Halifax International Security Forum: What to Expect in 2026

WarBrief Live | November 6, 2026 | Event Preview

At a glance: Dates: November 20-22, 2026 | Venue: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada | Edition: 18th annual Halifax International Security Forum | Theme: “Democracies Demand Decency” | Headline topic: artificial intelligence, woven through all seven plenary sessions | New for 2026: a first-ever special session for defence industry leaders on Sunday, November 22.

The Halifax International Security Forum 2026 will bring democratic leaders, defence ministers, military chiefs and security experts to Nova Scotia on November 20-22, two weeks after the United States midterm elections of November 3. The forum, convened by the independent non-profit HFX, has chosen artificial intelligence as the thread running through its entire plenary agenda, and it will hold its first-ever session for defence industry leaders. For readers in the US, the UK and the EU, it is the first big test of how the democratic alliance talks about security after an American election that reshaped Washington’s politics.

What is the Halifax International Security Forum?

The Halifax International Security Forum is an annual gathering of leaders from the world’s democracies, held each November in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is convened by HFX, a Washington-based independent, non-profit, non-partisan organisation whose guiding idea is that true security is achieved only when people enjoy the benefits of democracy, leading in turn to economic opportunity and lasting peace. Its shorthand, repeated in every HFX release, is “Democracy = Security”.

The forum is deliberately small and deliberately senior. Delegates include defence and foreign ministers, parliamentarians, military chiefs, intelligence officials, academics, journalists and business leaders from more than 60 democracies, according to HFX’s agenda for the 2025 meeting. Plenary sessions are public; much of the working business happens in off-the-record sessions where participants can speak without attribution. The 2026 forum is the 18th annual edition: the first was held in 2009, and the gathering has run every year since.

Halifax matters because of where it sits in the calendar. It traditionally falls two weeks after a US election, which makes it the first place where the new political reality in Washington meets the democratic alliance in person. In 2024, it came two weeks after the US presidential election; in 2026, it comes two weeks after the midterm elections of November 3, 2026, which reshaped the balance of power in Congress and, with it, the politics of American support for Ukraine and of the confrontation with Iran.

When and where is the 2026 forum, and who is coming?

The 2026 forum runs from Friday, November 20, to Sunday, November 22, 2026, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. HFX announced the dates on February 9, 2026, and released the plenary agenda on September 29, 2026. The full agenda, including more than 30 off-the-record sessions, will be released closer to the forum, and HFX says the public proceedings can be followed online.

The 2026 participant list has not yet been published, so names should not be assumed from past years. What is confirmed is the shape of the gathering: a US congressional delegation is a fixture of the forum, and defence ministers from allied states are regular attendees. At the 17th forum in November 2025, the US delegation was a bipartisan group of nine senators led by Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and defence ministers from Sweden, the Netherlands, Latvia, Estonia and Colombia attended. Canada’s Minister of National Defence, David McGuinty, hosted that meeting. Whether the same figures return in 2026 is not yet confirmed.

One confirmed addition for 2026 is the defence industry. For the first time, HFX will convene a special session for leaders from the defence industry on the afternoon of Sunday, November 22. HFX president Peter Van Praagh said the session would bring industry leaders together with “trustworthy experts and government decision-makers to help Canada achieve the important and ambitious goals laid out in its Defence Industrial Strategy”. That strategy, released earlier in 2026, states that Canada’s sovereignty and national security depend on a strong industrial and technological base that supports defence readiness and economic resilience.

What is on the 2026 agenda?

Artificial intelligence is the organising idea of the 2026 forum. HFX released seven plenary sessions on September 29, 2026, and every title begins with the letters “A” and “I” — a deliberate nod, the organisation said, to the growing role AI plays in global security and in everyday life. The sessions are: “Aggressor Insistent, Appeasement Impossible”; “Anti-immigrant Insanity, Antisemitism Insidious”; “Attacked Incumbents, Alternatives Incoming”; “Agrifood Instability, Anarchy Inevitable”; “Awesome Invention, Apocalypse Impending”; “Atlantic Inspirations, Asia Innovations”; and “Advancing Integrity, Allies Inspired”.

