The Weekly Leaf
This week, the nation mourned President Jimmy Carter, wildfires burned across Los Angeles, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was briefly detained in Caracas, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, and the White House accused the RSF militia in Sudan of committing genocide.
Read more below.
New Aspen Strategy Group Publication
We are pleased to include a new piece from Douglas A. Beck, Director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense and Radha I. Plumb, Department of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer in our policy publication Intelligent Defense: Navigating National Security in the Age of AI. Their article, Deploying AI for Strategic Impact, explores how the Department of Defense can leverage private-sector innovation to integrate AI and enhance national security.
This Week's Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. for Project Syndicate: “What Are the BRICS Good For?”
Anja Manuel quoted by Stu Woo for The Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Companies Vouched for China During Trump’s First Term. Not Anymore.”
Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine interviewed by Bay Fang for the Council on Foreign Relations: “How Does China-Russia Cooperation Impact U.S. Foreign Policy?”
Tom Donilon for Foreign Affairs: “What Jimmy Carter Left Behind”
Elizabeth Economy interviewed Melanie Hart for the China Considered podcast: “Coercion and Countermoves: The U.S.-China Economic Rivalry”
Mark T. Esper interviewed by A’ndre Gonawela for The Burn Bag podcast: “A Cold Peace and Hot Wars — Threat Forecasting 2025”
Michael Froman interviewed H.R. McMaster for the Council on Foreign Relations: “Distinguished Voices Series With H.R. McMaster”
Michael J. Green interviewed Nadia Schadlow for the Asia Chessboard podcast: “Beyond Competing: The Security Treadmill”
Jane Harman for TIME: “Jimmy Carter’s Global Legacy Was Moral Clarity”
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: “The Strategist in the Hurricane”
David Petraeus interviewed by Christiane Amanpour for CNN: “Former CIA Director on 2025’s Biggest Challenges”
David Rubenstein awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
David E. Sanger for The New York Times: “Dripping Faucets and Seizing Greenland: Trump Is Back and Chaos Ensues”
Philip Zelikow for the Hoover Institution: “A Fresh Look at the Russian Assets: A Proposal for International Resolutions of Sanctioned Accounts”
Tweet of the Week
Rising Leaders Program Highlights
Features from ASG Rising Leaders
Liana Fix (‘23) quoted by Rym Momtaz for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “Taking the Pulse: Can Poland’s EU Presidency Be Credible Without Deploying Troops to Ukraine?”
Felicia Schwartz (‘24) and Andres Schipani for the Financial Times: “U.S. Accuses Sudan Paramilitary Force of Genocide”
Dillon Taylor (‘24) appointed to the FEMA’s National Advisory Council
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Antony Blinken interviewed by Demetri Sevastopulo for Lunch with the FT: “Antony Blinken: ‘China Has Been Trying to Have It Both Ways’”
David Gritten for BBC News: “Army Chief Elected Lebanon's President After Years of Deadlock”
Moki Edwin Kindzeka for Voice of America: "Chad Investigates Failed Attack on Presidential Palace"
Rachel Leingang for The Guardian: “U.S. Right Wing Fans Misinformation Fires as Firefighters Battle Los Angeles Blazes”
Mitch McConnell for The Wall Street Journal: “Nippon Steel Isn’t the Enemy”
Richard Milne for the Financial Times: “Why Donald Trump Wants Greenland”
Robert C. O’Brien for The National Interest: “America Cannot Surrender Its AI Dominance”
Noah Robertson for Defense News: “At Ramstein, Pentagon Chief Austin Departs Ukraine Group He Founded”
Samantha Schmidt for The Washington Post: “Venezuelan Opposition Leader María Corina Machado Briefly Detained”
Katherine Tai for Foreign Affairs: “The Real Purpose of Trade Policy”
Marieke Walsh for The Globe and Mail: “Justin Trudeau’s Long Fall From Grace”
From the Archives
Revisit our conversation with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed on Gaza, Sudan, COP29, and more from the 2024 Aspen Security Forum: DC Edition.
Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations
Moderator: Alex Marquardt, Chief National Security Correspondent, CNN
Book of the Week
By Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky
“From a globally renowned expert on Russian military strategy and national security, The Russian Way of Deterrence investigates Russia's approach to coercion (both deterrence and compellence), comparing and contrasting it with the Western conceptualization of this strategy. Strategic deterrence, or what Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky calls deterrence à la Russe, is one of the main tools of Russian statecraft. Adamsky deftly describes the genealogy of the Russian approach to coercion and highlights the cultural, ideational, and historical factors that have shaped it in the nuclear, conventional, and informational domains.
Drawing on extensive research on Russian strategic culture, Adamsky highlights several empirical and theoretical peculiarities of the Russian coercion strategy, including how this strategy relates to the war in Ukraine. Exploring the evolution of strategic deterrence, along with its sources and prospective avenues of development, Adamsky provides a comprehensive intellectual history that makes it possible to understand the deep mechanics of this Russian stratagem, the current and prospective patterns of the Kremlin's coercive conduct, and the implications for policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Podcast of the Week
Nicholas Burns joins Daniel Kurtz-Phelan for The Foreign Affairs Interview:
“In the Room With Xi Jinping”
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