Think Tanks
Here's a look at documents from think tanks
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American Enterprise Institute: 'What It Takes to Mobilize for War'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 28, 2026 by Todd Harrison entitled "What It Takes to Mobilize for War."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Mobilization readiness is the nation's ability to convert resources into military power at speed and scale.
Unlike operational mobilization, which deploys and sustains existing forces, strategic mobilization expands military power by surging spending, personnel, and weapons production.
It rests on four foundations: economic strength, workforce capacity, industrial capacity, and political
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WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 28, 2026 by Todd Harrison entitled "What It Takes to Mobilize for War."
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Key Points
Mobilization readiness is the nation's ability to convert resources into military power at speed and scale.
Unlike operational mobilization, which deploys and sustains existing forces, strategic mobilization expands military power by surging spending, personnel, and weapons production.
It rests on four foundations: economic strength, workforce capacity, industrial capacity, and politicalwill. Because any one of these can become the bottleneck, it must be assessed through multiple indicators, not a single score.
In protracted war, the key question is not just who starts stronger, but who can mobilize faster, replace losses more rapidly, scale up production more effectively, and sustain high-intensity operations longer.
Executive Summary
Recent wars have exposed a reality that peacetime defense planning often understates: Stockpiles are finite, production does not surge overnight, and success in a protracted conflict depends as much on the ability to regenerate combat power as on the ability to win early battles. This report argues that mobilization readiness--the nation's ability to convert resources into military power at speed and scale--is a central but underappreciated dimension of military readiness. Mobilization readiness rests on four foundations: economic strength, workforce capacity, industrial capacity, and political will. The United States retains major advantages in each of these areas, but it also faces serious constraints, including mounting fiscal and debt pressures, limited industrial depth, accelerating technological complexity, and a fractured political environment. The core policy question is no longer whether mobilization matters, but whether the United States can mobilize credibly and at sufficient speed and scale to deter and, if necessary, prevail in a large-scale, protracted war.
Introduction
Recent experience in large-scale attrition warfare from Ukraine to the Middle East has refocused attention in national defense on what peacetime planning tends to gloss over. Stockpiles are finite, surge capacity is not instantaneous, the pace of innovation and adaptation is increasingly important, and the ability to scale materiel production and the size of military forces often matters as much as the ability to win early battles. The 2026 National Defense Strategy, for example, calls for "nothing short of a national mobilization . . . on par with similar revivals of the last century that ultimately powered our nation to victory in the world wars and the Cold War that followed." While previous strategies focused more on the readiness of the forces at hand--their ability to fight tonight (operational readiness), their technological edge (modernization readiness), and the size and composition of forces (structural readiness)-- this new strategy evokes a fourth type of readiness that has too often been overlooked in the post-World War II era.
Mobilization readiness is a nation's ability to convert its resources into military power. It sets the upper bounds on how fast the military can grow, how large it can become, and how long it can sustain high-intensity conflict. It is "the readiness to get ready." The Defense Department's strategic readiness framework includes a mobilization dimension that focuses on increasing the capacity and availability of personnel, industry, and materiel. However, unlike operational, structural, and modernization readiness--which are largely determined within the military itself--mobilization readiness depends more broadly on a nation's economy, workforce, industry, and political will.
The type of mobilization discussed in the strategy is not the military's ability to activate, deploy, and sustain forces in contingency operations--what is better described as operational mobilization (a key component of operational readiness). Mobilization readiness, as used here, is concerned with strategic mobilization: the ability to rapidly increase defense spending, personnel, and weapons production. Whereas operational mobilization opens the pipelines of military power that already exist and keeps them flowing, strategic mobilization widens those pipelines and creates entirely new conduits of military power.
Importantly, mobilization readiness does not merely support growing the military--this type of readiness also shapes how the military grows through what types of forces can be built and how quickly they can be fielded. Strategic mobilization is a competitive process in which each side seeks to not only expand its own production and sustainment capacity but also disrupt, degrade, or outpace that of its adversary. Mobilization is inherently relative and shaped by the interaction of opposing systems.
This report explores what strategic mobilization requires in the modern era and identifies key indicators of mobilization readiness. It begins with the US tradition of strategic mobilization and the lessons learned from prior wars. It then assesses the economic, workforce, industrial, and political drivers that govern mobilization readiness and proposes practical indicators for each. It concludes by considering a question of growing importance: What would a strategic mobilization look like today?
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/what-it-takes-to-mobilize-for-war/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Enterprise Institute: 'Toward a Free and Unified Korea--Resolving the Korea Challenge at Its Source'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 27, 2026 by Nicholas Eberstadt, James P. Flynn, Robert Joesph, Hyun-seung Lee, Michael Marshall, David Maxwell and Greg Scarlatoiu entitled "Toward a Free and Unified Korea--Resolving the Korea Challenge at Its Source."
