Building Strategic Competence: An Urgent Priority For Government And The Academy | Reimagining American Institutions

The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise. The seventh session discussed Building Strategic Competence: An Urgent Priority for Government and the Academy with H.R. McMaster and Stephen Kotkin on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT. We might define strategic competence as the ability to integrate all elements of national power and efforts of like-minded partners to advance US interests. The nation needs leaders who can think in real time and understand what it takes to implement ideas and strategies on the ground. The academy has an important role in educating leaders to compete effectively in war and in competitions short of war. A reinvigoration of history in higher-level education is particularly important, as many courses in diplomatic and military history have been displaced by theory-based courses, which tend to mask the complex causality of events and obscure the cultural, psychological, social, and economic elements that distinguish cases from one another. Some theories risk sapping students of strategic empathy and encourage them to reduce complex problem sets into frameworks that create only the illusion of understanding. A growing interest in applied history in some universities is a promising development.