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China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea present a pressing threat to the United States and its allies. Russia’s war against Ukraine seeks to break the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s unity and render US defense commitments unreliable. Iran is waging a proxy war to destroy Israel and force the United States out of the Middle East. And China and North Korea are materially supporting these efforts while menacing their Indo-Pacific neighbors.
This threat environment is teaching American defense planners and policymakers hard lessons about the need to adapt and change the way the United States budgets, tests, acquires, and deploys new and existing weapon systems. Join Hudson for two panels that will discuss these lessons and why Washington urgently needs to apply them.
Join renowned philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy for a conversation with Hudson Senior Fellow Liel Leibovitz on how the attack of October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza are likely to shape geopolitics for decades to come.
The Commission on the National Defense Strategy released its bipartisan and unanimous report in July 2024. The commission concluded that the threats to American national security and interests are greater than at any time since World War II. The nature of the threats facing the United States also makes the security environment more complex than the Cold War.
For a discussion of the report and how the US can respond to these threats, join Commissioners Eric Edelman and Mariah Sixkiller and Hudson’s Rebeccah Heinrichs for this live event.
For nearly 25 years, the United States and India have achieved historic progress in deepening bilateral ties across domains. But important work that could shape global prosperity and security in remains ahead.
Join Hudson’s Dr. Aparna Pande and Deputy Secretary of State Richard R. Verma, the former US ambassador to India, for a conversation on the progress the US and India have made and the major lines of effort ahead.
As Russia continues its criminal war against Ukraine, Europe should urgently deploy all the tools at its disposal to dismantle the Russia-linked state capture networks that have facilitated the Kremlin’s corrosive influence on international economic and political affairs.
Europe’s lackluster sanctions enforcement mechanisms, the patchwork of weak anti–money laundering and criminal prosecution frameworks, and diverse networks of enablers who seek gains from transactional diplomacy have each emboldened the Kremlin to strengthen its maximalist war aims. Russia has also expanded its economic and political influence beyond Europe to create an authoritarian, anti-Western coalition in the Global South.
To empower frontline countries and mitigate authoritarian influence, the European Union needs to create institutional architecture focused on strategic decoupling from Russian energy dependence, cut Western technology and weapons supplies to Russia, and counteract the illicit financing channels that perpetuate the Kremlin’s war.
To discuss how to strengthen economic security and sanctions enforcement in Europe, Martin Vladimirov, director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) in Sofia, and Isaac Levi, Europe-Russia policy and energy analysis team lead at the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) will meet for an in-person panel. Matt Boyse will moderate the panel, and Laura Kovesi, the EU chief prosecutor, will join remotely.
Boyse and CSD Program Director Ruslan Stefanov will deliver opening remarks.
The United States’ federal debt has nearly doubled under the last two presidents. It now equals America’s gross domestic product, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that it will reach as much as 138 percent of US GDP in the next decade. America spends more on annual debt service than national defense, and debt service obligations threaten to impose stringent limits on all other discretionary spending. Neither presidential campaign has offered a convincing program to mitigate this spiraling crisis.
Former Senator Phil Gramm has been a leader in creative thinking and legislating about budgetary restraint over his 45-year public career in government and as an economist. Join Senator Gramm for a discussion at Hudson Institute on the importance and future of budgetary politics with Senior Fellow Thomas Duesterberg. Hudson President and CEO John Walters will deliver introductory remarks.
In recent years, more than 30 states, counties, and municipalities have filed lawsuits against energy companies under state public nuisance and consumer protection laws. These lawsuits, which seek damages for the alleged effects of climate change, have attracted the attention of the United States Supreme Court—particularlyHonolulu v. Sunoco. In these cases, the Supreme Court will decide whether state law claims seeking climate-related damages are precluded by the Constitution and preempted by the Clean Air Act. In early June, the Supreme Court invited the Justice Department’s solicitor general to file a brief expressing the views of the United States, which the department is likely to file this year. These lawsuits carry enormous legal, foreign policy, national security, legislative, public governance, and innovation implications.
Join Hudson for an expert discussion featuring various perspectives on these climate lawsuits and their potential impact.
While the United States and other advanced democracies are hardening their views of and position against China, Beijing is gaining ground in the developing economies of the Global South. In the Indo-Pacific, a region that will largely determine the future of the global strategic landscape, developing nations are absorbing Chinese norms and preferences and gradually adjusting their thinking and policies accordingly.
Why is China making worrying progress in shaping and influencing the policies and actions of developing economies in the Indo-Pacific? Why is this a significant problem for the US and its allies? And what are some effective approaches to countering China in this context?
Join Hudson’s Patrick Cronin, Tom Duesterberg, Aparna Pande, and John Lee as they discuss Lee’s latest report, Understanding and Countering China’s Global South Strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
Nicolas Maduro’s long struggle to strengthen his grip on power has created a criminal hybrid state in Venezuela. Kleptocratic patronage networks have plundered public assets, narcotrafficking has become a state enterprise, and the regime openly tolerates brutal criminal gangs in return for the gangs’ support. Now, Maduro’s refusal to concede defeat in Venezuela’s recent presidential election has plunged the country into a new spiral of political repression and economic crises.
Join Hudson for a discussion on how these crises will affect the evolution of Maduro’s criminal networks, the threat to regional security, and broader implications for the United States’ Venezuela policy, including how the US should dispose of the billions of dollars seized during criminal proceedings against members of Maduro’s inner circle.
Egyptian and Somali relations with Ethiopia are at an all-time low, which has severe implications for an already unstable Sudan and the wealthier countries on the opposite side of the Red Sea. As Cairo and Mogadishu strengthen their bilateral ties, Ethiopia continues to antagonize the two countries by making progress on its Grand Renaissance Dam and continuing to support the breakaway region of Somaliland. Under such circumstances, policymakers should consider the possibility of yet another conflict breaking out in the Horn of Africa.
What are the origins of these conflicts? What are their geostrategic implications? And how does stability in the Horn of Africa affect American policy in the broader region? Join Hudson for an expert panel discussion on these questions.
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