Here is the executive summary:
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The division of the Korean Peninsula is one of the most critical unresolved legacies of World War II. What was intended as a temporary administrative line hardened into a permanent geopolitical fault line. More than 70 years after the Korean
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WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 27, 2026 by Nicholas Eberstadt, James P. Flynn, Robert Joesph, Hyun-seung Lee, Michael Marshall, David Maxwell and Greg Scarlatoiu entitled "Toward a Free and Unified Korea--Resolving the Korea Challenge at Its Source."
Here is the executive summary:
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The division of the Korean Peninsula is one of the most critical unresolved legacies of World War II. What was intended as a temporary administrative line hardened into a permanent geopolitical fault line. More than 70 years after the KoreanWar, the peninsula remains divided between a thriving South and an impoverished, totalitarian, nuclear-armed regime in the North.
This paper presents the findings and recommendations of the Free and Unified Korea (FAUK) working group. It argues that a free and unified Korea is not a distant or speculative ambition. Rather, it represents the only durable pathway to eliminating the nuclear threat, protecting human rights, and completing the unfinished work of Korean independence.
For three decades, U.S. and international policy toward North Korea has centered narrowly on denuclearization. Yet North Korea's nuclear arsenal continues to expand rapidly, its missile capabilities have advanced dramatically, and its human rights abuses remain systemic and severe. The underlying national security and humanitarian challenges of the peninsula cannot be resolved without addressing the structural reality of division itself.
Re-establishing unification as the strategic end state of U.S.-ROK policy requires moving beyond the limitations of a denuclearization-first paradigm and adopting a comprehensive framework that incorporates security, human rights, economic integration, and civil society engagement. It also requires preparing responsibly for potential political change on the peninsula and confronting persistent myths that portray unification as either impossible or prohibitively costly.
A unified Korea--democratic, nuclear-free, economically integrated, and grounded in a shared historical identity--would advance long-term U.S. strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific and fulfill the aspirations of the Korean people.
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/toward-a-free-and-unified-korea-resolving-the-korea-challenge-at-its-source/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Enterprise Institute: 'Lithography Loophole: How China Is Printing Its Way to Chip Self-Sufficiency'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 21, 2026 by Ryan Fedasiuk and Julia Torres entitled "The Lithography Loophole: How China Is Printing Its Way to Chip Self-Sufficiency."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Although US and allied export controls have prevented China from acquiring high-end chipmaking equipment, Chinese firms are starting to succeed in using older-generation lithography tools to fabricate near-frontier chips.
China's fleet of several hundred deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines will almost certainly be
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WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 21, 2026 by Ryan Fedasiuk and Julia Torres entitled "The Lithography Loophole: How China Is Printing Its Way to Chip Self-Sufficiency."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Although US and allied export controls have prevented China from acquiring high-end chipmaking equipment, Chinese firms are starting to succeed in using older-generation lithography tools to fabricate near-frontier chips.
China's fleet of several hundred deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines will almost certainly becapable of printing millions of high-end logic dies in 2026, which Huawei will package into high-end AI accelerators.
Unless the United States and its allies take urgent steps to restrict China's ability to purchase and upgrade older-generation lithography machines, Huawei will be more than capable of printing huge quantities of cutting-edge computer chips needed to contest US AI leadership.
This report offers a three-pronged approach to close this gap: capability-based export controls that regulate tools by technical performance, a countrywide presumption of denial that closes entity-based gaps, and restrictions on servicing existing DUV machines in China.
Introduction
US and allied export controls have successfully denied China access to the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines required to print modern AI chips. Huawei's current production amounts to a fraction of the US-led semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, starving Chinese AI labs of the compute they need to serve their models to the global public.
But the Biden administration's controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment, which were enacted in 2022, left a critical gap. Chinese chipmakers--led by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and its principal customer, Huawei--are acquiring older-generation deep ultraviolet immersion (DUVi) lithography tools and repurposing them to fabricate near-frontier chips.
This process is inefficient, and the cost curve is punishing. But access to older lithography machines is allowing Chinese chipmakers to scale their production far faster than US policymakers had anticipated. SMIC has already produced and sold chips that are competitive with the US-led technological frontier--and it is actively developing a five-nanometer (nm) process that, while much more expensive than the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) equivalent, would give Huawei a sanction-proof pathway to making near-frontier AI accelerators at scale.
Left unaddressed, this loophole risks undermining the entire architecture of US export controls on AI chips--and undercutting the United States' near monopoly on the compute needed to win the AI race.
