Dr. Elizabeth Economy and Ely Ratner sit down to discuss challenging security environment in the Indo-Pacific region, the specific goals and ambitions of China in the Western Pacific and East Asia, their experiences in the Biden Administration and the state of the alliance system in the region, based off his recent Foreign Affairs Piece, “The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact”. The two scholars touch on continuity between both the Biden and Trump administrations’ strategy in the Indo-Pacific, but also increasing intra-Asian cooperation and awareness between nations as the China threat grows. They conclude with a conversation about what a Pacific Defense Pact would look like, including the importance of long-term credible deterrence, how other partners could be brought in, and aligning objectives to help create a viable collective defense.

Recorded on June 11, 2025.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Ely Ratner is Principal at the Marathon Initiative. From 2021 to 2025, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs in the Biden administration. From 2015 to 2017, he was Deputy National Security Adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden. He previously served in the State Department’s office of Chinese and Mongolian affairs and as a staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He previously held the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellowship for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and was Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security.

Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow and co-director of the Program on the US, China, and the World at the Hoover Institution. From 2021-2023, she took leave from Hoover to serve as the senior advisor for China to the US Secretary of Commerce. Before joining Hoover, she was the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director, Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of four books on China, including most recently The World According to China (Polity, 2021), and the co-editor of two volumes. She serves on the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Committee on US-China Relations. She is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a book reviewer for Foreign Affairs.

ABOUT THE SERIES

China Considered with Elizabeth Economy is a Hoover Institution podcast series that features in-depth conversations with leading political figures, scholars, and activists from around the world. The series explores the ideas, events, and forces shaping China’s future and its global relationships, offering high-level expertise, clear-eyed analysis, and valuable insights to demystify China’s evolving dynamics and what they may mean for ordinary citizens and key decision makers across societies, governments, and the private sector.

Dr. Elizabeth Economy and Michael McFaul sit down to discuss the relationship between the United States, China, and Russia, the history of US engagement with Russia, his experience as the United States Ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, and the increasing cooperation between China and Russia. McFaul begins by discussing early engagement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during the early Obama years, namely the signing of comprehensive multilateral sanctions with Iran, along with his role in crafting the Obama administration’s Russia policy. The two scholars then shift to a conversation about how Russia and China, namely Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, are attempting to reshape the international order, how the war in Ukraine has already changed this relationship, and whether a “reverse Kissinger” is possible from the perspective of the United States.

Recorded on June 3, 2025.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. Dr. McFaul is also an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. He is currently writing a book called Autocrats versus Democrats: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today. He teaches courses on great power relations, democratization, comparative foreign policy decision-making, and revolutions.

Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow and co-director of the Program on the US, China, and the World at the Hoover Institution. From 2021-2023, she took leave from Hoover to serve as the senior advisor for China to the US Secretary of Commerce. Before joining Hoover, she was the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director, Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of four books on China, including most recently The World According to China (Polity, 2021), and the co-editor of two volumes. She serves on the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Committee on US-China Relations. She is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a book reviewer for Foreign Affairs.

ABOUT THE SERIES

China Considered with Elizabeth Economy is a Hoover Institution podcast series that features in-depth conversations with leading political figures, scholars, and activists from around the world. The series explores the ideas, events, and forces shaping China’s future and its global relationships, offering high-level expertise, clear-eyed analysis, and valuable insights to demystify China’s evolving dynamics and what they may mean for ordinary citizens and key decision makers across societies, governments, and the private sector.

Dr. Elizabeth Economy and Šumit Ganguly sit down to discuss the recent conflict between India and Pakistan, the roots of the conflict between the two nations, and how the United States and China fit into the relationship. Ganguly starts out by giving listeners an overview of the cross-border clashes in early May, where the tension from the two nations stems from; originating over a land dispute along religious lines in the state of Kashmir during the formation of India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the fall of the British Empire in Southern Asia. The two then shift to a conversation about how foreign powers, namely the United States and China, influenced the conflict; namely, through the Pakistani use of Chinese military jets to shoot down several Indian military aircraft, but also how foreign involvement may have helped to bring the conflict to a swift conclusion.

Recorded on May 14, 2025.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Šumit Ganguly is a Senior Fellow and directs the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is Distinguished Professor of Political Science Emeritus and the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has previously taught at James Madison College of Michigan State University, Hunter College, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Ganguly has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, a Guest Scholar at the Center for Cooperative Monitoring in Albuquerque and a Visiting Scholar at the German Institute for International and Area Studies in Hamburg. He was also the holder of the Ngee Ann Chair in International Politics at the Rajaratnam School for International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in the spring term of 2010. In 2018 and 2019, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow and co-director of the Program on the US, China, and the World at the Hoover Institution. From 2021-2023, she took leave from Hoover to serve as the senior advisor for China to the US Secretary of Commerce. Before joining Hoover, she was the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director, Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of four books on China, including most recently The World According to China (Polity, 2021), and the co-editor of two volumes. She serves on the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Committee on US-China Relations. She is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a book reviewer for Foreign Affairs.

ABOUT THE SERIES

China Considered with Elizabeth Economy is a Hoover Institution podcast series that features in-depth conversations with leading political figures, scholars, and activists from around the world. The series explores the ideas, events, and forces shaping China’s future and its global relationships, offering high-level expertise, clear-eyed analysis, and valuable insights to demystify China’s evolving dynamics and what they may mean for ordinary citizens and key decision makers across societies, governments, and the private sector.