Moldova recently held presidential elections and a national referendum on the country’s possible European Union membership. In both cases, Moldovans voted for the Euro-Atlantic cause. Still, the country faces a number of challenges, including Russian hybrid warfare and political meddling. Additionally, Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine threatens Moldova’s security.Next year the country will hold important parliamentary elections, which Russia will doubtlessly try to undermine using disinformation. To discuss recent developments in Moldova and the region, Hudson is honored to welcome President of the Parliament of Moldova Igor Grosu and Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popșoi.

In December 2023, Nippon Steel agreed to purchase US Steel for $14.9 billion and to invest an additional $2.7 billion in local plants. Many supported the deal because it would strengthen the American steel industry and protect the United States market from Chinese dumping. But United Steel Workers (USW) leadership joined various national politicians in opposition to the deal. Media coverage of this issue has undervalued the perspectives of union steelworkers and their communities.Hudson’s Japan Chair will host a panel discussion with stakeholders from the Mon Valley in Pennsylvania. Mayor of West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, Chris Kelly and USW Local 2227’s Jack Maskil and Jason Zugai will share their thoughts on the deal’s local impact.

Join Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East Michael Doran for a conversation with United States Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. They will discuss the post–October 7 Middle East and the current state of US-Israel relations.

In the 100 years since the 1924 Rogers Act, many reforms have been proposed to make the Foreign Service more effective. Congress this year funded the bipartisan Congressional Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State to “examine the changing nature of diplomacy and the ways in which the department can modernize to advance the interests of the United States.”In recent years, prominent former foreign service officers have published studies on how to strengthen the Foreign Service and the State Department. But despite America’s massive deficit spending and declining US influence abroad, most proposals double down on the status quo: they recommend larger staffs and budgets, more emphasis on race and sex preferences in hiring, and greater control by career officials at the expense of elected leaders. The incoming Trump administration has a rare opportunity to address these weaknesses and help the Foreign Service, and more broadly the State Department, advance the US national interest in the context of intensifying great power competition.Join Senior Fellow Matt Boyse for a conversation with three former senior foreign service officers: Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Simon Hankinson, Ambassador (ret.) Tibor Nagy, former assistant secretary of state for Africa, and University of Pittsburgh Adjunct Professor Drew Peterson. They will take stock of where the Foreign Service is today and highlight the opportunities for and challenges to reform during the second Trump administration.

Earlier this year, international headlines reported that Nicaraguan human rights leader Bishop Rolando José Álvarez was exiled. The Nicaraguan regime had recently thrown him and hundreds of Nicaraguan priests into prison without basic due process for spurious, political reasons. But media coverage did not evaluate how this persecution fits into a pattern of repression found today in China, Cuba, Venezuela, and other Communist and Marxist governments. Religious persecution has been a feature of such regimes since the Soviet era, when the Communist government envisioned the eradication of all religious organizations.For most of the twentieth century, Soviet and Eastern European Communism imprisoned priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams. Members of religious communities disappeared by the thousand into gulags and execution cellars. In Eastern Europe, resistance heroes included Polish Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Hungarian Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, and Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac—the latter two of whom were subjected to show trials and long prison sentences. They became famous in the West for their faithful courage.Across the Soviet bloc, places of worship were closed and destroyed unless they belonged to approved, Communist-controlled religions. Police relied on surveillance, threats, coercion, regulation, cooptation, and atheistic education. These tools were used to varying degrees from Joesef Stalin’s reign of terror and Nikita Khrushchev’s crackdown, to the more selective persecution between 1965 and 1985, and straight through to the end of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost. These same tools, enhanced by high tech, are used today in Beijing, Managua, and Havana.To discuss modern religious persecution by far-left regimes and the martyrs and heroes of these systems, a panel of experts will examine common ideology and practices of the repression of churches in China and Latin America. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will open the discussion with a keynote address titled “Why Marxist and Neo-Marxist Regimes Fear Religion.” Then Nina Shea will speak about her Hudson report Ten Persecuted Catholic Bishops in China, which details the Chinese government’s oppression of Catholic clergy.

On August 6, Ukraine launched an audacious military operation into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. One hundred days later, the Ukrainians still hold a sizeable chunk of Russian territory. The operation has achieved its initial objectives: changing the narrative of the conflict, reminding the world that Ukraine can succeed on the battlefield, and forcing Russia to commit resources to Kursk that could otherwise be used elsewhere. But Russia has started a counteroffensive in the region with the help of 10,000 North Korean troops. How can the United States help Ukraine maintain its momentum?A distinguished panel of experts will assess the first 100 days of the Kursk operation and what to expect from the next US presidential administration.

The United States’ abundant natural resources will be crucial to gaining the upper hand in America’s strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China. But to leverage these resources, the US needs to rebuild its domestic rare earths and critical minerals industries.Hudson’s Mike Gallagher will host James Litinsky, founder, chairman, and CEO of MP Materials, to discuss the role of these vital resources in PRC-US competition and what Washington can do to emerge victorious.

Hudson Institute is pleased to host the launch of Hong Kong Watch’s latest report, Invisible Decline: Violations of Digital Rights in Hong Kong and Their Impact. In the report, Anouk Wear examines how digital rights in Hong Kong have declined amid the Chinese government’s crackdown and what the United States and the international community can do to defend freedom in Hong Kong. Join Hudson for an expert panel event that will discuss the report and its implications.

In The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate, which the Wall Street Journal named a best book of 2022, former United States Senator Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early challenge popular notions about income inequality and its effect on Americans.The Myth of American Inequality shows “that the way we collect and report statistics has significantly overstated inequality and understated national well-being” and “that the explosion of transfer payments following the War on Poverty has caused a significant number of prime work-age persons to become detached from the economy. That disengagement from the world of work has denied them the opportunity to benefit from the extraordinary economic progress that has occurred in the last 50 years and is the largest single cause of income inequality in postwar America” (167–68).At Hudson, Senator Gramm and Hudson President and CEO John P. Walters will discuss how economic statistics suggest cohesion rather than divergence among Americans, and why this cohesion is likely to continue.

President-elect Donald Trump will bring a new agenda and a different approach to the United States’ alliances compared to the outgoing Biden administration. How should the second Trump administration balance US national security interests while building on Washington’s strong alliance with the Republic of Korea (ROK)? The two governments recently “reaffirmed the shared vision, common values, and unwavering commitment to their combined defense posture and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) as the bedrock of our security partnership.” On the other hand, President Trump will face growing security cooperation among North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran as he begins his second tenure.While the North Korean nuclear problem is once again a central security challenge, South Korean leaders hold diverse views about how to enhance extended deterrence. There is also considerable debate in Seoul about how the ROK should modernize its military capabilities, manage Korea’s relationship with China, support peace and security in maritime Asia (including the Taiwan Strait), and deepen cooperation with Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Join Hudson for keynote remarks and an expert panel discussion on Korean policy challenges and priorities as well as ways the next US administration can minimize policy disruptions during the transition and find further strategic convergence with the ROK.