The Weekly Leaf
This week, the White House ordered a pause to all federal grants and loans in a memo that was later rescinded, President Trump's Cabinet nomination hearings continued in the Senate, 67 people were killed in the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001, China's DeepSeek shocked the tech world, and President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko won a seventh term in an election that has been widely denounced as unfair.
Read more below.
This Week's Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Anja Manuel interviewed by Guy Taylor for Threat Status by The Washington Times: “The High Stakes of U.S.-China Policy in the Artificial Intelligence Era”
Anja Manuel quoted by Mark Magnier and Khushboo Razdan for the South China Morning Post: “DeepSeek’s Rattling of U.S. Tech Stocks Could Change How America Sanctions China: Analysts”
Chris Brose quoted by Bradley Peniston and Lauren C. Williams for Defense One: “The Navy’s Robot Refueler Is Coming—Even as the Fleet Works Out Integration”
Chris Coons interviewed by Dana Bash for CNN
Elizabeth Economy interviewed Diana Fu for the China Considered podcast: “The Great Suppression: Social Resistance in Xi Jinping’s China”
Jendayi E. Frazer and Chelsea Clinton announced the appointment of Ambassador Martin Kimani as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Center
Susan B. Glasser, David Jolly, and Bill Kristol join Harry Litman for the Talking Feds podcast: "F**k it: Release ‘em All”
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: “The Three Strikes Against Tulsi Gabbard”
Nicholas Kristof for The New York Times: “Looking to a Time When Most of the World’s Babies Will Be African”
David M. Rubenstein interviewed Wes Moore for Bloomberg: “The David Rubenstein Show: Maryland Governor Wes Moore”
David E. Sanger and William J. Broad for The New York Times: “Trump Orders ‘Iron Dome’ for U.S., but Freezes Funds for Nuclear Protection”
Lawrence H. Summers and Phil Gramm for The Wall Street Journal: “Gramm and Summers: A Letter on Tariffs From Economists to Trump”
Robert B. Zoellick for The Wall Street Journal: “Scott Bessent Can Walk the Trade Tightrope”
Tweet of the Week
Rising Leaders Program Highlights
Features from ASG Rising Leaders
Liana Fix (‘23), Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Thomas Graham, Michael O’Hanlon, and Paul B. Stares for the Council on Foreign Relations: "Securing Ukraine’s Future:
What Should the United States Do?"
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Ryhor Astapenia for Chatham House: “The Belarus ‘Election’ Raises the Question: When Will Lukashenka Step Down?”
William Christou for The Guardian: “Rebel Leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa Made Transitional President of Syria"
Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay for Foreign Affairs: “The Price of Trump’s Power Politics”
Adam Dombovari for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “Doomsday Clock Set at 89 Seconds to Midnight, Closest Ever to Human Extinction”
Sydney Ember, Emily Steel, Mark Walker, Kate Kelly, and Niraj Chokshi for The New York Times: “Washington Crash Renews Concerns About Air Safety Lapses”
International Crisis Group: “Fall of DRC’s Goma: Urgent Action Needed to Avert a Regional War”
Klon Kitchen for the American Enterprise Institute: “DeepSeek’s AI Breakthroughs Don’t Change the Fundamentals—But They Are a Warning”
Zongyuan Zoe Liu for Foreign Policy: “Can Trump Strike a Grand Deal With Beijing?”
Marco Rubio for The Wall Street Journal: “An Americas First Foreign Policy”
Demetri Sevastopulo, Joe Leahy, Ryan McMorrow, Kathrin Hille, and Chris Cook for the Financial Times: “China Builds Huge New Wartime Military Command Centre in Beijing”
Jeff Stein and Tony Romm for The Washington Post: “Trump White House Rescinds Order Freezing Federal Spending, Reversing Course”
Jake Sullivan interviewed by Demetri Sevastopulo for Lunch with the FT: “Former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: ‘The Core Engines of American Power Are Humming’”
Dustin Volz, Sadie Gurman, and Liz Essley Whyte for The Wall Street Journal: “Some Trump Nominees Run Into Trouble in Confirmation Hearings”
From the Archives
Revisit our conversation on U.S. security challenges in Latin America from the 2024 Aspen Security Forum.
General Laura Richardson, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
Moderator: Dafna Linzer, Executive Vice President and Editorial Director, U.S. News and World Report
Book of the Week
By Robert D. Kaplan
“We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going. Kaplan makes a novel argument that the current geopolitical landscape must be considered alongside contemporary social phenomena such as urbanization and digital news media, grounding his ideas in foundational modern works of philosophy, politics, and literature, including the poem from which the title is borrowed, and celebrating a canon of traditionally conservative thinkers, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and many others....
Waste Land is a bracing glimpse into a future defined by the connections afforded by technology but with remarkable parallels to the past. Just as it did in Weimar, Kaplan fears the situation may be spiraling out of our control—unless our leaders act first."
Podcast of the Week
Sam Winter-Levy joins Sophia Besch for The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's The World Unpacked: "How Will AI Export Policies Redefine U.S. Global Influence?"
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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.
