The Weekly Leaf
This week, OPEC Plus announced a plan to cut oil production by two million barrels a day, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea conducted missile defense exercises in response to North Korean missile tests, and the European Political Community met for the first time in Prague.
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This Week’s Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Stephen Biegun for The Detroit News: "Putin May Be on His Last Legs"
Ash Carter interviewed by Bob Davis for The Wire China: "Ash Carter on the Pentagon’s Lonely Pivot to Asia"
Michèle Flournoy interviewed by Clementine G. Starling for the Atlantic Council: "How Can We Deter China in the 2020s?"
Susan Glasser for The New Yorker: "What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?"
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: "How the War in Ukraine Has Remade Europe"
Sam Nunn, Mike Mullen, and Ernest J. Moniz for The Washington Post: "What Xi Must Tell Putin Now"
Joseph Nye for Project Syndicate: "What Caused the Ukraine War?"
Condoleezza Rice interviewed by Guy Benson for Fox News Radio
David Sanger and Ben Hubbard for The New York Times: "OPEC Move Shows the Limits of Biden’s Fist-Bump Diplomacy with the Saudis"
Lawrence Summers interviewed by Martin Wolf for the Financial Times on the global economy
Tweet of the Week
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Anthony Boadle and Ricardo Brito for Reuters: "Lula, Bolsonaro Seek New Allies for Tight Brazil Runoff"
Jason Bordoff interviewed Frans Timmermans for the Columbia Energy Exchange Podcast: "Staying the Course in a World of Turmoil"
Julian Gewirtz for Foreign Affairs: "China’s Road Not Taken"
Rose Gottemoeller for the American Foreign Service Association: "Should Ukraine Have Kept Nuclear Weapons?"
Brad Lendon, Yoonjung Seo, and Caitlin Hu for CNN: "U.S., Japanese, and South Korean Warships Perform Missile Defense Exercise After North Korean Tests"
Michael McFaul interviewed by Mary Louise Kelly for NPR about the Russian war in Ukraine
Jean Pisani-Ferry and Daniela Schwarzer for Project Syndicate: "How to Build the European Political Community"
Omega Rakotomalala and Farouk Chothia for the BBC: "Captain Ibrahim Traoré: Burkina Faso's New Military Ruler"
Book of the Week
By Chris Miller
"You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market—runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America's edge is slipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea, Europe, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the U.S. At stake is America's military superiority and economic prosperity.
Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America's victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand. America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap."
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