The Weekly Leaf
This week, Finland and Sweden officially applied to join NATO, COVID-19 continued to spread rapidly through North Korea, and the British government threatened to scrap a key part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, in a move that could starkly disrupt European trade.
Read more below.
This week, more speakers were announced for the thirteenth annual Aspen Security Forum, to be held July 19 to 22 in Aspen, Colorado.
This Week’s Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Madeleine Albright was honored in a United Nations memorial
Ash Carter in Daedalus Journal: “The Moral Dimension of AI-Assisted Decision-Making: Some Practical Perspectives from the Front Lines”
Dianne Feinstein in a Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on U.S.-China relations
Michael Green and Scott Kennedy for CSIS: “U.S. Business Leaders Not Ready for the Next U.S.-China Crisis”
Kay Bailey Hutchison on Fox News: “Finland and Sweden Apply to Join NATO”
David Ignatius interviewed Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Georgetown University
David Petraeus on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports: “Russian ‘Preemptive Strike’ Not Likely ‘Before Finland Is Formally Within NATO’”
David Sanger in The New York Times: “Finland and Sweden Move Toward NATO Membership. But What About Ukraine?”
Frances Townsend in The Hill: “Iran Negotiations Put America’s Global Power Position Under Threat”
Philip Zelikow on Lawfare: “A Legal Approach to the Transfer of Russian Assets to Rebuild Ukraine”
Rising Leaders in the News
"I would argue here that Sri Lanka's big strategic mistake...was that it refused to engage with creditors on debt restructuring."
– ASG Rising Leader Akhil Bery ('22) speaking at The Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad's (ISSI) recent panel, "Sri Lanka's Economic Crisis & What Pakistan Needs to Learn"
Tweet of the Week
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Max Colchester and Laurence Norman for The Wall Street Journal: "U.K. Threatens to Tear Up Key Part of Brexit Deal Due to Northern Irish Tensions"
Bruce Einhorn for Bloomberg: "China, U.S. Are Racing to Make Billions from Mining the Moon's Minerals"
Steve Erlanger and Martina Stevis-Gridneff for The New York Times: "Strongmen in Turkey and Hungary Stall Unity in NATO and the E.U."
Jennifer Jett for NBC News: "COVID Outbreak in North Korea: What We Know and What We Don't Know"
Ines Kagubare for The Hill: "NATO Cyber Coordinators Hold First-Ever Meeting Amid Russia's Invasio
Ruby Mellen and Dylan Moriarty for The Washington Post: "Four Maps Explain How Sweden and Finland Could Alter NATO's Security"
Book of the Week
By Ruben Gallego with Jim Defelice
"At first, they were 'Lucky Lima.' Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in Lima Company—3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, young men drawn from blue-collar towns, immigrant households, Navajo reservations—returned unscathed on patrol after patrol through the increasingly violent al Anbar region of Iraq, looking for weapons caches and insurgents trying to destabilize the nascent Iraqi government. After two months in Iraq, Lima didn't have a casualty, not a single Purple Heart, no injury worse than a blister. Lucky Lima.
Then, in May 2005, Lima’s fortunes flipped. Unknown to Ruben and his fellow grunts, al Anbar had recently become a haven for al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The bin Laden-sponsored group had recruited radicals from all over the world for jihad against the Americans. On one fateful day, they were lured into a death house; the ambush cost the lives of two men, including a platoon sergeant. Two days later, Ruben’s best friend, Jonathon Grant, died in an IED attack, along with several others. Events worsened from there. A disastrous operation in Haditha in August claimed the lives of thirteen Marines when an IED destroyed their amphibious vehicle. It was the worst single-day loss for the Marines since the 1983 Beirut bombings. By the time 3/25 went home in November, it had lost more men than any other single unit in the war. Forty-six Marines and two Navy Corpsmen serving with the battalion in Iraq were killed in action during their roughly nine-month activation.
They Called Us 'Lucky' details Ruben Gallego’s journey and includes harrowing accounts of some of the war’s most costly battles. It details the struggles and the successes of Ruben—now a member of Congress—and the rest of Lima Company following Iraq, examining the complicated matter of PTSD. And it serves as a tribute to Ruben’s fallen comrades, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country."
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