fellow
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  Adm. Gary Roughead
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  argues that central assumptions about warfare from the 20th century are
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  breaking down amid rapid battlefield innovations in Ukraine and elsewhere.
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  In the past, Roughead says, military scale and qualitative “overmatch”
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  provided by superior technology were critical. Today, the former commander of
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  the Pacific fleet writes, “the advantage no longer belongs to the largest force or
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  to the most sophisticated. It belongs to the side that learns faster, iterates in
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  real time, and redeploys a new variant before the enemy can respond.” While
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  emphasizing that national will and prolonged public buy-in still matter,
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  Roughead concludes that “the force that consistently owns the loop of learning,
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  reacting, adapting, and producing faster than its opponent will increase the
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  probability of victory.”.
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  Kurt Campbell on China, Allies, and US Power.
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  For China Considered, Elizabeth Economy sits down with former Deputy Secretary of
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  State Kurt Campbell to talk about his distinguished career, Indo-Pacific
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  strategy, and the recent presidential summit in Beijing. Economy and Campbell
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  discuss the current impact the war in Iran is having on both China and the
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  US-China bilateral relationship following the Trump-Xi meeting. Campbell describes
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  the Chinese perspective as President Trump arrived in Beijing, with many in
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  the PRC concluding that the “correlation of power in many respects has shifted
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  against the [American] president.” Looking at the broader strategic context,
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  Economy and Campbell emphasize the importance of working together with
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  allies and partners, even if a true multilateral strategy is lacking. The two
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  conclude by discussing what the US role in Asia, and in the international system,
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  may look like going forward, and how it has already changed.
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  Markets Can Dampen Wildfire Risk Exposure.
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  At Defining Ideas, Visiting Fellow Matthew Kahn pushes back against
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  ineffective means of adapting to wildfire risk, advocating instead for a
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  market-based response. As Kahn explains, government responses to California’s
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  recent severe wildfires have focused on costly subsidies and strict controls of
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  insurance rates—approaches that lack the flexibility and focus that
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  market-incentivized actors can bring to bear. Subsidies can actually weaken, not
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  strengthen, homeowners’ preparedness, Kahn says, and those subsidies drive up
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  the cost of rebuilding. Markets, on the other hand, force owners to shop
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  carefully for insurance, make informed decisions about rebuilding and
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  relocating, and help taxpayers avoid the wastefulness of public programs. Kahn
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  argues that the state should experiment with suspending insurance-rate
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  restrictions and one-size-fits-all mandates in fire zones to discover better
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  ways to build a resilient California.
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  Wargaming.
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  In this new video episode of Reflections from the Hoover Institution Library &
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  Archives, Hoover Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider discusses the history of
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  wargaming, how wargaming exercises can assist policymakers in times of crisis,
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  and the rationale for the establishment of the Wargaming Archive at the Hoover
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  Institution Library & Archives. To illustrate the importance of wargaming
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  outcomes and assessments for policymakers and statesmen grappling with an unfolding
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  crisis, Schneider discusses the Berlin Crisis Wargame, organized at Camp David
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  in September 1961 as the construction of the Berlin Wall brought the US and the
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  USSR to a high-stakes confrontation.
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  Kevin Warsh and the Return of Monetarism.
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  Writing for Barron’s, Policy Fellow Jon Hartley and coauthor Peter Ireland point
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  out that Kevin Warsh’s leadership at the Fed will bring back a deeper appreciation
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  for the insights of Milton Friedman and the monetarist school of macroeconomic
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  thought. “Sustained price inflation is always caused by excessive monetary
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  expansion. For inflation to come down, less money needs to be circulating in the
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  economy,” Hartley and Ireland write of the monetarist view. The authors note
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  that Warsh subscribes to an updated form of monetarism centering on interest-rate
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  setting, not a pure doctrine of “fixed, stable money growth.” The authors argue
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  that “Warsh’s first priority must be to finish the job of bringing inflation back
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  down to the Fed’s 2% target.”.
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  The Nation’s Report Card Gets an Overdue Upgrade.
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  “The National Assessment Government Board made some very good news last week,
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  albeit a decade or two late, when it voted to commence more frequent testing
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  of civics and, especially, to make 12th grade results available (in civics,
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  reading, and math) at the state level,” Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn, Jr.,
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  writes at Flypaper. The distinguished education scholar praises this decision
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  to provide additional “data at the end of high school on how much the young people
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  of a state know and can do in key subjects,” noting that this information
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  will prove invaluable for policymakers comparing results across school systems.
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  Though Finn says this development was long overdue, he welcomes the change,
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  concluding, “Better late than never.”.
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  This Month in Hoover History: “Lessons” of the Past? A Conversation on the Uses
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  and Misuses of History.
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  Beliefs about history influence the practice of foreign policy. Policymakers
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  often use history—and often badly. Can policymakers use history more
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  discriminatingly? To explore this question, the Hoover History Lab hosted
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  this special keynote conversation featuring Senior Fellow Philip Zelikow on
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  Monday, May 19, 2025.
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  That’s your Hoover Daily Report for Thursday, May 21st, twenty twenty six.
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  Each weekday, we bring you research, analysis, and commentary focused on
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  public policy, national security, and the ideas shaping American society and
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  government.
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  The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is grounded in constitutional
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  principles with a commitment to sustaining the safeguards of the American
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  way of life.
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  Thank you for listening.
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  For links to all the articles and interviews mentioned today, visit
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  hoover.org slash, HDR.