To close it, this report recommends three complementary measures: capability-based export controls that regulate lithography tools by what they can produce (rather than what buyers declare), a countrywide presumption of denial for lithography exports to China, and restrictions on ASML's servicing of DUVi machines already deployed in Chinese fabrication plants.
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-lithography-loophole-how-china-is-printing-its-way-to-chip-self-sufficiency/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Enterprise Institute: 'Know the Market to Find the Path Home for the Most Vulnerable'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 29, 2026 by Arthur Gailes and Edward J. Pinto entitled "Know the Market to Find the Path Home for the Most Vulnerable."
Here are excerpts:
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The National Low Income Housing Coalition has published its 2026 edition of The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, estimating a shortfall of 7.2 million affordable and available rental homes for the nation's 11 million extremely low-income (ELI) renter households. The measure has clear advantages: it is intuitive and direct, it meshes with HUD policy,
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 29, 2026 by Arthur Gailes and Edward J. Pinto entitled "Know the Market to Find the Path Home for the Most Vulnerable."
Here are excerpts:
* * *
The National Low Income Housing Coalition has published its 2026 edition of The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, estimating a shortfall of 7.2 million affordable and available rental homes for the nation's 11 million extremely low-income (ELI) renter households. The measure has clear advantages: it is intuitive and direct, it meshes with HUD policy,and it draws attention to the people most hurt by our housing shortage. The question is whether this is the right way to measure the problem, and whether a better measure would point to better solutions.
The Gap uses this finding as the basis for a broad expansion of federal housing subsidies -- for vouchers, homebuilding, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and other subsidies -- aimed at the nation's housing crisis as a whole. There are three major problems with this approach:
1. Affordable and available ELI rentals is a poor predictor of bad housing outcomes.
2. Most low-income workers are excluded by The Gap's affordable and available measure.
3. Better measures of the shortage point to better solutions.
It is for these reasons and more that the AEI Housing Center uses median home price-to-income as our primary measure of the housing shortage, and therefore the "affordable" housing shortage.[1] If you want to understand the housing situation for the people who are most vulnerable, you need to start by looking at the middle.
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/know-the-market-to-find-the-path-home-for-the-most-vulnerable/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Enterprise Institute: 'Evaluating the Impact of Tariffs on US Agriculture a Year After Liberation Day'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 15, 2026 by Joseph W. Glauber entitled "Evaluating the Impact of Tariffs on US Agriculture a Year After Liberation Day."
Here are the key points:
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In April 2025, the Trump administration levied 10 percent tariffs on virtually all countries and higher "reciprocal" tariffs on certain countries, ushering in a new and uncertain tariff architecture that saw significant changes, exemptions, and additional actions over the following year.
The tariffs modestly reduced overall US agricultural and
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 15, 2026 by Joseph W. Glauber entitled "Evaluating the Impact of Tariffs on US Agriculture a Year After Liberation Day."
Here are the key points:
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In April 2025, the Trump administration levied 10 percent tariffs on virtually all countries and higher "reciprocal" tariffs on certain countries, ushering in a new and uncertain tariff architecture that saw significant changes, exemptions, and additional actions over the following year.
The tariffs modestly reduced overall US agricultural andfood imports, but with significant heterogeneity by exporting country and product category.
The tariffs had mixed effects on US agricultural exports, with exports to China and Canada falling partly because of retaliatory tariffs and consumer reactions, respectively.
After imposing the tariffs, the United States negotiated several bilateral trade deals with other countries. However, given the lack of product-specific details, China's continued retaliatory measures, and the Supreme Court's decision striking down the bulk of US tariffs, it is unclear whether these deals with actually improve agricultural market access for US exporters.
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/evaluating-the-impact-of-tariffs-on-us-agriculture-a-year-after-liberation-day/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Enterprise Institute: 'Beyond "Do No Harm": The Next Era of Value-Based Accountability Policy'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 30, 2026 by Beth Akers entitled "Beyond "Do No Harm": The Next Era of Value-Based Accountability Policy."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Higher education policy has shifted toward "value" as the central organizing principle. After decades focused on access, affordability, and completion, policymakers are now asking whether college actually delivers meaningful economic returns to students--reflecting growing evidence that outcomes vary widely.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act marks a turning
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following report on April 30, 2026 by Beth Akers entitled "Beyond "Do No Harm": The Next Era of Value-Based Accountability Policy."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Higher education policy has shifted toward "value" as the central organizing principle. After decades focused on access, affordability, and completion, policymakers are now asking whether college actually delivers meaningful economic returns to students--reflecting growing evidence that outcomes vary widely.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act marks a turningpoint by introducing universal, outcomes-based accountability. For the first time, federal policy requires programs to "do no economic harm" to maintain access to student loans, establishing a baseline expectation for economic outcomes.
