GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution

Episode: Boss Time: Summits, Cold Wars, and Universities, with Condoleezza Rice
Date: August 13, 2025
Guests: John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster, Condoleezza Rice
Host: Bill Whalen

Overview

This episode features a lively, high-level discussion among the GoodFellows panel—economist John Cochrane, historian Niall Ferguson, and retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster—joined by the "boss" herself: Hoover Institution Director, former U.S. Secretary of State, and Stanford Provost, Condoleezza Rice. The conversation tackles three core themes:

1. The Alaska Trump-Putin Summit and the future of the war in Ukraine
2. Is the U.S.-China rivalry a 'new Cold War'?
3. The state and future of American universities and scientific research funding

Bonus segments touch on Argentina’s “libertarian revolution,” U.S. tariffs, and the legacy of WWII’s atomic bombings.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trump-Putin Alaska Summit & Ukraine (03:27–19:14)

Rice’s Analysis:

• Putin's Motivation:
  Condoleezza Rice asserts that Putin "feels his back is against the wall" but doesn't truly want to end the war—rather, he cannot believe he can't "crush this little bug of a country" (Ukraine), which he sees as illegitimate. (04:05)
• Summit Expectations:
  Rice expects the Alaska summit will be "inconclusive." She warns that America making any concessions without Ukraine at the table would represent "a dark day for American foreign policy." (05:15)
• On U.S. Policy:
  Noted the Biden administration's incremental approach to supporting Ukraine weakened its position—“If we’d just done it at the beginning of the war, I think the Ukrainians would have won outright. That’s a lot harder now…” (14:32)

Three Possible Outcomes (H.R. McMaster, 05:42):

1. U.S. supports an unacceptable ceasefire/territory-swap—Putin casts Ukraine as obstacle.
2. A meaningless ceasefire (like Minsk), letting both sides rearm.
3. Trump loses patience and increases pressure, possibly convincing Putin to end the war.

Rice’s probability: "Inconclusive. The Russians will have one story, we’ll have another, but this meeting...is not going to end the war." (06:45)

Points of Disagreement:

• Niall Ferguson asks: Could Trump be using a “reverse Nixon” strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China? (10:43)
• Rice’s Reply: She doubts this can work—"What holds them together is they both hate American power. That’s what holds them together and very little beyond that." (12:04)

Permanent Territorial Concessions:

• Rice argues the war cannot end with the U.S. recognizing Russian sovereignty over Ukrainian territory (15:14), drawing historical parallels to the U.S. refusing to recognize the USSR's occupation of the Baltics for decades.

2. Cold War 2.0? U.S.-China Rivalry (19:14–32:47)

Why Rice Rejects ‘Cold War’ as a Metaphor:

• Economic Integration:
  “At no time in the Cold War was more than 1–4% of Soviet GDP related to international trade…China’s totally integrated into the international economy. Supply chains are completely integrated." (19:41)
• Ideology:
  The U.S.–China conflict is less ideological than the U.S.–Soviet one—China is “nationalist and mercantilist,” not driven to export its system. (21:08)
• Dangerous Proximity & Lack of Communication:
  Unlike the U.S. & USSR, no nuclear transparency exists—“On 9/11, Putin brought down exercises...we had exquisite mechanisms. We have none of that with China.” (23:42)

AI & Geostrategic Competition:

• Rice sees AI/tech as a new and more dangerous front than the Cold War’s nuclear race:
  “These are what my friend Fei Fei Li called civilizational technologies… If something goes wrong in China, they will treat it the way they treat it with COVID. They’ll lie about it, they’ll cover it up. We won’t know what’s happening.” (29:45)

• On American Strategy:
  “The United States has to run hard and fast. We are not going to export control our way out of this. We’re going to have to keep leapfrogging… I do not want authoritarian China to win this race.” (29:41)

Notable Exchange:

• Niall Ferguson disagrees: Xi Jinping has made China “much more ideological,” hostile to democracy and the rule of law. (26:00)
• Rice replies: That may be true internally, but it’s not the same international ideological export drive the Soviets had. (27:33)

3. Universities, Federal Research, and the DEI Debate (32:47–44:05)

Rice: American universities must “atone”—but are still essential

“We did become a place where there was an orthodoxy about views...The idea that you only sought truth...by listening to people who thought differently...That’s our fault.” — Condoleezza Rice (33:06)

• Universities have become monolithic and “patronizing,” especially around DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), which Rice calls "unfortunate...and somebody who's black, actually patronizing." (35:47)
• Nonetheless:
  American universities are the “ecosystem for fundamental research in science and engineering and biomedical. We don’t have a plan B.” (36:00) Rice recounts how breakthrough research (e.g., neural nets in AI) required decades of basic funding before technological application. The U.S. system should be reformed—but not dismantled.

Cochrane: The system is heavily bureaucratic and needs reform

• "All sorts of things are going wrong in that research enterprise...You have to fill out 100 times more paperwork now than you used to have to do in the 1950s and 1960s.” (38:13)
• “The Biden administration insisted DEI comes first on every single grant. So the need for...fundamental reform...is important.” (39:20)
• “We want competition, better structures...A little bit of science funding by billionaires… A parallel structure [like Tyler Cowen’s Fast Grants] is amazing.” (40:54)

Consensus/Resolution:

• “Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.” (38:13)
• All agree: need for reform, alternatives (industry collaboration, philanthropy, new models), and scale back bureaucracy—but basic research requires government support as commercial interests usually won’t fund unprofitable or long-horizon work. (43:13)

Ferguson: Will universities actually change?