Van Praagh framed the choice bluntly: “Artificial intelligence plus natural stupidity equals the urgent need for thoughtful conversations.” The forum’s promise, HFX says, is to explore both the promise and the dangers of AI across the three days — how, if good decisions are made, new technologies can contribute to positive outcomes for democracies, and what happens if they are not.

Ukraine runs through the agenda as well. Van Praagh’s agenda release noted that “after four and a half years defending its values against the much bigger aggressor, Ukraine is now the world’s leader on unmanned technologies”, and said Ukrainian participants would “continue to lead and teach all of us about what is worth fighting for, and how to do it effectively”. That framing connects directly to the diplomacy of the same fortnight: working-level Ukraine-Russia talks open in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, and the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meets in Brussels on November 17, three days before Halifax opens.

The wider security picture will be present too. The Iran conflict, which has dominated WarBrief’s coverage through the autumn — from the November 2 strike on Qeshm Island to the tanker incidents near the Strait of Hormuz and the sharp moves in oil prices — sits behind the energy and shipping questions on the forum’s margins. The future of NATO, China and Taiwan, and cybersecurity were all on the 2025 agenda, and the 2026 session titles point the same way: “Aggressor Insistent, Appeasement Impossible” reads as a debate about Russia and China, while “Atlantic Inspirations, Asia Innovations” bridges the two theatres.

Halifax 2026 by the numbers

Figures marked confirmed come from HFX releases or reputable reporting. The 2026 participant list is not yet announced; do not treat 2025 attendees as confirmed for 2026.

Why the Halifax forum matters now

Halifax 2026 arrives at a hinge moment for the democratic alliance, and the forum’s own language says so. “Democracy is the best governance system we’ve come up with,” Van Praagh said when the dates were announced. “But it is also a value system. When democratically elected leaders don’t respect the very democratic ideals that brought them to power, democracy everywhere comes under attack. In short, democracy equals security.”

Three pressures make this edition sharper than most. First, the United States has just held midterm elections that changed the politics of its foreign policy, and the forum is the first place where allied governments will hear, face to face, what the new Congress intends for Ukraine aid, for the Iran confrontation and for NATO spending. Second, the war in Ukraine is entering its fifth winter with diplomacy moving in parallel — Abu Dhabi, then Ramstein, then Halifax in the space of twelve days — and the forum’s off-the-record rooms are where the gaps between public positions get tested. Third, artificial intelligence has moved from a side session to the whole agenda, which reflects how quickly AI has become a battlefield technology: Ukraine’s drone war is the proof point HFX itself cites.

There is also a Canadian angle that matters beyond Halifax. Canada is using the forum to advance its Defence Industrial Strategy, and the new defence industry session is the clearest sign that Ottawa wants the gathering to produce industrial outcomes, not just communiques. At the G7 summit earlier in 2026, Canada announced $2 billion in new military support for Ukraine, and Canadian senators who attended the 2025 forum have since argued that Canada is moving “beyond the symbolic pledges” on both its NATO commitments and Ukraine. Halifax 2026 is where that claim gets measured against delivery.

What the Halifax forum means for US/UK/EU readers

For American readers, Halifax is the earliest read on what the post-midterm Congress will do about Ukraine and Iran. The bipartisan Senate delegation has historically been the forum’s most watched group, because senators who attend tend to carry its conclusions back into the debates over aid and authorisations. If the 2026 delegation is large and bipartisan, that signals continuity; if it is thin or one-sided, that is itself a message. Watch also for anything said about war powers, which have been a live argument in Washington through the autumn.

For British and European readers, the forum is a barometer of the transatlantic bargain. The 2025 meeting drew defence ministers from Sweden, the Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia — the states most exposed to Russia — and the 2026 agenda’s focus on aggression and appeasement speaks directly to the question Europeans keep asking: whether American security guarantees still hold, and what Europe must build for itself if they do not. The mutual defence pacts now being signed across the region, including the Makkah pact Turkey’s parliament began ratifying this week, are part of the same hedging.

