Onward to 2020: Promoting Freedom, Security, and Prosperity
As 2020 and a new decade begins, challenges facing the United States and our allies continue to grow. From great power competition with China to increasing threats to democracy and human rights, or an ever-unstable Middle East, the pressing decisions facing U.S. policymakers are abundant.
At Hudson, we’ve remained focused on these critical issues and worked to bring the top policy minds to bear on these questions. In the last five years, we’ve welcomed 41 new experts to our ranks, including the inimitable H.R. McMaster, Walter Russell Mead, Michael Doran, and Nadia Schadlow. Just this week we announced the addition of two new fellows: David Asher and Tim Morrison.
As our team has grown, so too has our footprint. After moving to a brand new office on Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016, we expanded our space last summer with a renovation that brought us new state of the art conference space, more offices, and podcast and TV studios.
Hudson has been the venue of choice for policymakers looking to deliver landmark policy addresses. From Senator Tom Cotton on the crisis in Xinjiang and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on illicit finance, to speeches about the U.S.-China relationship by Vice President Mike Pence in 2018 and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019.
We will continue to bring forth the leading voices on America's most pressing challenges as we promote security, freedom, and prosperity across the globe.
Hudson Highlights
In National Review, Mike Watson explains why Taiwan's recent election is bad news for Beijing.
Rebeccah Heinrichs details in The Federalist the consequences of Soleimani's death and what could be next for U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Lee Smith argues that by choosing to kill Soleimani, President Trump has refused to repeat the foreign policy missteps of the prior administration in The Tablet.
In World Politics Review, Nate Sibley writes how the murder of a journalist in Malta exposes Europe's corruption problem.
Nadia Schadlow takes stock of the current threats to democracy by looking to the past and reviving Thomas Mann's message in Wall Street Journal.
Walter Russell Mead highlights the recent setbacks to authoritarian regimes in Wall Street Journal.
New Season of The Realignment
Last night, Marshall and Saagar launch Season 2 of The Realignment with guests Michael Lind and J.D. Vance. Click here to watch the live taping of their discussion on Lind's new book, The New Class War, which argues that working-class citizens must have greater political participation for western democratic nations to survive.
Commentary
Iran
In the New York Times, Michael Doran offered his thoughts on the calculus behind President Trump's decision to kill Qasem Soleimani:
“Where Mr. Trump may once have seen a clash with Iran as an opportunity to negotiate a better nuclear agreement than Mr. Obama did, he now sees an inextricable connection to Tehran’s malign actions in the region, fomenting wars and supporting terrorists”
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“But he is also more keenly aware of the power differential between us and the Iranians. Once he realized that Khamenei thought Suleimani gave him a competitive advantage, Trump simply took Suleimani off the board. With a drone, not an invasion force."
Michael Pregent discussed the leverage President Trump has in the wake of Soleimani's death in The Hill:
"The president has leverage with Iraq and Iran now. The cards are in the president’s hands right now."
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"He’s demonstrated to both Baghdad and Tehran: 'I’m willing to take out your number one general, and Iraq, I’m willing to leave and then sanction your economy.'"
As reported by Axios and The Jerusalem Post, last week Hudson Institute hosted the former crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi gave keynote remarks explaining the current state of Iran's weakened regime, his view on shared interests between the American and Iranian peoples, and explained the significance of Soleimani's death in context of current protests within the country.
China
Michael Pillsbury discusses in the New York Times how President Trump's supporters view the U.S. China trade deal as ultimately about bringing jobs back to America:
"Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar the the Hudson Institute who advises Mr. Trump, said that Mr. Trump's campaign advisers have realized that the president's supporters are less concerned about China's record of human rights abuses or fears that it is an existential threat and more interested in having greater access to its marker. He said that Mr. Trump appears to be shifting his tone on China...[to show] how the president succeeded in 'opening up' China."
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"The concern of the base about China is not the demoninzation of China; the concern is the ripped-off jobs and lost trade opportunities, the money part of it."
In The Australian, John Lee explains that the trade deal with China will give the President a concrete example he can point to as evidence of his negotiating success:
"This is a big political win for Trump because he can point to an instance when his uniquely disruptive methods have delivered a deal the Chinese would have never made with any previous administration."
Upcoming Events
Thursday, January 23
11:45 a.m.
America’s Global Leadership in Advancing Next-Generation Tools for First Responders
Featuring Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Edward Parkinson
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