Hudson Institute Events Podcast

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel caused the Jewish State to reevaluate the strength of its capabilities and its capacity to maintain border control. Israel has mobilized over 300,000 reservists to fight on the ground against Hamas. Although the Israel Defense Forces’ yearly budget of around $23.6 billion is more than the combined military spending of Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan, Israel’s operation against Hamas may strain its finances. Since the beginning of the conflict, Israel has spent almost $246 million per day, according to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Join Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Doran for a discussion on Israel’s budget during the Israel-Hamas war with Noach Hacker, the minister of economic affairs representing Israel’s Ministry of Finance.

With the eruption of war in the Middle East and Europe and tensions flaring in the Taiwan Strait, the American-led international system seems to be at an inflection point. The number of geopolitical flashpoints from the Sahel to the South China Sea is increasing at an alarming rate, and many are beginning to doubt the United States’ ability to deter hostile, revisionist powers across the globe.Join Hudson Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead for a discussion with critically acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts and General David Petraeus on their new book Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, which provides a penetrating analysis of the last 70 years of military history, highlighting many of the critical lessons that we should draw from past wars. This insightful text helps explain how the US military can anticipate the rapidly evolving threat environment in an increasingly dangerous world to best prepare for the wars of the future.

With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States in June and President Joe Biden’s September visit to India, 2023 has been a landmark year for the India-US strategic partnership. But the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s most populous democracy have not always been such close friends. Through most of the Cold War, relations between the two countries were beset with challenges. Only within the last two decades have New Delhi and Washington become natural allies.Economic Times columnist Seema Sirohi’s new book Friends with Benefits: The India-US Story explores the slow development of the US-India relationship. Join Hudson Institute for a book talk with Sirohi and Ashley Tellis, the Tata Chair for strategic affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, moderated by Hudson Research Fellow Aparna Pande.

Join Hudson Senior Fellow Jonathan Schachter for a discussion with Israel-based journalist Yonah Jeremy Bob on his new book, coauthored with Ilan Evyatar, Target Tehran. About the BookTarget Tehran describes how Israel was able to promote the normalization with Arab states like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates by using its military might to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The writers recount the shadow between Iran and Israel—which sometimes operated in conjunction with the United States—by drawing on interviews with confidential Israeli and US sources, including from the Mossad and the Central Intelligence Agency.About the AuthorYonah Jeremy Bob is the senior military and intelligence analyst as well as the book review editor for the Jerusalem Post. Hailing originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Yonah has close connections with many Israeli intelligence figures and previously worked in the Israeli military international law division, at the Israeli Embassy to the United Nations, and in the Israeli Justice Ministry. He is the author of Justice in the West Bank? And the editor and translator of A Raid on the Red Sea, an intelligence thriller whose principal author is Amos Gilboa, a former Israel Defense Forces deputy chief of intelligence.

The fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act established the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States to review US nuclear weapons policy, strategy, and force structure and to conduct an assessment of America’s near-peer competitors. Earlier this month, the commission released its final report on America’s strategic posture, the first such report since 2009. Join commission members and Hudson Senior Fellows Rebeccah L. Heinrichs and Marshall S. Billingslea as they host commission Chair Madeline R. Creedon and commission members Rose E. Gottemoeller and Robert M. Scher for a discussion on the report’s findings and its implications for the future of America’s strategic posture.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is undergoing a profound change. At the Madrid summit in July 2022, the alliance ratified a new strategic concept that returned NATO to its roots: deterring Russian aggression. At that same meeting, NATO began the process of welcoming Sweden and Finland into the alliance, leading to Finland’s full accession in April 2023. At the Vilnius summit this past summer, NATO continued to adapt in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. The alliance updated its military plans and established the NATO-Ukraine Council. It also eased Ukraine’s path to accession by announcing that it could join the alliance without completing a membership action plan (MAP).One hundred days after Vilnius, as the alliance begins its preparations for its seventy-fifth summit next year in Washington, join Hudson’s Peter Rough and Luke Coffey as they welcome two Lithuanian national security experts for a retrospective analysis of the Vilnius summit: Žygimantas Pavilionis, a member of the Seimas (Lithuania’s parliament), where he serves on the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and Tomas Janeliūnas, the chief research officer at the Eastern Europe Studies Centre and a professor at Vilnius University. 

Increasingly contested international waters threaten the security and prosperity of the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies and partners. The Coast Guard deploys a fleet that is equivalent to the world’s 15 largest navies combined, with some 38,000 active-duty forces and more than 240 cutters. Responsible for law enforcement, marine safety, and environmental protection, the Coast Guard patrols America’s 3.4 million miles of exclusive economic zone. But the Coast Guard is also working to strengthen its presence in the Indo-Pacific, training and conducting exercises with allies and partners throughout the region.Hudson Asia-Pacific Security Chair Patrick M. Cronin will sit down with Admiral Linda L. Fagan, commandant of the United States Coast Guard, to discuss the Coast Guard’s growing role in combatting China’s peacetime confrontation operations and protecting the marine environment and vital fisheries. Hudson President and CEO John P. Walters will deliver opening remarks.

Entrepreneur and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will discuss his vision for the defense of the American homeland, including how that vision applies in the Middle East in an address at Hudson Institute. Following his remarks, he will sit down for a fireside chat with Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Doran.About the Presidential Speech Series:The 2024 presidential election will coincide with a time of fundamental global transition. From the ongoing war in Europe to the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly aggressive challenge to the US, the next president will need to demonstrate strong leadership, strategic thought, and the ability to craft clear policy and shape the national consensus. For more than 60 years, Hudson Institute has challenged conventional thinking and helped manage strategic transitions to the future through interdisciplinary studies in defense, international relations, economics, energy, and technology. Hudson is guided by the understanding that American leadership is vital to security, freedom, and prosperity.In that spirit, Hudson has invited leading presidential candidates to share their views on America’s role in the world and the principles that would guide their foreign and defense policies in the inaugural Presidential Speech Series.

The Western-led international system faces a major test. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 20 months ago harkens back to the major wars on European soil last century, while Hamas’s gruesome attack on Israel is a stark reminder of the threat of state-supported terrorism. From the Balkans to the Caucasus and from the Philippines to Taiwan, the number of real and potential global flashpoints is multiplying at an alarming speed.In this new geopolitical landscape, maintaining a favorable balance of power across Eurasia requires a strong and determined transatlantic alliance. From emerging technologies, to supply chains, to international trade, the United States and the European Union need to find means of cooperation and a constructive path forward to ensure peace and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.The US-EU summit at the White House is meant to do just that. On the sidelines of that meeting, Hudson Institute is delighted to welcome the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to discuss the conflict in Gaza and the challenge Iran poses, assess the state of the war in Ukraine, and explain Brussels’s view on China’s rise. Following her remarks, she will sit down with Peter Rough, director of Hudson’s Center on Europe and Eurasia, for a fireside chat.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the world’s first oil shock, when the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) declared an embargo on oil shipments to Western countries. Oil prices quadrupled in the next few months, but the embargo’s consequences for energy, domestic politics, and international relations were bigger and longer lasting than the price spike at the pump.Join Hudson Senior Fellows Brigham McCown and Arthur Herman as they explore the past and present of the 1973 oil embargo with distinguished industry leaders in a two-part panel discussion. The panels will accompany a keynote address from Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.Read Herman’s recent report on the lessons of the crisis, From Fueling Victory to Running on Empty, here.