For households, the forum’s outcomes are indirect but real. Energy prices, shipping insurance and defence budgets all move on the signals that come out of gatherings like this one. Brent crude has swung sharply through the autumn on Iran war risk, and any hardening or softening of the allied position on the Gulf that emerges from Halifax will feed straight into the same oil and fuel prices that WarBrief has tracked week by week.

What supporters and critics say about the forum

Supporters describe Halifax as the preeminent annual gathering of the world’s democratic decision-makers, and point to its record of putting Ukraine, Taiwan and the defence of democratic institutions at the centre of the agenda when other forums treated them as side issues. The John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service, awarded at the forum, has gone to figures including the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza. HFX’s case is that linking democracy with security is not rhetoric but the forum’s operating principle, and that the off-the-record format produces candour that public summits do not.

Critics take a different view. Canadian commentator Stephen Kimber has argued that the forum is expensive — Canadian taxpayers have provided funding support for the gathering, including federal grants to host the 2025 and 2026 forums — and that its agenda reflects American priorities more than Canadian ones. The criticism is a reminder that Halifax is a curated conversation: China, Russia and Iran are discussed, not represented. Readers should treat the forum’s outputs as a window into how the democratic alliance thinks, not as a neutral record of the world.

What to watch from Halifax in November

First, the participant list. When HFX releases the full agenda closer to the forum, the size and composition of the US congressional delegation will be the single most informative detail: it will show whether the post-midterm Congress is engaging with the alliance or pulling away from it. Second, the defence industry session on November 22: watch for concrete announcements — contracts, partnerships or procurement commitments — rather than general statements about industrial strategy. Third, the language on Ukraine that emerges from the plenary sessions, and whether it hardens after the Abu Dhabi talks and the Ramstein meeting. Fourth, anything said about AI and warfare that moves from principle to practice: export controls, battlefield autonomy, or shared standards for military AI would all be news.

Finally, watch what does not get said. If the forum’s public sessions avoid the hardest questions — the future of American guarantees, the cost of the Iran confrontation, or the state of democracy inside the alliance itself — that silence will be as informative as any speech. WarBrief will cover the forum as it unfolds from November 20, and this preview will be updated when the full agenda and participant list are published.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Halifax International Security Forum 2026?
The forum runs from Friday, November 20, to Sunday, November 22, 2026, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is the 18th annual edition of the gathering.

What is the Halifax International Security Forum?
It is an annual gathering of leaders from the world’s democracies — defence and foreign ministers, parliamentarians, military chiefs, intelligence officials, academics and journalists — convened by the independent non-profit HFX. Its guiding idea is that democracy and security depend on each other.

What is on the agenda for Halifax 2026?
Artificial intelligence dominates: all seven plenary sessions carry titles beginning with “A” and “I”, covering aggression, migration and antisemitism, elections, food security, technology, the Atlantic and Asia, and allied integrity. A first-ever special session for defence industry leaders takes place on Sunday, November 22, and more than 30 off-the-record sessions are planned.

Who attends the Halifax forum?
Defence ministers, parliamentarians, military chiefs and experts from more than 60 democracies attended in 2025, including a bipartisan delegation of nine US senators. The 2026 participant list has not yet been published.

Is the Halifax forum open to the public?
Plenary sessions are public and the proceedings can be followed online through HFX. Most working sessions are off the record, and attendance is by invitation, with space limited.

Sources

• HFX: HFX Releases Plenary Agenda for November 20-22 Halifax International Security Forum (September 29, 2026)
• HFX: HFX Announces Special Session for the Defence Industry at the 2026 Halifax International Security Forum (September 16, 2026)
• HFX: HFX Announces Dates for 2026 Halifax International Security Forum (February 9, 2026)
• Global News (via PlanetReportHub): Halifax International Security Forum to focus on future of democracy (2025 forum)
• Senate of Canada: Senator Rebecca Patterson on the Halifax International Security Forum (2025)
• Government of Canada: Grants and Contributions — funding support to host the 2025 and 2026 Halifax International Security Forums