CFR Events Audio CFR

Innovation power is playing a critical role in today’s world order, affecting global economies, militaries, and societies. Panelists discuss the strategy needed for the United States to compete in this space to ensure its national security, economic prosperity, and global influence.
 

The COVID-19 pandemic and chronic U.S. drug shortages highlight the health security and strategic importance of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology capabilities during and between pathogenic crises. Geopolitical competition and interest in industrial policy for biotechnology further underscore the national security role of domestic biopharmaceutical infrastructure. Policymakers confront competing health, economic, and strategic priorities in maximizing innovation in technology, business models, and health-care systems in facilitating safe, accessible, secure, and sustainable products, services, and supply chains.  

Please join our speakers, Monique K. Mansoura, executive director for global health security and biotechnology at The MITRE Corporation, and Victor Suarez, Colonel (ret.), U.S. Army, senior fellow (visiting) at The Council on Strategic Risks and founder of BluZoneBio, to explore challenges facing the U.S. pharma and biotech industries and approaches to strengthening the national security resilience of those industries in a world marked by health and geopolitical threats.

The Netflix series Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War is an exploration of the decades-long conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union framed by current events that reveal the Cold War continues and the world remains on the precipice of nuclear war. Join us for a special screening of episode nine of the series, followed by a discussion on the ongoing danger posed by nuclear weapons amidst present-day conflicts and how recent advancements, including artificial intelligence, influence the risks related to nuclear warfare.

The full series of Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War is out on Netflix now. 

The Paul C. Warnke Lecture on International Security was established in 2002 and is endowed by a number of Council members and the family and friends of Paul C. Warnke. The lecture commemorates his legacy of courageous service to the nation and international peace.

David E. Sanger discusses U.S. rivalry with the other two great nuclear powers—Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia—the choices that lie ahead, and what is at stake for the United States and the world.

This special event is being held to honor the memory of Leslie H. Gelb, CFR’s president from 1993 to 2003 and a dedicated member for forty-six years. Gelb modernized the institution to reflect the changing realities of the post-Cold War era, and was a passionate advocate of common sense and strategy in U.S. foreign policy.
 

Stephen Schneck and Eric Ueland, commissioners of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), will join Elizabeth Cassidy, senior strategic advisor of USCIRF, to present the key policy recommendations of the USCIRF 2024 annual report and the foreign policy implications of international religious freedom today. 

USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government agency created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad; makes policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress; and tracks the implementation of these recommendations. USCIRF’s nine Commissioners are appointed by either the president or congressional leaders of each political party, and are supported by a non-partisan professional staff.