This week, Secretary Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov met over Ukraine, Tonga was hit by a tsunami after an underwater volcanic eruption, and Iran's President Raisi met with President Putin at the Kremlin.
Read more below.
This Week’s Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Elizabeth Economy discusses China's global ambitions on The Philadelphia Inquirer's Worldview with Trudy Rubin
Susan Glasser, Robert Zoellick, Peter Baker, and Diana Negroponte in a Center for a New American Security discussion: "The Legendary James A. Baker III"
Michael Green in a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion: "Japan’s Economic Statecraft in 2022: A Dialogue with Tadashi Maeda"
David Ignatius in The Washington Post: "How the U.S. Is Helping Vulnerable Afghans Without Recognizing the Taliban"
Dina Powell McCormick and Vali Nasr for the World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda: "How to Scale Public-Private Partnerships for Global Progress"
David Sanger and Anton Troianovski in The New York Times: "Russia Issues Subtle Threats More Far-Reaching Than a Ukraine Invasion"
Anne-Marie Slaughter in a European Council on Foreign Relations discussion: "The Age of Unpeace: Therapy for Internationalists"
Rising Leaders in the News
"Democracies today have the opportunity to chart a different course with emerging technologies, unburdened by false hopes that they are inherently liberalizing or the false choice that data privacy and data analysis are implacable foes."
Read ASG Rising Leader Helen Toner's new Foreign Affairs piece “Privacy Is Power: How Tech Policy Can Bolster Democracy” with Andrew Imbrie, Daniel Baer, Andrew Trask, Anna Puglisi, and Erik Brattberg.
Tweet of the Week
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Margaret Besheer in Voice of America: "UN Chief: ‘Real Opportunity’ to Resolve Ethiopia Conflict"
José de Córdoba in The Wall Street Journal: "Suspect in Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s Slaying Arrested in Jamaica"
Ellen Francis, Claire Parker, and Rachel Pannett in The Washington Post: "Underwater Pacific Volcano Sends Tsunami Waves to Tonga, Cutting Off Contact with Outer Islands"
Martin Pollard and Ben Blanchard in Reuters: "China Says It Warned Away U.S. Warship In South China Sea, U.S. Denies"
Missy Ryan in The Washington Post: "In Crisis Talks, U.S., Russian Top Diplomats Trade Demands on Ukraine"
Constanze Stelzenmüller in The Financial Times: "Energy Trilemma Causes a Headache for Germany’s New Leaders"
Anton Troianovski, Farnaz Fassihi, and Steven Erlanger in The New York Times: "Russia and Iran Put on a Show of Unity—Against the U.S."
Book of the Week
By Angela Stent
"From renowned foreign policy expert Angela Stent comes a dissection of how Putin created a paranoid and polarized world - and increased Russia's status on the global stage.
How did Russia manage to emerge resurgent on the world stage and play a weak hand so effectively? Is it because Putin is a brilliant strategist? Or has Russia stepped into a vacuum created by the West's distraction with its own domestic problems and U.S. ambivalence about whether it still wants to act as a superpower? Putin's World examines the country's turbulent past, how it has influenced Putin, the Russians' understanding of their position on the global stage and their future ambitions - and their conviction that the West has tried to deny them a seat at the table of great powers since the USSR collapsed.
This book looks at Russia's key relationships - its downward spiral with the United States, Europe, and NATO; its ties to China, Japan, the Middle East; and with its neighbors, particularly the fraught relationship with Ukraine. Putin's World will help Americans understand how and why the post-Cold War era has given way to a new, more dangerous world, one in which Russia poses a challenge to the United States in every corner of the globe - and one in which Russia has become a toxic and divisive subject in U.S. politics."
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