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In The Code as Witness, which was published on June 9, Dr. Steven Quay shows how the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2 points directly to human engineering. He warns that irresponsible and unregulated gain-of-function research is accelerating, and that future pandemics may be far deadlier than COVID-19. The book also lays out policy recommendations that could prevent such outbreaks while still allowing important research to continue.
Join Hudson as David Asher sits down with Dr. Quay for a fireside chat. Asher will bring his national security, intelligence, and investigative experience to one of the most consequential questions of our time: how the pandemic began, what the genetic evidence shows, and how the United States can prevent the next biological catastrophe.
Senator Roger Marshall, who has been a leading voice for stronger oversight of high-risk biological research, will open the program by framing the stakes for Congress, national security, and public health.
Today’s wars in Ukraine and the Middle East show how adaptation is becoming the central military competition. The side that can field new tactical or technical innovations faster gains an advantage and can impose compounding costs on enemy forces. To win this competition, the United States Department of War implemented a new strategy to accelerate new capabilities by better leveraging the private sector and focusing government research where it is uniquely needed. These changes are beginning to bear fruit on the battlefield.
Artificial intelligence is arguably the Pentagon’s top technology priority. In addition to speeding planning and decision-making, AI is enabling a more adaptable US force and powering the next generation of autonomous systems. And AI is only one of several technologies where the US military can benefit from America’s world-leading commercial innovation sector.
Please join Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dan Patt for a conversation with Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael about the Department of War’s efforts to bring AI to the battlefield and implement an innovation strategy that makes the most of America’s commercial and government research sectors. Following a fireside chat with the under secretary, a panel will discuss how adaptation is a new source of military advantage.
This event is part of Hudson Institute’s Apex Defense Conference series, which highlights the intersection of technology, military operations, and strategy. Hudson Institute hosts the Apex Conference in collaboration with Clarion Defence. To learn more about APEX 2027 participation or sponsorship opportunities, please visit apexdefense.org.
Please join Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology for the launch of a new report, Strengthening the Front Line: Transforming the Japan Self-Defense Force for Twenty-First-Century Deterrence.
Japan’s government has committed to historic increases in defense spending—and is preparing to revise its National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program before the end of 2026. But larger budgets and updated strategy documents alone will not translate into deterrence. The Japan Self-Defense Forces need a fundamentally different force design: one built around adaptability, uncrewed systems, and hedge forces tailored to how future conflict in the Indo-Pacific is likely to unfold.
Join report authors Bryan Clark and David Byrd, in conversation with Masashi Murano, for a discussion of the report’s principal findings and their implications for how Japan should design and resource its future defense force.
One of the most horrific consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been Moscow’s illegal abduction of Ukrainian children. These children have not only been taken from their homeland and dispersed across the Russian Federation, but they are also being raised to forget their Ukrainian identity and, in some cases, taught to hate their native land.
Bring Kids Back UA is a Ukrainian humanitarian initiative launched by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2023 to locate and return Ukrainian children forcibly deported or displaced by Russia. It serves as an umbrella organization, bringing together domestic and international efforts to rescue, return, and reintegrate these children.
Please join Hudson Institute as it welcomes Maksym Maksymov, head of Bring Kids Back UA, to discuss his organization’s important work.
This month, Russia launched the largest wave of airstrikes in its war against Ukraine, using hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles to strike targets, including civilian infrastructure.
Russia first enacted this savage way of war against the people of Grozny in the 1990s and later refined it through its atrocities in Bucha.
While Ukraine has shown remarkable innovation and creativity in countering Russia’s drones, the bigger threat comes from Russia’s ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Against these weapons, there is only one combat-proven defense: the PAC-3 interceptor fired from the MIM-104 Patriot air defense system.
Ukraine is running out of these interceptors at the moment they are needed most.
What can the United States and its European partners do to help Ukraine mitigate the threat of Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles, especially before winter begins? What is the nature of Russia’s ballistic and hypersonic missile threat? And how is Russia still able to produce so many missiles using Western component parts despite sanctions?
To discuss these issues and more, please join Hudson Institute for an event on Ukraine’s air defense.
