Artificial intelligence, cyber operations, and emerging technologies are rapidly changing the landscape of U.S. national security, transforming how threats are detected, decisions are made, and conflicts are fought. In conversation with Government Professor Daryl Press, Emily Harding will discuss how these technologies are reshaping intelligence work and national defense. Drawing on her experience at the CIA, the National Security Council, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and CSIS, Harding will examine how policymakers and intelligence professionals are adapting to an era of faster information, more complex threats, and intensifying strategic competition. Emily Harding serves as vice president of the Defense and Security Department and director of the Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she leads work on the future of intelligence, emerging technology, and national security policy. Previously, she served as deputy staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where she led the committee’s bipartisan investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. She spent much of her earlier career at the Central Intelligence Agency, leading analysts and analytic programs through major crises, including the attempted Islamic State takeover in Iraq. Harding also served at the National Security Council as director for Iran and later helped run the first Office of the ...

Mr. Zhou Fengsuo, one of the leading organizers of the Tiananmen Square protests, discusses Activism, Digital Totalitarianism, and the Future of China. Today China stands at odds with the United States more than ever. This is far from the enthusiastic welcome China received into the world order in 2001. Globalization of trade did not result in the liberalization in China many had assumed was inevitable. Before the Western world attempted to liberalize China from the outside, there were efforts from within. Mr. Zhou Fengsuo, is one such voice of dissent. In 1989, he was a physics student at Tsinghua University when he became one of the leading organizers of the Tiananmen Square protests. Zhou Fengsuo (born 1967 in Xi'an, China) was a physics student at Tsinghua University when he became one of the leading organizers of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He served on the Standing Committee of the Beijing Students’ Autonomous Union, founded the protests’ official radio station “The Voice of the Student Movement,” and coordinated medical assistance for hunger-striking protesters. After the crackdown, he was listed number five on the government's most-wanted list and was forced into exile in the United States. He has spent the decades since as a tireless advocate for democracy in China. He currently serves as Executive Director of Human Rights in China, and his recent work focuses on combating the Chinese Communist Party's use of AI and digital surveillance tools to suppress...

Stanford Professor Matteo Maggiori explains how governments apply geoeconomic pressure using their economies' trade and financial relationships. Matteo Maggiori is the Moghadam Family Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His research focuses on international economics and finance. He is a co-founder and director of the GCAP Lab. His research topics have included the analysis of exchange rates under imperfect capital markets, geoeconomics, the international monetary system, reserve currencies, tax havens, very long-run discount rates and climate change, and expectations and portfolio investment. His research combines theory and data with the aim of improving international economic policy. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he organizes the NBER International Economics and Geopolitics (IEG) meeting, and a research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. Among a number of honors, he is the recipient of the Fischer Black Prize awarded to an outstanding financial economist under the age of 40, the Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships, and the Bernacer Prize for outstanding contributions in macroeconomics and finance by a European economist under age 40. Sponsored by the International Security and Economics Pilot, the Davidson Institute for Global Security at the Dickey Center for International Understanding, The Michael ...

Dr. Rubin, Senior Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, was in conversation with Steven Simon, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Davidson Institute for Global Security. He examined the significance of Iran’s protest movements, the regime’s response, and the risks and opportunities. This event was co-sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Society, the Dickey Center for International Understanding, and the Davidson Institute for Global Security. Dartmouth College, February 26, 2026