• “The federal government is making such inordinate demands and seeking such controls...a kind of resistance is pushing back. I’m worried...will we really have got to real academic freedom again?...That’s why I’ve spent time supporting the new university in Austin." (44:14)

4. Argentina’s Libertarian Revolution & Milei (51:21–64:15)

Niall Ferguson’s Take on President Javier Milei:

• "A libertarian economist who makes John Cochran look centrist has become president."
• Milei balanced Argentina’s budget in his first year. His popularity has remained high, even as he pursued radical reforms others assumed politically untenable. (52:01–57:33)
• “The most amazing thing is that it’s politically as well as economically working.” (57:33)
• Young people are the base of support; social media allowed libertarian ideas to bypass the entrenched statist legacy (58:25).
• Takeaway for U.S. politics: “Milei’s trick is to make liberty, freedom, exciting for young people—by juxtaposing it with the corrupt insider class ('lacasta') that has benefited from Peronism and socialism.” (62:32)

“What socialism and state control does to an economy is to corrupt it and to create insiders...Milei’s great political success has been to say, I’m mobilizing you young people because you’ve been screwed by this system, and I'm going to give you liberty. And liberty is going to be just a lot of fun.”
— Niall Ferguson (62:32)

5. U.S. Trade Policy & Tariffs (65:39–74:13)

• Cochrane: "Not a fan of tariffs. Not a catastrophist, either...Tariffs are a tax. A 10% tax is not good...bigger tariffs are much more economically damaging." (66:18)
• Ferguson: Three rationales for tariffs: 1. Negotiating lever, 2. Source of revenue, 3. Tool for reindustrializing—“But they can’t simultaneously be a bargaining chip and a permanent source of revenue.” (68:27)
• McMaster: Rational approach to trade and economic statecraft needed; must incentivize private investment in critical supply chains for national security. (72:05)
• There is skepticism about the staying power, effectiveness, and global trust impact of Trump’s tariff-heavy approach, and concern over legal challenges that may force reimbursement. (69:58)

6. WWII Atomic Bombings: Moral and Historical Perspectives (74:13–80:00)

• Niall Ferguson: It is “odd if we didn’t look back and ask ourselves, was it really right to use atomic weapons,” but the alternatives were much bloodier. The bomb “established a new order, a Pax Americana, based on the fact that the United States had once, or to be precise, twice used atomic weapons in anger.” (74:58)
• John Cochrane:
  “Had we not dropped them in World War II...we almost certainly would have dropped the H-bomb in Korea.” The awful demonstration of the bomb became the ultimate deterrent. (76:13)
• McMaster:
  Essential to grapple with the moral complexity, read widely (including John Hersey’s Hiroshima). Argues for developing military capabilities that can win without indiscriminate death of civilians, and warns against bad revisionist history. (77:52)

Notable Quotes

• “What holds them together is they both hate American power. That’s what holds them together and very little beyond that.”
  — Condoleezza Rice on Russia-China (12:04)

• “I do not want authoritarian China to win this race [in AI and civilizational tech].”
  — Condoleezza Rice (29:45)

• “You don’t have a constitutional right not to be offended.”
  — Condoleezza Rice, on academic freedom (33:01)

• “Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater... There’s a baby, there’s some bathwater, but let’s not throw out the baby.”
  — John Cochrane (38:13)

• "Liberty and opportunity, as opposed to the government is going to send you a check...this can be politically salient, that this can survive politically even among Trump’s base, that they would rather opportunity, I think might be a lesson."
  — John Cochrane on Milei and U.S. politics (64:15)

• “If something goes wrong in China [with AI], they will treat it the way they treat it with COVID. They’ll lie about it, they’ll cover it up. We won’t know what’s happening.”
  — Condoleezza Rice (29:45)

Memorable Moments & Exchanges

• Rice’s historical parallel:
  Refusal to recognize Russia's territorial claims in Ukraine compared to the decades-long refusal to recognize Soviet occupation of the Baltics (15:14).

• Ferguson’s “libertarian mojo”:
  Emphasizes how Milei makes free market reform politically engaging—liberty as “fun” and empowering, especially for youth (62:32).

• Playful banter:
  The cast jokes about football (both American and global), with Rice quipping about instructing Ferguson in the “finer points of football” if she takes him to the Super Bowl (50:43).

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:27 – Putin’s motivations and the Alaska summit
• 06:45 – Rice’s expectations: an inconclusive summit
• 10:43 – Ferguson’s "reverse Nixon" question; Rice on China-Russia relations
• 14:32 – Missed moment to arm Ukraine
• 19:14 – Is U.S.-China a “new Cold War”? Rice’s key points
• 29:41 – U.S. must "run hard and fast" to stay ahead in tech
• 33:06 – Rice on American universities' failures and DEI
• 38:13 – Cochrane on bureaucratic burdens in research funding
• 44:14 – Ferguson doubts universities will really reform
• 51:21 – Ferguson on his meeting with Argentina’s Milei
• 57:33 – Milei’s surprising sustained popularity
• 62:32 – What U.S. leaders can learn from Milei’s youth-driven, liberty-centric approach
• 65:39 – Tariff policy debate
• 74:58 – Atomic bombings legacy and the morality of nuclear warfare

Tone and Language

• Conversational, witty, and direct; the exchange is respectful but unafraid of candid or even pointed disagreement, especially between Rice and the GoodFellows.
• Rich with historical parallels, personal anecdotes, and a dash of playful ribbing, especially in exchanges regarding football and campus life.

Conclusion

This episode, anchored by Condoleezza Rice’s realistic global perspective, blends deep policy analysis with institutional critique and a willingness to learn from new political models. The discussion offers relevant lessons for policymakers, students, and the public on navigating great power competition, reforming research and academia, and understanding both current and historical global crises.