FDD Events Podcast

With the midterm elections over, FDD experts joined journalists on Nov. 5 for a media call, "After the Midterms: What's Next for US and Iran?" as President Trump weighs possible strikes on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain. Behnam Ben Taleblu, Miad Maleki, Andrea Stricker , and Bradley Bowman discussed strategic thinking in Washington and Tehran, the economic leverage available to the admini...

As Israelis went to the voting booth, violence by a small group of Israeli extremists continued in the West Bank. FDD's Jonathan Schanzer and Jonathan Conricus discuss why the problem has re-emerged, whether the Shin Bet is too stretched to stop it, and how Israeli politics and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response have influenced the situation. They also address Palestinian militant groups and...

FDD experts Elaine Dezenski and Max Meizlish discuss what the Atlanta G20 meeting signals about China’s economic model, Russia sanctions enforcement, and American economic statecraft, and what it means for the December leaders’ summit in Miami. For more, check out: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/previewing-the-g20-foreign-ministers-meeting/

FDD's RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery and Craig Singleton give a readout of recent high-level meetings in Taiwan with senior political and defense officials. They discuss findings from a tabletop exercise simulating how the CCP might target Taiwan's satellites, ground networks, and subsea cables through cyber-enabled economic warfare. The exercise also examined how the United States and Japan c...

The United States leads the world in frontier artificial intelligence. However, cutting edge technology used by a limited number of people is a trophy, not a capability – and the contest with China will not be decided only at the frontier. History is unambiguous on this point: the nations that rise during technological revolutions are not always those that invent the breakthrough, but rather the o...

NATO’s power projection depends on the civilian digital systems and physical infrastructure that enable military movement across roads, railways, ports, and airfields. Yet since the end of the Cold War, Europe’s investment in defense-related infrastructure has not kept pace with the demands of a changing security environment. Russia’s war against Ukraine has made the stakes clear. In a conflict wi...

The United States is confronting one of the most dangerous geostrategic environments since 1945. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are deepening cooperation across economic, cyber, technology, and military domains. That cooperation is making each adversary more formidable and increasing the odds the United States will confront simultaneous major wars. Many longstanding U.S. policies and assumpt...

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set to meet in Washington on September 24 to address technology, AI, rare earths, Taiwan, and major security crises — a summit that observers expect to manage the current U.S.-China stalemate rather than resolve it, as both sides use the present lull to position for future leverage. FDD's Craig Singleton , senior fellow and senior director of F...

The global economy has entered a period of fundamental realignment. As the Trump administration deploys tariffs to reshape trading relationships and redefine economic alliances, policymakers worldwide are adapting to a new reality in which economic security and national security have become inseparable. At the forefront of this effort are America’s tools of positive economic power – the institutio...

As the 2026 UN General Assembly convenes in New York, FDD experts will preview the administration's UN reform priorities and the major issues on this year's agenda. Richard Goldberg will discuss implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2803 establishing the Board of Peace, the Secretary-General selection process, and U.S. efforts to close agencies like UNRWA and consolidate overlap...

For decades, American universities have served as engines of innovation, scientific discovery, and economic growth – institutions now targeted by the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to acquire technology, talent, and research with potential military applications. Through its military-civil fusion strategy, Beijing systematically works to eliminate the distinction between civilian and military re...

As NATO leaders prepare to convene in Ankara on July 7-8, the alliance faces a set of questions that will shape its future stability and America's role within it. From the Trump administration's push to shift rather than share the defense burden to the level of Western support for Ukraine, the decisions made in Ankara will carry lasting consequences. FDD experts Bradley Bowman, Sinan Ciddi...

The Palestinian statehood narrative rests on a foundation that FDD’s Hussain Abdul-Hussain argues was constructed, not inherited. In The Arab Case for Israel , he traces Palestinian national identity to 1964 and inter-Arab rivalry, not ancient roots, and contends that the “lost state” narrative is a vision for a Middle East without Israel, not a recoverable past. U.S. pressure on Iran’s nuclear pr...

A new joint commission from FDD and CSIS has released findings and an implementation plan for standing up a dedicated U.S. Cyber Force, concluding that the existing service-based model for cyber force generation cannot meet the demands of an increasingly aggressive threat environment. The commission found that recruiting, training, and retention challenges across four separate services have left t...

The United States is in the early stages of a generational energy buildout driven by soaring AI demand and accelerating digitization of the grid itself. But even as hundreds of billions of dollars flow into batteries, power electronics, and the embedded software that will give America’s electrical infrastructure its digital nervous system, the United States remains dependent on China for the tools...

As NATO Foreign Ministers convene and ceasefire negotiations remain unresolved, the state of Ukraine's military — its resilience, its vulnerabilities, and its strategic horizon — demands sober assessment from those who have seen it firsthand. RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery just completed two weeks in Ukraine, meeting with senior intelligence and armed forces leaders in Kyiv and Kharkiv, conductin...

As President Trump prepares to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, the summit arrives not as a diplomatic breakthrough but as a carefully managed pause in an accelerating strategic competition. FDD Senior Fellow Craig Singleton framed the meeting as a continuation of last fall's tactical trade truce — "stalemate with a stage" — in which both sides are protecting the trade and tariff lan...

The conflict in Iran reveals urgent lessons about AI as a weapon of war and statecraft. Led by one of Washington's top experts on Iranian strategy, military doctrine, and the IRGC, this panel provides an assessment of how the Iranian regime has used autonomous systems and machine learning to expand its reach; how AI tools have supercharged propaganda campaigns and cyber-enabled information war...

Join Elaine Dezenski, CEFP senior director and head; Josh Birenbaum , CEFP deputy director; and Thomas Hill, as they break down a forthcoming CEFP memo, ‘A Gameplan for American Economic Security.’ This comprehensive and actionable economic security framework articulates how the United States can strengthen alliances, reinforce market transparency and accountability, and defend against growing eco...

The UAE's decision to exit OPEC is not a procedural footnote — it is a structural rupture in the cartel that has shaped global energy markets and constrained American foreign policy for decades. The UAE was OPEC's third-largest producer, and its departure arrives on the heels of prior defections and years of Saudi unilateralism that have steadily hollowed out the cartel's ability to co...

U.S. and Israeli strikes under Operation Epic Fury have inflicted severe economic damage on the Iranian regime — damage that now shapes the landscape of ongoing ceasefire negotiations. FDD's Center on Economic and Financial Power has produced the first systematic, model-based estimate of Iran's economic losses, projecting that Tehran has lost roughly $144 billion, or approximately 40 perce...

Israel's military escalation against Hezbollah — an Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon that recently reignited conflict with Israel in solidarity with Iran — has created a rare opening for Lebanese sovereignty. The Lebanese government under Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has taken unprecedented steps, formally stripping Hezbollah of its long-standing "right of resistance"...

As the war involving Iran reshapes the strategic landscape of the Middle East, Turkey finds itself navigating one of the most complex geopolitical dilemmas in its modern history. Sharing a long border with Iran and balancing its role as a NATO member with its regional ambitions, Ankara is attempting to manage the fallout of a conflict that could dramatically alter the balance of power across the r...

Authoritarian regimes are gaining influence over how Americans understand the world through the AI tools trusted to be neutral arbiters of information. By optimizing authoritarian propaganda for AI consumption, adversarial governments are shaping the narratives in AI tools relied on by millions for research, education, and everyday information. This event will explore how propaganda outlets are st...

Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion have opened a new chapter in the Middle East — but whether the United States and Israel translate an unprecedented military campaign into a lasting political victory will define the region for a generation. This FDD media call examines the endgame of the combined U.S.-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including how air superiority over Ira...