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Hoover Daily Report | April 10, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

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  Welcome to "the Hoover Daily Report". Ideas Advancing
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  Freedom. It's Friday, April 10th, twenty twenty six.
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  This Friday, a national security expert argues that military victory in Iran will
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  not necessarily lead to long-term strategic success;
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  Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains
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  her concerns about the recent cease-fire deal with the remnants of the Islamic
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  Republic; and Niall Ferguson, Philip Zelikow, and Richard Haass propose a new
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  multinational institution to oversee shipping in the Strait of Hormuz
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  following the end of the Iran war.
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  The Mirage of Victory.
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  “Wars can remove regimes in months,” writes national security practitioner
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  Carey Zott at Freedom Frequency. But “rebuilding administrative capacity takes
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  decades.” No matter how thorough or crushing American power might be in
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  places like Iran, such firepower on its own cannot bring about lasting change,
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  this piece warns. Zott explains that the leaders of groups such as ISIS,
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  Hezbollah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have prepared entire networks
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  held together by ideology and institutions. Removing top leaders of
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  radical groups does nothing to dismantle the network, Zott writes, and killing
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  terrorist chiefs often results in a power vacuum that others—equally radical—rush
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  to fill. The lesson for the United States is to concentrate not just on military
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  victory but on making postconflict strategy a priority, Zott writes.
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  “Without that effort, kinetic success risks becoming a mirage.”.
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  A Cease-Fire That Changes Nothing—and Risks Everything.
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  In a new essay, Research Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that the cease-fire in
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  the Iran war can’t be expected to succeed—any more than the past decades of
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  US diplomacy have succeeded—because Iran can’t be deterred from its Islamist
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  project by diplomacy. Tehran has never honored its agreements, she writes,
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  though it has mastered the art of appearing to do so. The negotiations due
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  to open in Pakistan this weekend are
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  more of the same, Hirsi Ali says, and serve to cloak Iran’s self-proclaimed
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  divine mission within the language of foreign policy.
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  In her assessment, the vaunted cease-fire is merely a tactical retreat, if that,
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  and the momentum of Islamist aggression and ideological capture will continue in
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  the United States and Europe.
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  How to
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  Stop Iran from
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  Winning the War.
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  Ahead of crucial talks between the US and Iran in Islamabad this weekend, Senior
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  Fellows Niall Ferguson and Philip Zelikow, along with Richard N. Haass,
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  urge the US and allied partners to take steps to ensure the free flow of goods,
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  principally oil and gas, through the Strait of Hormuz. To do so, they suggest
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  a “military undertaking” to demonstrate to Iran that the US is willing to use
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  force to facilitate maritime transit through the strait. Next, they suggest a
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  tacit arrangement with Iran, similar to the Black Sea grain export understanding
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  between Russia and Ukraine, to get ships moving. Third, they propose a new
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  multilateral organization to codify and enforce terms of open navigation of the
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  strait. “For the US and its friends, since there is no good way to minimize
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  the economic costs of the war, they may as well develop a strategy that charts
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  a new course through the storm—and envisions a safer and more stable harbor
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  on the other side,” the authors conclude.
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  Reducing the Fed’s Balance Sheet with Fed Board Governor Stephen Miran.
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  On the latest episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the Twenty-First Century,
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  Policy Fellow Jon Hartley speaks
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  with Stephen Miran, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
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  System and, prior to September 2025, chairman of the Council of Economic
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  Advisers. Hartley and Miran
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  discuss the latter’s new paper on strategies to reduce the Federal
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  Reserve’s balance sheet—also the subject of a Weekly Rant from John H. Cochrane
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  earlier this week. Host and guest then delve into the state of inflation and the
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  labor market in the US economy, estimating the neutral rate of interest,
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  the stance of current monetary policy, and how the rise of AI and the public
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  debt may influence monetary policy in the future.
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  Quantum Sensing: An Overlooked Strategic Advantage.
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  While scientists focus on the revolutionary future of quantum
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  computing, a related technology—quantum sensing—is available now, explain
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  Distinguished Visiting Fellow Vivek Lall and coauthor Haibo Huang. Quantum sensors
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  offer transformative advantages in navigation, communications, exploration
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  for resources, and defense, they write. These sensors are already proving their
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  worth in basic science, but their real worth will come when they’re used in the
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  real world, say Lall and Huang. The implications include systems immune to
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  the jamming and spoofing that already plague GPS, precise tools to locate
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  minerals and hidden infrastructure, and a host of industrial applications. The
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  United States already holds the lead over China in this critical realm, the authors
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  point out, but they call on both government and industry to increase
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  investment in this area to sustain this advantage.
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  Featured Research Initiative: Strategic Competence.
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  The "Hoover Institution Strategic Competence Initiative" pursues research,
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  teaching, policy recommendations, and programming to improve strategic
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  competence, or our ability to integrate elements of national power and the
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  efforts of like-minded partners to advance and protect America’s vital
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  interests.
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  That’s your Hoover Daily Report for Friday, April 10th, 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.