This week, India is experiencing a devastating surge in Covid-19 infections, President Biden gave his first address to a joint session of Congress, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened talks in Geneva to negotiate a settlement in Cyprus. Read more below.
This Week's Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Madeleine Albright et al in an Atlantic Council discussion: “The Future of the Transatlantic Partnership with Afghanistan”
Zoë Baird, Larry Summers, et al in The Hill's Future of Jobs Summit
Nicholas Burns, Joseph Nye, Carla Dirlikov Canales, and Caroline Kennedy in a Belfer Center discussion: “Soft Power and Practice of Diplomacy: A Conversation with Ambassador Caroline Kennedy”
Elizabeth Economy on Big Ideas with Paul Barclay: “China and Its Relationship with the U.S. and the World”
Dianne Feinstein’s statement: “Feinstein Supports Biden’s Official Recognition of Armenian Genocide”
Kay Bailey Hutchison in Dallas News: “Withdrawing from Afghanistan Short-Changes the Risk of Terrorism”
David Petraeus featured by James Kitfield in Breaking Defense: “Afghanistan: The Long, Painful Retreat”
Penny Pritzker in Barron's: "Biden’s Early Wins Are Paying Off for Business"
Jack Reed on MSNBC: “Sen. Reed: Armenian Genocide Recognition 'Long Overdue'”
Condoleezza Rice in a George W. Bush Presidential Center discussion: "Immigration Is Still America's Secret Weapon"
Dan Sullivan in Must Read Alaska: “America Stands at Strategic Crossroads”
ASG Rising Leaders in the News
ASG Rising Leader Hammad Hammad interviewed U.S Ambassador to Uganda Natalie Brown for the Diverse Diplomacy Leaders series hosted by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
Tweet of the Week
Upcoming Events
The Biden Administration's First 100 Days in Review
Friday, April 30th
9:30 AM - 12:30 PM ET
Featuring
Jake Sullivan
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
Kathleen H. Hicks
Deputy Secretary of Defense
Stephen Beigun
Former Deputy Secretary of State
Thomas E. Donilon
Chairman, BlackRock Investment Institute and Former National Security Advisor
Jennifer Griffin
National Security Correspondent, Fox News
Helene Cooper
Pentagon Correspondent, The New York Times
Gerald F. Seib
Executive Washington Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Things to Know
Stay Informed with Important Analysis Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Erin Cunningham and Antonia Noori Farzan in The Washington Post: “India’s Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 200,000 as Infections Surge and Anger Grows”
Boryana Dzhambazova and Michael Schwirtz in The New York Times: "Russian Spy Unit Investigated for Links to Bulgarian Explosions"
Sahil Kapur for NBC News: "Five Takeaways from Biden's First Big Speech to Congress"
Jamey Keaton and Menelaos Hadjicostis for AP News: "UN Chief Launches Cyprus Talks, Joined by Greece, Turkey, UK"
John McLaughlin for Ozy: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Reality of Afghanistan"
Gerald Seib in The Wall Street Journal: "For Biden's Next 100 Days, the World Is Preparing Tests"
Jeremy Shapiro for Foreign Affairs: “Biden’s Everything Doctrine: The Mantle of Global Leadership Doesn’t Fit a Foreign Policy for the Middle Class”
Book of the Week
By George Packer
"Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites. Admired and detested, he was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America's greatest diplomatic achievement in the post-Cold War era. His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage. But his sharp elbows and tireless self-promotion ensured that he never rose to the highest levels in government that he so desperately coveted. His story is thus the story of America during its era of supremacy: its strength, drive, and sense of possibility, as well as its penchant for overreach and heedless self-confidence. In Our Man, drawn from Holbrooke's diaries and papers, we are given a nonfiction narrative that is both intimate and epic in its revelatory portrait of this extraordinary and deeply flawed man and the elite spheres of society and government he inhabited."
ICYMI
A Live Conversation with Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank
Moderated by David Rubenstein with introduction by Nicholas Burns and closing remarks by Melissa Kearney
Presented in partnership with the Aspen Economic Strategy Group
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