The Weekly Leaf
This week, peace talks to end the conflict in Sudan began in Geneva; the U.S. with support from Egypt and Qatar presented a bridging proposal to end the Israel-Hamas conflict; Brazil and Colombia have not yet recognized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's victory and suggested holding new elections; and Ukrainian forces pushed farther into Russia.
Read more below.
This Week's Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Chris Coons quoted by Davey Alba for BNN Bloomberg: “Meta Shuts Down CrowdTangle, Tool Used for Tracking Online Misinformation”
Mark T. Esper for The Hill: “Surge in Threats Against U.S. Leaders Demands Urgent Action”
Jane Harman interviewed by Kailey Leinz and Joe Mathieu for Bloomberg TV: “Time to Take Deal: Harman on Upcoming Cease-Fire Talks”
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: “Israel Is Not the Only Target of Iranian Assassination Threats”
David Petraeus and Richard Dearlove interviewed by Christina Ruffini for One Decision podcast: “Gen. David Petraeus on Ukraine's Audacious Attack, What Iran Does Next”
Susan Rice interviewed by Andrea Mitchell for MSNBC: “Trump Commenting on Harris’s Appearance Is Part of His Strategy to ‘Denigrate’ Her”
David Rubenstein interviewed David Solomon for Bloomberg
David Sanger and Michael Gold for The New York Times: “The Hacking of Presidential Campaigns Begins, With the Usual Fog of Motives”
Lawrence Summers, Michèle Flournoy, David Bianco, Greg Mankiw, and Jack Hidary interviewed by David Westin for Wall Street Week
Philip Zelikow quoted by Mattathias Schwartz for The New York Times: “Video and Airplane Sketch Raise New Questions About Saudi Ties to 9/11”
Tweet of the Week
Rising Leaders Program Highlights
Features from ASG Rising Leaders
Liana Fix ('23), Sophia Besch, and Tara Varma interviewed by Max Bergmann and Donatienne Ruy for CSIS: "Summer Special: Unpacking the Washington, DC Think Tank Scene"
Felicia Schwartz (‘24) and James Shotter for the Financial Times: “U.S. Sends Submarine to Middle East as Fears Grow of Reprisal Against Israel”
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Célia Belin, Mireia Faro Sarrats, and Chris Herrmann for the European Council on Foreign Relations: “Waltzing In: What Harris’ Running-Mate Could Mean for U.S. Foreign Policy”
Carl Bildt for Foreign Policy: “Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Is a Turning Point in the War”
Eva Dou, Jhaan Elker, Travis Dove, and Alina Spatz for The Washington Post: “How the World Wide Web Gets Spun Out of Thin Air”
Rahm Emanuel for The Washington Post: “The Navy Is Breaking Down. We Need Our Allies’ Help to Fix Our Ships.”
John Hudson, Frances Vinall, Victoria Bisset, and Hazem Balousha for The Washington Post: "U.S. Proposes Final Gaza Cease-Fire Plan, Seeking Agreement by Next Week"
Manoj Kewalramani for Tracking People’s Daily on Substack: “Breakdown of Wang Yi’s Post-Plenum Article on China’s Foreign Policy”
Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli interviewed by Mark Leon Goldberg for the Global Dispatches podcast: “Is Africa’s Debt Crisis a Threat to International Security? | Live From the Aspen Security Forum”
Tom Phillips for The Guardian: "Lula Says He Doesn’t Yet Recognize Maduro as Winner of Venezuela Election”
Michael R. Pompeo for Fox News: "The Enemy Within: Time to Unmask the Chinese Masqueraders Preying on Americans"
Reuters: "Sudan Peace Talks Begin in Switzerland Despite Army’s No-Show"
Kori Schake interviewed by Dan Kurtz-Phelan for The Foreign Affairs Interview podcast: “What Republican Foreign Policy Gets Wrong”
Feliz Solomon for The Wall Street Journal: "Billionaire Former Leader's Daughter Named as Thai Prime Minister"
From the Archives
Revisit our conversation with Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov from
Rustem Umerov, Defence Minister, Ukraine (VIRTUAL)
Moderator: David Sanger, White House and National Security Correspondent, The New York Times
Book of the Week
by George S. Takach
"George S. Takach’s incisive and meticulously researched new volume, Cold War 2.0, is the book we need to thoroughly understand these frightening and perilous times. In the geopolitical sphere, there are no more pressing issues than the appalling mechanizations of a surveillance state in China, Russia’s brazen attempt to assert its autocratic model in Ukraine, and China’s increasingly likely plans to do the same in Taiwan.
But the key here, Takach argues, is that our new Cold War is not only ideological but technological: the side that prevails in Cold War 2.0 will be the one that bests the other in mastering the greatest innovations of our time. Artificial intelligence sits in our pockets every day—but what about AI that coordinates military operations and missile defense systems? Or the highly sophisticated semiconductor chips and quantum computers that power those missiles and a host of other weapons? And, where recently we have seen remarkable feats of bio-engineering to produce vaccines at record speed, shouldn’t we be concerned how catastrophic it would be if bio-engineering were co-opted for nefarious purposes?
Takach thoroughly examines how each of these innovations will shape the tension between democracy and autocracy, and how each will play a central role in this second Cold War. Finally, he crafts a precise blueprint for how Western democracies should handle these innovations to respond to the looming threat of autocracy—and ultimately prevail over it."
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Brent Scowcroft Award Fellowship
The ASG launched the Brent Scowcroft Award Fellowship (BSAF), a paid, temporary, and full-time fellowship program, in recognition of ASG Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft’s long-time dedication to the group, as well as his legacy of distinguished public service. Now in its 20th year, the six-month fellowship is designed to provide an important professional stepping-stone for recent graduates with a keen interest in foreign policy and national security by way of direct exposure to the types of critical, thoughtful, and bipartisan discussions that characterize the ASG’s dialogues. Scowcroft Fellows are integral members of our team and their work contributes across all of our programs and initiatives at the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum.
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