Our Experts in the News: 2023

September 18, 2023

By Michael C. Desch

In December 2022, Time magazine named the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky its Person of the Year. The reasons seemed obvious: When Russia invaded in February of that year, few thought that Ukraine would survive more than a week, or that its president would remain at his post in Kyiv. But Zelensky, who had been a comedian and actor before his unlikely landslide election victory in 2019, defied Russian airstrikes and mobilized his countrymen, rebuffing Western offers of evacuation: “I need ammunition, not a ride.” His unexpected courage helped to rally Ukrainian forces against Russia’s northern thrust. He also reminded many of the two-time Man of the Year—in 1940 and 1949—Winston Churchill.

August 11, 2023

U.S. defense demand, however, accounts for only a fraction of the country’s total demand for these two minerals. This means that if Washington chose to prioritize defense uses of the minerals, “it would likely find enough non-Chinese material to continue defense production,” Eugene Gholz stressed.

August 10, 2023

Eugene Gholz, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on the Strait of Hormuz, previously served as a senior advisor at the Pentagon. Gholz can comment in regard to the deployment of U.S. troops to deter Iran from seizing ships in the Strait of Hormuz. 

August 02, 2023

“Nuclear weapons took great power war off the agenda of international politics,” Michael Desch of the University of Notre Dame told Responsible Statecraft earlier this year. And, as Desch noted, the total number of nuclear weapons has dropped dramatically from its high of 65,000 warheads in the mid-1980s.

May 27, 2023

By Michael Desch

The New York Times titled its obituary for C. Boyden Gray “Lawyer for the Republican Establishment.” In one sense, that title is apt. For those old enough to remember the Northeast Republican establishment, Gray had impeccable credentials for it. But in another sense... Gray, like so many other establishment Republicans, was a man out of step with the current Republican Party.

May 16, 2023

Notre Dame associate professor Eugene Gholz discusses U.S. strategy, the low costs of neutrality in war, global oil markets and why the U.S. does too much militarily in the Middle East. He also advises a “defensive defense” strategy in East Asia, the ineffectiveness and overuse of economic sanctions, and decoupling from China.