Kahn was a physicist and military consultant known for envisioningnuclear war scenarios.[c] The institute's research branched out from the military into various areas including economics, health, education, and gambling.[8] Kahn died in 1983 and the institute moved toIndianapolis,Indiana the year after.[8][15] The institute helped designWisconsin's influentialworkfare program in the mid-1990s.[8][16][17] Hudson relocated to Washington, D.C., in 2004.[18] It has been noted for work with governments and industries, includingdefense andagribusiness.[19][20][21][22]
Kahn moved toCroton-on-Hudson, New York, intending to establish a new think tank that was less hierarchical and bureaucratic.[26] Along with Max Singer, a young government lawyer who had been Kahn's RAND colleague, and New York attorney Oscar Ruebhausen, Kahn founded the Hudson Institute on July 20, 1961.[27] Kahn has been described as Hudson's driving intellect while Singer developed the institute's organization.[28] Ruebhausen was an advisor to New York governorNelson Rockefeller.[29]
Hudson's initial research projects largely represented Kahn's personal interests, which included the domestic and military use ofnuclear power andscenario planning exercises about policy options and their possible outcomes.[30] The use of the wordscenario in such exercises had been adapted fromHollywood storytelling as a more dignified word than "screenplay", and Kahn was an enthusiastic practitioner.[31][32] Kahn and his colleagues made pioneering contributions to nuclear deterrence theory and strategy during this period.[33][additional citation(s) needed]
Hudson's detailed analyses of "ladders of escalation"[34] and reports on the likely consequences of limited and unlimited nuclear exchanges, eventually published asThinking About the Unthinkable in 1962[28] andOn Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios in 1965,[35] were influential within theKennedy administration.[36] They helped the institute win its first major research contract from theOffice of Civil Defense at the Pentagon.[37]
Meanwhile, in popular culture,Dr. Strangelove in 1964 borrowed many lines from Kahn'sOn Thermonuclear War,[23] and the methods of Kahn, Hudson and RAND also inspired the 1967 satirical bookThe Report From Iron Mountain, depicting a supposedly secret study on the dangers of peace.[38]
Kahn in 1962 predicted the rise ofJapan as the world's second-largest economy and developed close ties to politicians and corporate leaders there.[46][9]
Hudson Institute used scenario-planning techniques to forecast long-term developments and was noted for its future studies.[citation needed] In 1967, Hudson publishedThe Year 2000, a bestselling book commissioned by theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[46] Many of the predictions proved correct, including technological developments like portable telephones and network-linked home and office computers.[47]
In 1970,The Emerging Japanese Superstate was published.[9] After theClub of Rome's 1972 reportThe Limits to Growth produced alarm about the possibility that population growth and resource depletion might result in a 21st-century global "collapse", Hudson responded with its own analysis,The Next 200 Years, which concluded instead that scientific and practical innovations were likely to significantly improve worldwide living standards.[45]
Hudson struggled with funding problems in the 1970s for reasons including increased competition from other think tanks for government grants.[48] It turned to grants from corporations such asIBM andMobil.[49]
In his 1982 bookThe Coming Boom, Kahn argued that pro-growth tax and fiscal policies,information technology, and developments by the energy industry would make possible an unprecedented prosperity in the Western world by the early 21st century.[50][51] Kahn also foresaw unconventional extraction techniques likehydraulic fracturing.[45][49]
In 1990, Daniels quit to become vice president of corporate affairs atEli Lilly and Company.[66] He was succeeded as CEO by Leslie Lenkowsky, a social scientist,[67] and former consultant to SenatorDaniel Patrick Moynihan.[68]
Under Lenkowsky, Hudson emphasized domestic and social policy.[citation needed] During the early 1990s, the institute did work concerning education reform and applied research oncharter schools andschool choice.[69][70]
Also in 1990, Hudson Institute spun off a subsidiary non-profit organization that took the name theDiscovery Institute.[71]
At the initiative of Wisconsin governorTommy Thompson,[67] two members of Hudson were in the small planning group that designed theWisconsin Works welfare-to-work program. Hudson also helped fund the planning and evaluated the results.[16][17][72] A version was adopted nationwide in the 1996 federal welfare-reform legislation signed by PresidentBill Clinton.[73] In 2001, PresidentGeorge W. Bush's initiative oncharitable choice was based[74] on Hudson's research[75] into social-service programs administered by faith-based organizations.[76]
Other Hudson research from this period included 1987's "Workforce 2000",[77] the "Blue Ribbon Commission onHungary" (1990)[78] "International Baltic Economic Commission" (1991–93), on market-oriented reforms in the newly independent states of Eastern Europe,[79] and the 1997 follow-up study "Workforce 2020".[77]
President Tsai accepts the institute's Global Leadership Award, 2023.
