Latest / Hoover Daily Report / Hoover Daily Report | July 16, 2026

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Hoover Daily Report | July 16, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Hoover Daily Report. "Ideas Advancing
• 0:04
  Freedom." It's Thursday, July 16th, twenty twenty six.
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  Today, H.R. McMaster speaks to Japan’s former national security advisor about
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  trade, cooperation, and confronting aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Russell
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  Berman writes about Benjamin Rush: doctor, Declaration signer, and one-time
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  rival to George Washington. And Andy Hall describes how he has used AI to evaluate
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  clauses in contracts and predict which ones may lead to disputes down the road.
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  Security, Prosperity, and the Japan-US Alliance.
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  Join Shigeru Kitamura, former national security advisor of Japan, and Senior
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  Fellow H.R. McMaster on the latest episode of Today’s Battlegrounds, as they
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  discuss Japan’s transformation into a leader in economic statecraft, how
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  democratic nations can secure strategic autonomy in critical technologies and
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  supply chains, and the future of US-Japan cooperation in confronting coercion,
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  cyber threats, and growing competition in the Indo-Pacific. The conversation
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  explores Japan’s evolving security strategy in response to growing
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  challenges in the Indo-Pacific, including China’s military modernization and
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  economic coercion, and tensions with that nation revolving around Taiwan and the
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  East China Sea. Kitamura and McMaster also discuss Japan’s changing defense
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  posture, the role of critical technologies and resilient supply chains,
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  and the importance of the Quad and other partnerships across the Indo-Pacific.
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  They examine efforts to deter North Korea, strengthen regional security, and
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  deepen US-Japan cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
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  Teaching Freedom: Russell Berman on Benjamin Rush.
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  Senior Fellow Russell A. Berman writes about Declaration signer Benjamin Rush, a
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  young physician who grasped the idea that a nation built on liberty must be taught
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  the foundations of freedom, especially virtue. Rush evangelized for a distinctly
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  American education—today we would call it civics—as the essential tool to unify and
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  inspire the people of the newborn country. His vision, Berman writes,
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  touches on many of the basic assumptions of modern higher education, and it
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  highlights the continuing challenge of forming Americans for citizenship.
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  Energy Security in a Dangerous World.
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  Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has exposed the reality that the world is
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  undergoing an unexpected energy transition—not from fossil fuels to
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  renewables but from a free and open energy commons to one dominated by
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  geography, military threats, and the hard reality that national security has become
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  inseparable from energy security. In a new video, Distinguished Visiting Fellow
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  Adm. James O. Ellis Jr. says today’s maritime economy has outgrown available
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  naval power, and commercial shippers are far more risk averse than in past crises.
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  Protecting vital energy chokepoints now requires stronger fleets, smarter
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  alliances, and a clear recognition that energy security is national security.
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  Can AI Fix Bad Rules (or Contracts)?
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  At his Substack, Free Systems, Senior Fellow Andrew B. Hall and Stanford
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  Graduate School of Business research fellow Elliot Paschal describe a new
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  AI-powered system to evaluate problematic language in contracts that might lead to
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  disputes or litigation. Harvesting “resolution rules” surrounding bets made
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  on Kalshi and Polymarket and running them through Claude, they were able to spot
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  language that had a higher probability of generating a contract dispute. “Working
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  with Claude, we developed a 10-point rubric for spotting flaws in contract
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  rules that might lead to disputes—including things like failing to
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  specify a source of truth [and] not naming an entity specifically enough,”
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  Hall writes. “Just from our grades based on the text of the resolution rules, our
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  tool is able to predict which contracts are more likely to result in a dispute at
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  a rate far better than chance.”.
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  Free People, Virtue, and Wisdom.
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  Using an anecdote offered by a former teaching colleague, Research Fellow David
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  R. Henderson argues in Defining Ideas that socialist societies with central
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  planning fail not just because people lie and cheat but also because the central
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  planners themselves can never obtain enough information about the marketplace
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  to make sound economic decisions. Citing what Hayek called “the particular
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  circumstances of time and place,” Henderson says scientific knowledge
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  cannot replicate what individual actors in an economy know at the micro, ground
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  level. “Even good people cannot, as central planners, make good choices for a
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  society,” Henderson writes. “They don’t have the information necessary to do so.
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  And the incentives in a socialist society drive people not to be good.”.
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  This Month in Hoover History.
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  Hoover Joins NSF-SECURE Initiative.
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  In July 2024, Hoover joined with the University of Washington, Texas A&M, and
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  eight other organizations in contributing scholarship and expertise to build the
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  National Science Foundation’s SECURE Initiative. SECURE uses cutting-edge
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  techniques and analytics to predict threats to US national security that
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  emanate from international research collaboration on sensitive matters.
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  That’s your Hoover Daily Report for Thursday, July 16th, 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.