Recent Public Events

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...

Former U.S. Ambassadors Jeffrey DeLaurentis and Peter DeShazo ’69 discuss the recent evolution of the U.S./Cuba relationship, the variables in play in that dynamic, increased U.S. sanctions and other forms of pressure, the effects of those measures and possible future outcomes. Since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration has portrayed Cuba as a national security threat to the United States, pledging to “use every tool at our disposal” to counteract the government there, including regime change. While the U.S. and Cuba have been at odds for decades, this approach includes an increase in political and economic pressures, including limitations on oil and increased sanctions. Moderated by Victoria K. Holt, Director of the Dickey Center. During his 28-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis worked almost exclusively on Western Hemisphere issues and as a multilateral diplomat at the United Nations. He served as the first Charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba in 2015. Prior to this, he was Ambassador for Special Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN. Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN as well as earlier postings in Colombia, Geneva, Cuba and at the National Security Council. ...