On March 30, 2023, PresidentTsai Ing-wen ofTaiwan attended an event held by the Hudson Institute, where she accepted the institute's Global Leadership Award. In response to the award event, theForeign Ministry of China imposed sanctions on the institute, its Board of Trustees Chair Sarah May Stern, and its President and CEOJohn P. Walters.[91]
The Institute provides several briefing services, such as the Keystone Defense Initiative, where Rebecca Heinrichs is the Senior Fellow and Director.[95][96]
As of 2021, the organization reported revenue of over $37m with under $20m in expenses and an endowment of $81m.[17]
Hudson Institute has accepted $7.9m fromDonors Trust.[22] It has received $25,000 from Exxon Mobil since 1998 and less than $100,000 fromKoch family foundations, both of which actively minimize climate change.[109]
The New York Times commented on Dennis Avery's attacks on organic farming: "The attack on organic food by a well-financed research organization suggests that, though organic food accounts for only 1 percent of food sales in the United States, the conventional food industry is worried".[110]
Another employee of the institute,Michael Fumento, was revealed to have received funding fromMonsanto for his 1999 bookBio-Evolution. Monsanto's spokesman said: "It's our practice, that if we're dealing with an organization like this, that any funds we're giving should be unrestricted." Hudson's CEO and President Kenneth R. Weinstein toldBusinessWeek that he was uncertain if the payment should have been disclosed. "That's a good question, period," he said.[21]
The New York Times suggested Huntington Ingalls Industries had used the Hudson Institute to enhance the company's argument for more nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, at a cost of US$11 billion each. The Times alleged that a former naval officer was paid by Hudson to publish an analysis endorsing more funding. The report was delivered to the House Armed Services subcommittee without disclosing that Huntington Ingalls had paid for part of the report. Hudson acknowledged the misconduct, describing it as a "mistake".[19]
The institute, which publishes frequent reports concerning China, has received funding from theTaiwanese government as have other prominent think tanks.[111]
Employees of Hudson Institute have made substantial political donations. During the 2022 election cycle, they donated $128,893 to federal campaigns the vast majority of which went toRepublican candidates and PACs.[112] A major recipient was Rep.Liz Cheney (R-WY).
The institute is generally described asconservative[8][9][10][11][12] and sometimesneoconservative.[113] Hudson says it hosts policymakers, foreign policy experts, and elected officials from across the political spectrum. According to its website, Hudson "challenges conventional thinking and helps manage strategic transitions through interdisciplinary studies in defense, international relations, economics, energy, technology, culture, and law."[114]
Led byMichael Doran, the center studies challenges for America and its allies in the middle east in responding to the threats posed by inimical forces such as theIslamic Republic of Iran, Russia, and China to promote peace.[115][116]
The China Center at the Hudson Institute studies China with the "central goal of engendering America's value-based, non-partisan, sound and effective responses to the China challenge."[117] The center was launched in May 2022.[118] It is directed byMiles Yu whileMichael Pompeo serves as chair of the advisory board, which consists ofScott Morrison,Paula J. Dobriansky,Morgan Ortagus, andKyle Bass as of August 2023.[119][120]
The Center on Europe and Eurasia is focused on "checking Russia's military aggression in Ukraine, countering China's subversion of the continent, extricating Europe from strategic vulnerabilities, forging key links in Central Asia, and modernizing our transatlantic military posture and economic ties".[121][122] The center was launched in 2022.[123]
The Japan Chair at the Hudson Institute is led byKenneth R. Weinstein, a fellow at the Institute and its former CEO.[124] It is focused on strengthening theU.S.-Japan alliance. The Chair was founded in Spring 2009 under the leadership of GeneralH.R. McMaster who now serves as chair of its advisory board.[125][126]
Hamilton Commission on Securing America's National Security Innovation Base
The Hudson Institute houses this bipartisan commission which explores economic sectors critical to national security with the purpose of proposing policy recommendations to reduce dependence and advance U.S. leadership in these industries.
In 2016, Hudson's Kleptocracy Initiative issued a report, authored by Ben Judah, sounding the alarm about offshore financial flows, and calling for the end of anonymous shell companies as a US national security priority.[128][independent source needed] The Hudson Institute received criticism by a member of its Kleptocracy Initiative advisory board when its 2018 awards gala was funded in part byLen Blavatnik, a magnate who had business dealings with Russian oligarchs who were on the United States sanctions list.[99]
^abStern became chairman in 2012 per IRS Form-990 yr2012
^Kahn analyzed the likely consequences ofnuclear war and recommended ways to improve survivability during theCold War. Kahn posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 bookOn Thermonuclear War, for which he was one of the historical inspirations for the title character ofStanley Kubrick's classicblack comedy film satireDr. Strangelove.[14]
^abConant, James K. (2006).Wisconsin Politics and Government: America's Laboratory of Democracy. University of Nebraska Press. p. 229.ISBN9780803215481.
^abcCabezas, Amalia L.; Reese, Ellen; Waller, Marguerite (2015).Wages of Empire: Neoliberal Policies, Repression, and Women's Poverty. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.ISBN9781317249474.
^Duval, Steven J. (January 29, 2014)."James Lee Byars and the Hudson Institute".ARC (Arts Research Collaboration at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas). RetrievedFebruary 25, 2019.
^Frohnen, Bruce; Nelson, Jeffrey O.; Beer, Jeremy (2014).American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia. United States: Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ORD).ISBN9781497651579.
White, Andrew."New York in the 1960s".The American Prospect, October 22, 2001: 40. [Book rev. ofThe Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York, by Vincent J. Cannato (New York: Basic Books, 2001).]
