January 20, 2026

By ADAM HOWARD

As we enter a new year, the International Churchill Society is launching a unifying annual theme that will guide our work across programs, publications, events, and partnerships throughout 2026: Churchill & America.

This theme will culminate in our 2026 International Churchill Conference this October in Philadelphia, as the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding. The timing is deliberate. The questions raised by Churchill’s relationship with America, questions of leadership, democracy, alliance, and responsibility, are not only historical. They are urgent.

Winston Churchill’s relationship with the United States was not incidental to his leadership. It was central to it. He was shaped by America from birth through his mother, through his early travels, and through his understanding of democratic energy, public persuasion, and industrial power.

In turn, Churchill played a decisive role in shaping how Americans understood their place in the world during moments when retreat was tempting and engagement was contested. The Anglo-American alliance was not inevitable. It was built through persistence, persuasion, trust, and shared moral purpose, often under extraordinary pressure.

As America approaches its semiquincentennial, this history invites serious reflection.

At several critical junctures in the twentieth century, the course of history turned on whether the United States would act, how it would act, and whether it could be persuaded to see its interests as inseparable from the defense of democratic civilization. Churchill understood this earlier, and more clearly, than most. His efforts to build and sustain the Anglo-American alliance were the result of sustained political work, not historical inevitability.

That transatlantic story is not finished. It is ongoing. And it matters now.

Churchill & America invites us to examine this relationship not as nostalgia, but as a living case study in leadership, alliance-building, and moral responsibility. It asks what Churchill understood about America’s strengths and contradictions. It asks what America saw, and at times resisted seeing, in Churchill. And it asks what this relationship can still teach us in a world marked by instability, fragmentation, and uncertainty about democratic leadership.

Throughout 2026, this theme will shape all major ICS programming.

Our publications, including Finest Hour and the Churchill Bulletin, will feature scholarship and commentary examining Churchill’s engagement with the United States and the enduring implications of that relationship. Our podcast and digital programming will bring these ideas to broader audiences, connecting historical case studies to contemporary leadership challenges.

Our outreach and educational programs will draw directly from this transatlantic story, using Churchill’s experience to explore decision-making under pressure, strategic communication, resilience, and the responsibilities that accompany democratic power.

All of this work will converge at our 2026 International Churchill Conference in Philadelphia this October.
Philadelphia is not incidental. It is the birthplace of American independence and constitutional self-government. To gather there, in a year marking 250 years since the founding of the United States, provides a powerful setting to examine Churchill’s understanding of America and America’s evolving role in the world he helped shape.

The conference will bring together historians, policymakers, military leaders, educators, and civic voices to explore Churchill & America in depth, situating Churchill’s leadership within the broader American story and drawing lessons that resonate beyond the past.

Churchill & America is not a commemorative exercise. It is an inquiry. It asks how democratic societies mobilize in moments of danger. How leaders persuade free peoples to act collectively. How alliances are sustained across political systems, cultures, and competing interests. And how moral conviction is balanced against political reality.

As America marks 250 years, Churchill & America offers a lens through which to examine the responsibilities of democratic leadership in a turbulent world. It challenges us to think carefully about alliance, courage, persuasion, and the choices that define nations.

We invite our members, supporters, and partners to engage fully with this theme throughout the year and to join us in Philadelphia this October as we bring this exploration to its culmination.

This is a moment for reflection, rigor, and resolve. History has much to teach us, if we are willing to listen.