Revitalizing and expanding the US defense industrial base (DIB) is a top priority for the Trump administration. The need for a robust domestic manufacturing base is critical to warfighting readiness, supply chain resilience, and the nation’s ability to rapidly scale defense production in response to emerging global threats.
To advance these efforts, the Department of War’s Office of Industrial Base Growth is leading initiatives focused on strengthening and expanding the defense industrial base through vendor growth and supplier maturity. The office works to increase competition, build capacity, and create clearer pathways for businesses of all sizes to enter and succeed in the defense marketplace.
Please join Hudson Institute for a fireside chat between Hudson Senior Fellow Nadia Schadlow and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Growth and Director of the Office of Small Business Programs James Mismash. The discussion will explore current efforts to strengthen the defense industrial base, expand industrial capacity, and foster greater participation and competition across the national security ecosystem.
Spain was once one of Latin America’s most consequential external partners. It served as a democratic model for the region’s transitions from authoritarianism, a major investor in its economies, and a self-styled bridge between the Americas and Europe. That era of influence has given way to strategic retreat and deepening contradictions.
Under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spain has aligned itself with the region’s leftist governments. But the corruption investigation now engulfing former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose mediation in Venezuela is now under legal scrutiny, has cast a shadow over a decade of Spanish diplomacy in that country. Meanwhile, Europe’s engagement with Latin America has entered a new and more urgent phase. The European Union has concluded or overhauled trade agreements with Mercosur and Mexico. So while Latin America’s strategic significance has never been higher, Spain is increasingly out of step with its European allies and with the direction of history in the region.
Join Hudson as Adjunct Fellow Daniel Batlle sits down with Julio Crespo MacLennan, a historian and one of the leading scholars on Spain’s democratic transition and on Europe’s relationship with the wider world. They will discuss Madrid’s influence in Latin America, as well as what Spain’s history can teach us about the prospects for change in Cuba and Venezuela.
The regimes of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua have proven to be more durable than expected. The Daniel Ortega–Rosario Murillo regime in Nicaragua has intensified repression and destroyed the institutions that might constrain it, and the Cuban regime is so far not making even modest concessions, even as its economy collapses. In Venezuela, the Maduro regime has reconstituted itself under Delcy Rodriguez.
How have these regimes survived, even as socialism has manifestly failed and as their citizens have fled in historic numbers? What has been missing from United States strategy? Could the Trump administration’s transactional approach yield results where decades of democracy promotion have failed?
Please join Adjunct Fellow Daniel Batlle for a conversation with Elliott Abrams, whose leadership on Latin America policy stretches from his service as assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs under President Ronald Reagan to his role as special representative for Venezuela in the first Trump administration.
Latin America is experiencing a historic energy boom. Brazil, Guyana, and Argentina are collectively positioned to supply nearly half of global crude production growth through 2030, Venezuela is reentering world markets following the fall of the Maduro regime, and Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale formation is on the verge of transforming the country into a major liquid natural gas exporter. The disruptions to Middle Eastern supply have focused new attention on Latin America’s potential as a stable, resource-rich alternative.
At the same time, Latin America’s rise as an energy powerhouse is far from assured. National oil companies in the region are burdened by debt and political interference, and governments from Bogotá to Brasília are struggling to balance the fiscal imperative of oil revenues with their commitments to a green energy transition. Whether this boom translates into greater energy security and lasting prosperity for the hemisphere will depend on the choices being made by the current governments in the region.
Join Hudson Institute as Adjunct Fellow Daniel Batlle interviews Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American Energy Program at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and one of the foremost authorities on energy and political economy in the region, for a wide-ranging conversation on Latin America's energy future and what it means for the hemisphere and for US interests.
Not too long ago, Georgia was one of the United States’ most dependable strategic partners in the Black Sea region. Its commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration, substantial contributions to US-led missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cooperation on counterterrorism and energy transit made Georgia central to Washington’s regional strategy.
Today, however, Georgia is moving in a different direction. Led by the Georgian Dream party, the government has become more authoritarian while aligning more closely with US adversaries, particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the aftermath of Operation Epic Fury, growing ties between Tbilisi and Tehran should be of particular concern to US policymakers. This activity directly threatens US national security interests in the South Caucasus, undermines Western influence, and strengthens a regime committed to exporting the ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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