Honolulu Defense Forum 2027

The Honolulu Defense Forum (HDF) is an annual conference hosted by Pacific Forum International, a non-profit, non-partisan foreign policy research institute based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

HDF leverages Hawaii’s strategic location and America’s partnerships to enhance operational readiness and strengthen deterrence by improving forward force posture, strengthening alliances and partnerships, rebuilding defense industrial capacity, and increasing economic investment and resilience for the region.

The forum focuses on results-oriented solutions that accelerate joint capability development, enhance combat-credible forces, and build resilience needed to deter aggression and strengthen security across the Indo-Pacific.

The 2027 HDF will focus on “Operationalizing Solutions to Prevail in the Indo-Pacific.” The objective is practical: identify replicable models, accelerate collaboration, and advance actionable solutions that strengthen deterrence and regional stability.

Unlike many strategic conferences that focus primarily on policy discussion, HDF 2027 will focus on implementation.

The 2027 forum will highlight how operational leaders, policymakers, industry innovators, and investors across the region are moving from strategy to implementation—fielding capabilities, integrating partners, strengthening economic resilience, and building the operational networks necessary to sustain deterrence and security.

The challenge is no longer identifying solutions. It is operationalizing them at speed and scale.

HDF 2027 Themes:

Delivering Combat Power Forward: Speed, Scale, and Sustainment
Coalition as a Capability: Executing Networked Deterrence
Industrial Power as Deterrence: Mobilizing Capacity
Decision Advantage: AI, Data, and the Information Domain
Economic Investment and Resilience in Action: Securing Supply Chains and Strategic Resources

Explore the themes below:

Delivering Combat Power Forward: Speed, Scale, and Sustainment. What capability has been fielded or accelerated in the past 12–18 months that meaningfully changed readiness or deterrence? What bureaucratic, legal, or logistical barrier nearly prevented delivery and how was it overcome? Where are distributed logistics and sustainment networks succeeding or failing under real operational stress? How are forward maintenance, repair, and sustainment ecosystems evolving with allies and commercial partners? Where are space-enabled sensing and missile defense integration changing warning timelines? What authorities or funding mechanisms enabled speed, and which ones slowed execution? If a crisis occurred tomorrow, what would break first?

Coalition as a Capability: Executing Networked Deterrence. Where are allies and partners already operating differently together compared to five years ago? What information-sharing, standard setting, or legal authorities had to change to enable real integration? What coalition efforts are already operating as shared systems? Where does interoperability still exist more on paper than in practice? How are smaller partners and Pacific Island nations being integrated into regional readiness? What lessons from exercises have actually translated into operational change?

Industrial Power as Deterrence: Mobilizing Capacity. What production or repair efforts have accelerated most significantly and why? What risk did industry or government have to accept to move faster? How are commercial companies being integrated into operational planning earlier? Where are acquisition or contracting authorities still misaligned with operational timelines? How are allies contributing industrial capacity rather than duplicating it? What incentives are attracting private capital now into long-term defense production and industrial capacity expansion?

Decision Advantage: AI, Data, and the Information Domain. Where have AI, data integration, or decision-support tools already improved operational or strategic decision-making? How are governments integrating information operations and cognitive warfare tools to counter adversary influence and disinformation campaigns? What real-world deployments—not pilot programs—have demonstrated measurable gains in speed, trust, and decision advantage? How are classified, commercial, and allied data streams being integrated to create shared operational and information awareness?

Economic Resilience in Action: Securing Supply Chains and Strategic Resources. What concrete steps in the past 18–24 months have strengthened supply chain resilience and access to critical resources in the Indo-Pacific? Which public-private partnerships or allied initiatives are already improving production capacity and economic security? Where are new investments in manufacturing and energy systems reducing strategic vulnerabilities? How are governments and industry integrating economic resilience into deterrence and defense planning?

Rather than revisiting familiar diagnoses, HDF will highlight operational vignettes—real examples of capabilities fielded, partnerships executed, infrastructure delivered, and systems integrated across domains. The Forum will serve as a venue to accelerate implementation by exchanging lessons learned, identifying barriers to execution, and accelerating solutions already underway. HDF will:

Convene policy and operator discussions across government, industry, and allies to accelerate joint capabilities and strengthen Indo-Pacific deterrence.
Connect industry and venture capital with actionable solutions for U.S. and partner government challenges.
Deliver actionable recommendations to operationalize deterrence and resilience in the Indo-Pacific.
Identify policy, legal, financial, and operational barriers to capability delivery and coalition integration.
Strengthen collaboration to align operational needs with scalable solutions.
Produce a final report with clear, actionable recommendations for policymakers, planners, and industry.

HDF 2027

Operationalizing Solutions to Prevail in the Indo-Pacific

What is HDF

Objectives and Themes for 2027

Featured Speakers from HDF 2026

Participation at a glance (2026)