The Weekly Leaf
This week, President Biden traveled to Israel, President Vladimir Putin met with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Argentina prepared for its upcoming presidential elections this weekend, and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel attended the U.S.-EU Summit in Washington.
Read more below.
Latest ASG Publication
The Aspen Strategy Group (ASG) is proud to publish reflections from this year’s ASG Summer Workshop titled Rapid Technological Change and Its Impact on U.S. National Security Strategy. Our authors’ pieces examine the twenty-first century battlefield and devise a corresponding forward-looking U.S. defense strategy to face these realities.
We are pleased to share this collection of original essays, as well as a number of related pieces on the workshop themes that were published by our meeting participants in external outlets following our sessions. We would like to thank Elizabeth M. Allen, Jeff Alstott, Christian Brose, Joe Byers, Michael J. Green, Bonnie Denise Jenkins, Gary Marcus, Jason Matheny, Shivshankar Menon, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Eileen O’Connor, L. Rafael Reif, and Open to Debate for contributing to this effort.
Thank you as well to our ASG members and attendees who contributed to this summer’s discussions.
This Week's Content Highlights
Features from the Aspen Strategy Group Members
Mark T. Esper interviewed by Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer for Fox News: "U.S. Military Presence Is Strong Deterrent to Iran, Syria, Hezbollah"
Robert Gates quoted by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen for Axios: "Behind the Curtain: Rattled U.S. Government Fears Wars Could Spread"
Susan Glasser interviewed by Ailsa Chang on All Things Considered for NPR: “Susan Glasser on Whether Biden Will Maintain His Support for Israel”
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: “Vast Gaza Tunnels Present a Battlefield of Nightmares”
Nicholas Kristof for The New York Times: "What Does Destroying Gaza Solve?"
David Petraeus interviewed by Ravi Agrawal for Foreign Policy: “David Petraeus on a World at War”
Penny Pritzker visited Kyiv
Condoleezza Rice, Christopher Wray, Mike Burgess, Ken McCallum, David Vigneault, and Andrew Hampton at the Hoover Institution: “Emerging Threats, Innovation, and Security”
David Rubenstein interviewed Mark Carney for Bloomberg
David Sanger for The New York Times: "Biden’s Moment: A President Convinced of America’s Role in the World"
Dan Sullivan interviewed by Michel Martin for NPR: "GOP Wants Border Funding to Be Wrapped Into Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan Aid Package"
Rising Leaders in the News
Mari Manoogian ('21), Philippe Nassif ('21), and Anand Raghuraman ('22) will be speakers at the Denver Democracy Summit hosted by the University of Denver Korbel School of International Studies.
Register here.
Tweet of the Week
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Lili Bayer for The Guardian: "European Leaders Seethe Over Putin-Orbán Meeting"
Michèle Flournoy interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin for CNBC: "Iran Doesn’t Want to Come Into the Israel-Hamas War ‘Directly’"
Daniel Fried and Alina Polyakova for Foreign Affairs: "Poland's Transformative Election"
Jane Harman interviewed by Joe Mathieu and Annmarie Hordern for Bloomberg: "Must Articulate End Game for Region: Harman on Biden Potential Visit to Israel"
Georgi Kantchev for The Wall Street Journal: "Sweden Says Second Undersea Cable Damaged in Baltic Sea"
Isabelle Khurshudyan, Siobhán O'Grady, and Dan Lamothe for The Washington Post: "Ukraine Fires Long-Range ATACMS to Strike Russian Depot and Aircraft"
Henry Kissinger and Graham Allison for Foreign Affairs: "The Path to AI Arms Control"
Luis Martinez for ABC: "U.S. Navy Destroyer in Red Sea Shoots Down Cruise Missiles Potentially Headed Toward Israel: Pentagon"
Ciara Nugent and Michael Stott for the Financial Times: "Argentine Politics Faces Shake-Up In Pivotal Election"
Peter W. Singer and Josh Baughman for Defense One: "China’s Social-Media Attacks Are Part of a Larger ‘Cognitive Warfare’ Campaign"
Ido Vock for BBC News: "Russian-American Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva Detained in Kazan"
Ryan Woo for Reuters: "Putin Visits 'Dear Friend' Xi in Show of No-Limits Partnership"
From the Archives
Revisit our conversation on future of democracy and security in the time of AI
from the 2023 Aspen Security Forum.
Rob Joyce, Director of Cybersecurity, National Security Agency
Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President, Microsoft
Moderator: Susan Glasser, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Book of the Week
By David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts
"In this deep and incisive study, General David Petraeus, who commanded the U.S.-led coalitions in both Iraq, during the Surge, and Afghanistan and former CIA director, and the prize-winning historian Andrew Roberts, explore over 70 years of conflict, drawing significant lessons and insights from their fresh analysis of the past. Drawing on their different perspectives and areas of expertise, Petraeus and Roberts show how often critical mistakes have been repeated time and again, and the challenge, for statesmen and generals alike, of learning to adapt to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies. Among the conflicts examined are the Arab-Israeli wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the two Gulf Wars, the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia, and both the Soviet and Coalition wars in Afghanistan, as well as guerilla conflicts in Africa and South America. Conflict culminates with a bracing look at Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, yet another case study in the tragic results when leaders refuse to learn from history, and an assessment of the nature of future warfare."
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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.