The current policy is an important--but incomplete--first step and should evolve to include price. Because the accountability system focuses only on earnings, it fails to capture return on investment; incorporating cost would better align incentives, protect students, and distinguish high-value programs from those that are merely adequate.
Introduction
Higher education policy does not evolve in a straight line. It moves in waves, often organized around a single, compelling idea that captures the attention of policymakers, philanthropists, thought leaders, and practitioners alike. Over the past several decades, each of these waves has reflected a real concern, but each has also narrowed the policy conversation in ways that shape what comes next.
Beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the early 2000s, the dominant focus was access: expanding enrollment and ensuring that more students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, could enroll in higher education. That emphasis gave way to a period centered on affordability, driven by rising tuition and concern about growing student debt. Then, the conversation shifted toward completion, as policymakers worried about not just who enrolls but who actually finishes.
Today, a new organizing principle has taken hold: value. Increasingly, the question is not simply whether students can access, afford, or complete college but whether higher education delivers meaningful economic returns. This reflects a growing recognition that higher education outcomes are highly variable and that too many students leave with debt and limited economic return. It also nods to the fact that students, for the most part, enroll in higher education for the pecuniary benefits.1
The passage of the reconciliation legislation in summer 2025, often referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), marks a turning point in this evolution. For the first time, federal policy embedded a meaningful, universal, outcomes-based accountability standard in the federal financial aid program. By requiring that programs meet a "do no economic harm" threshold--ensuring that typical graduates earn at least as much as they would have without the degree--the law established a floor for acceptable performance and attached real consequences for failing degree programs.
The prohibition on doing economic harm is, in reality, a tiny step into the realm of value-based accountability. It does not punish weak performance or reward exceptional performance. Instead, it simply denies the absolute-worst-performing programs access to student loans. As I discuss later, the reform's modest nature is both a feature and a liability.
This report argues that the next phase of federal higher education accountability should build, in time, on the foundation the OBBBA established by introducing a more nuanced measure of value that incorporates price and, therefore, serves as a proxy for return on investment. By using this model, policymakers could better align incentives with student success and ensure that the system delivers not just access, affordability, and completion but genuine economic opportunity.
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/beyond-do-no-harm-the-next-era-of-value-based-accountability-policy/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Enterprise Institute: 'An Extra Point for Attendance: The Impact of High School Varsity Athletics on Absenteeism'
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following on April 8, 2026 by Nat Malkus and Sam Hollon entitled "An Extra Point for Attendance: The Impact of High School Varsity Athletics on Absenteeism."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Merging day-level attendance data with complete varsity roster data for 262,000 Indiana high school students in 2023-24, we find a consistent "double bump" in attendance for athletes. Varsity athletes have better attendance than other students out of season and still better attendance during their sports seasons.
Chronic absenteeism
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 2 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued the following on April 8, 2026 by Nat Malkus and Sam Hollon entitled "An Extra Point for Attendance: The Impact of High School Varsity Athletics on Absenteeism."
Here are excerpts:
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Key Points
Merging day-level attendance data with complete varsity roster data for 262,000 Indiana high school students in 2023-24, we find a consistent "double bump" in attendance for athletes. Varsity athletes have better attendance than other students out of season and still better attendance during their sports seasons.
Chronic absenteeismis far lower among varsity athletes, and this differential from other students remains large after controlling for numerous other factors.
The athlete attendance advantage remains substantial after adjusting for student and school characteristics and seasonal attendance variation. We find this attendance advantage is driven primarily by excused absences, with measurable effects on unexcused absences as well.
We find substantial, plausibly causal in-season effects showing that participation in structured, voluntary extracurricular activities improves attendance and demonstrating the role of student agency in showing up to school.
Executive Summary
Examining day-level attendance records and varsity participation data for roughly 262,000 Indiana high school students, we find a consistent "double bump" effect of varsity sports participation on attendance: Varsity athletes had better attendance outside their sports seasons than their peers and still lower absence rates during their sports seasons. Athletes also showed substantially lower rates of chronic absenteeism.
Overall, high school absences averaged 6.5 percent statewide, and 23 percent of students played at least one varsity sport. The demographic profile of varsity athletes reflects several advantages that are also associated with better attendance. Nonetheless, after adjusting for key student and school characteristics and weekly variation in absences, varsity athletes' attendance advantage remains substantial both in and out of their sports seasons.
Effects appear for excused and unexcused absences, with the overall athlete advantage larger for unexcused absences. Models that include student fixed effects identify an attenuated but large causal in-season effect. Together, the patterns identified in this report suggest that structured, voluntary extracurricular participation can meaningfully improve attendance behavior and that students have meaningful agency over their own attendance.
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/an-extra-point-for-attendance-the-impact-of-high-school-varsity-athletics-on-absenteeism/
[Category: ThinkTank]
