The Weekly Leaf
This week, President Trump began his second term with a flurry of executive orders, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with the Quad foreign ministers on his first day in office, world leaders gathered in Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, and over 80 people were killed in Colombia following the government’s failed peace talks with the National Liberation Army.
Read more below.
This Week's Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Anja Manuel interviewed by Morgan Brennan and Jon Fortt for CNBC Closing Bell: Overtime
Christian Brose promoted to President in addition to maintaining his role as Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril Industries
Chris Coons interviewed by Andrea Mitchell for MSNBC: “‘One of the Most Alarming Things’: Sen. Coons Reacts to Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon”
Michael Froman for the Council on Foreign Relations: “The Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire and Its Implications”
Susan B. Glasser for The New Yorker: “Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages”
Michael J. Green interviewed Bonnie Glaser for the Asia Chessboard podcast: “War Over Taiwan in 2027?”
Nicholas Kristof for The New York Times: “Trump Is Already Making America Weaker and More Vulnerable”
Meghan O’Sullivan, Fatih Birol, Maria da Graça Carvalho, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, Muhammad Taufik, and Jonathan Price at the World Economic Forum: “The Geoeconomics of Energy and Materials”
David M. Rubenstein interviewed by Dan Primack for Axios at the World Economic Forum
David E. Sanger for The New York Times: “A Determined Trump Vows Not to Be Thwarted at Home or Abroad”
Anne-Marie Slaughter for Project Syndicate: “Middle Powers and the Art of the Deal”
Lawrence H. Summers, Sian L. Beilock, Raquel Bernal, and moderator Michael Spence at the World Economic Forum: “Debating Education”
Frances Fragos Townsend and Janet Napolitano for The Wall Street Journal: “The Secret Service and the President’s Life”
Philip Zelikow for Defining Ideas: “AI in a Year of Living Dangerously”
Tweet of the Week
Rising Leaders Program Highlights
Features from ASG Rising Leaders
Sofia Economopoulos (‘24) and Cedric Habiyaremye (‘24) join Naazneen Barma and the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver for the 2025 Denver Democracy Summit:
“Soft Power & Democracy Promotion with Aspen Rising Leaders”
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Aspen Institute Italia, CeSPI, ECFR, IAI, and ISPI for The Italian Foreign Policy Community: “Economic Relations Between Europe and the United States in Light of the European (June 2024) and American (November 2024) Elections”
Matthew Bristow for Bloomberg News: “Cocaine Violence Sparked by a Marxist Guerrilla Army Rocks Colombia”
Nike Ching for Voice of America: “Rubio Meets Quad Ministers on First Day as U.S. Secretary of State, Signals Focus on China”
Audrey Decker for Defense One: “Pentagon Sending 1,500 Troops to Southern Border, USAF Planes on Deportation Flights”
Sam Fleming, Ben Hall, and Harriet Agnew for the Financial Times: “Davos Hits ‘Peak Pessimism’ on Europe as U.S. Exuberance Rises”
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. for Breaking Defense: “OpenAI’s $500B ‘Stargate Project’ Could Aid Pentagon’s Own AI Efforts, Official Says”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Michael D. Shear, and Noah Weiland for The New York Times: “Trump’s Executive Orders: Reversing Biden’s Policies and Attacking the ‘Deep State’”
Pat Leahy for The Irish Times: “Micheál Martin Finally Appoints His New Cabinet Amid Temporary Dáil Ceasefire”
Dov Lieber for The Wall Street Journal: “Israel’s Military Chief Resigns”
Ismaeel Naar for The New York Times: “Trump Re-Labels Yemen’s Houthi Rebels as Terrorists”
Assaf Orion for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “Opening the Floodgates: The Gaza Deal and Trump’s Presidency”
Louise Osborne and Martin Kuebler for DW: “What Does Trump Exit From Paris Climate Agreement Mean?”
Maegan Vazquez for The Washington Post: “John Ratcliffe Confirmed by the Senate to Become Trump’s CIA Director”
George Wright and Anna Holligan for BBC News: “ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders for ‘Persecuting Afghan Girls and Women’”
From the Archives
Revisit our discussion on America's greatest foreign policy challenges, their historical roots, and more from the 2024 Aspen Security Forum.
Robert M. Gates, Partner, Rice, Hadley, Gates and Manuel; 22nd U.S. Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
Condoleezza Rice, Co-Chair, Aspen Strategy Group; 66th U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State
Moderator: David Sanger, White House and National Security Correspondent, The New York Times
Book of the Week
Inadvertent Expansion: How Peripheral Agents Shape World Politics
By Nicholas D. Anderson
“In Inadvertent Expansion, Nicholas D. Anderson investigates a surprisingly common yet overlooked phenomenon in the history of great power politics: territorial expansion that was neither intended nor initially authorized by state leaders.
Territorial expansion is typically understood as a centrally driven and often strategic activity. But as Anderson shows, nearly a quarter of great power coercive territorial acquisitions since the nineteenth century have in fact been instances of what he calls ‘inadvertent expansion.’ A two-step process, inadvertent expansion first involves agents on the periphery of a state or empire acquiring territory without the authorization or knowledge of higher-ups. Leaders in the capital must then decide whether to accept or reject the already-acquired territory.
Through cases ranging from those of the United States in Florida and Texas to Japan in Manchuria and Germany in East Africa, Anderson shows that inadvertent expansion is rooted in a principal-agent problem. When leaders in the capital fail to exert or have limited control over their agents on the periphery, unauthorized efforts to take territory are more likely to occur. Yet it is only when the geopolitical risks associated with keeping the acquired territory are perceived to be low that leaders are more likely to accept such expansion.
Accentuating the influence of small, seemingly insignificant actors over the foreign policy behavior of powerful states, Inadvertent Expansion offers new insights into how the boundaries of states and empires came to be and captures timeless dynamics between state leaders and their peripheral agents.”
Podcast of the Week
Alexander Stubb joins Gideon Rachman for the Rachman Review:
“Finland’s President on Europe in a Trumpian World”
Featured Event: Bridging the Atlantic VI Conference
“Bridging the Atlantic” is an ongoing series of conferences presented by Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies Initiative and BMW Center for German and European Studies, in association with the Embassy of Ireland, The Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, and Queen’s University Belfast. This year’s conference will include opening remarks from H.E. Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States, H.E. Francisco António Duarte Lopes, Ambassador of Portugal to the United States, members of Congress, as well as a fireside chat with Dame Louise Richardson, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The event will take place on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, from 11:30 AM to 5:00 PM EST.
Learn more about the conference here.
Join Our Team!
The Aspen Strategy Group is looking to hire a talented Program Coordinator with a strong passion for national security and foreign policy. Join our small, fast-paced team and contribute to the main pillars of our work, including the ASG Summer Workshop, the Aspen Security Forum, and the Rising Leaders Program. You will play a key role in coordinating high-level convenings and supporting our team’s administrative operations.
Learn more about the role and apply here. Thank you for sharing this opportunity with your networks.
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As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Aspen Institute is nonpartisan and does not endorse, support, or oppose political candidates or parties. Further, the views and opinions of our guests and speakers do not necessarily reflect those of the Aspen Institute.
