This week, the U.S. sent Iran a 15-point peace proposal and President Trump extended a pause on striking Iran’s energy infrastructure to April, Russia fired more than 1,000 drones against Ukraine, snap parliamentary elections in Denmark ended in an inconclusive result, and President Trump’s meeting with President Xi Jinping was postponed to May.
Read more below.
2026 Aspen Security Forum: Application to Attend Now Open!
The Aspen Strategy Group will host the 2026 Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, CO from the evening of Tuesday, July 14 to midday Friday, July 17. Our flagship Forum will feature an array of decision-makers and thought leaders from Washington, DC and around the world. We will have very limited seating for the public; if you are interested in attending in person, please apply to attend below.
All of our sessions will be livestreamed. You can register here to receive the link for our livestreamed content.
Sponsorship opportunities are available for ASF. If you are interested or want to learn more, please contact Deb Cunningham at deb.cunningham@aspeninstitute.org.
This Week’s Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Condoleezza Rice, Rishi Sunak, Gina Raimondo, and James Manyika at the Hoover Institution: “AI Will Test Governments on Jobs, Training, and Public Trust, Hoover Panels Warn”
Nicholas Burns interviewed by Christiane Amanpour for CNN’s Amanpour: “‘Trump Is Not Listening to Our Career Experts’: Fmr. U.S. NATO Ambassador on Iran War”
Anja Manuel interviewed by Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz for Bloomberg: “Trump Says Strait of Hormuz Could Be ‘Jointly Controlled’ Between U.S., Iran”
Stephen Biegun interviewed by Michael Fullilove at the Lowy Institute: “Tariffs, Trump, and the Indo-Pacific: Reading Washington’s Signals”
Antony Blinken interviewed by David E. Sanger at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics: “A Conversation With Antony J. Blinken, 71st U.S. Secretary of State”
Kurt Campbell interviewed by Melanie Hart at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub: “Kurt Campbell on What to Expect From Trump’s Beijing Visit”
Chris Coons interviewed by Wolf Blitzer for CNN’s The Situation Room
Tom Donilon quoted by James Bikales and Ben Lefebvre for POLITICO: “‘The Worst I’ve Seen’: Oil Industry Grapples With the Fallout From U.S.-Israel War With Iran”
Mark Esper interviewed by Colin Demarest at the Axios Discussion on Defense Technology and Innovation
Michael Froman for the Council on Foreign Relations: “Coalitions of the Willing and the Strait of Hormuz”
Stephen Hadley quoted by Daniel Bush for BBC: “Trump’s Iran Strategy Is to Pursue Two Off-Ramps at Once”
Jane Harman interviewed by Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz for Bloomberg: “‘Congress Always Chickens Out’ on Problem Solving”
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: “In Their Game of Chicken, Trump and Iran Tap the Brakes at Last”
Dina Powell McCormick interviewed by Mike Allen at Axios’ AI+DC Summit
Sam Nunn et al. for the Nuclear Threat Initiative: “An Open Letter From Hollywood on Oppenheimer and Nuclear Weapons”
David Petraeus interviewed by Marie-Josée Kravis at The Economic Club of New York: “General David H. Petraeus, Partner at KKR, on Global Conflict, AI, and the Future of Warfare”
Jack Reed quoted by Robert Jimison for The New York Times: “Trump Draws Bipartisan Backlash for Easing Oil Sanctions on Russia and Iran”
David E. Sanger for The New York Times: “U.S. Circulates Iran Peace Plan While Sending Troops to the Middle East”
Dan Sullivan interviewed by Greta Van Susteren for Newsmax’s The Record
Jake Sullivan interviewed by Jon Stewart for The Daily Show: “The Iran War, Trump, and U.S. Foreign Policy”
Post of the Week
Young Leaders Spotlight
Features from ASG Rising Leaders and Former Fellows
Maria Fernanda Bozmoski (‘26) and Jason Marczak for The Hill: “Enlist and Expand in Practice: What the Shield of the Americas Could Become”
Lauren Dickey (‘22) and Chris Estep for Nikkei Asia: “The U.S. Has Built a Taiwan Security Toolkit. Now It Needs to Use It”
Chris Herrmann and Jeremy Shapiro for the European Council on Foreign Relations: “Letter From Washington: Why James Talarico May Be the Future of Democratic Foreign Policy”
Helen Toner (‘21) interviewed by Kassandra Sundt and Daniel Winter for DW’s The Dip podcast: “How AI Entered the War Room”
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Anthony Faiola and Samantha Schmidt for The Washington Post: “Cuba Looks to Vatican for Help as U.S. Pressure Plunges Island Into Crisis”
Peter Foster for the Financial Times: “WTO Risks Sliding Into Irrelevance, EU Trade Commissioner Warns”
France 24: “South Africa Disinvited From G7 in France, Backtracks on Initial Claim of U.S. Pressure”
Ashish K. Jha for Stat: “The U.S. Needs to Be Worried About Iranian Biological Materials”
James Mayger and Jorge Valero for Bloomberg: “Europe, Australia Agree to Trade Deal to Boost Ties, Defy U.S.”
Hannah Miao for The Wall Street Journal: “China Hits Back at U.S. With New Trade Probes Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit”
Nikkei Asia: “Trump Extends Deadline for Striking Iran’s Energy Plants Into April”
Andreas Rogal, Emma De Ruiter, and Sertaç Aktan for Euronews: “Inconclusive Danish Election Leaves PM Frederiksen’s Future Unclear”
Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, and Regina Garcia Cano for AP News: “Judge Weighs Whether Venezuela Can Pay Maduro’s Legal Costs in U.S. Drug Trafficking Case”
Stephen Smith and Olivia Gazis for CBS News: “Taliban Releases U.S. Citizen Dennis Coyle Over a Year After He Was Detained”
Cassandra Vinograd for The New York Times: “Ukraine Finally Got Battlefield Momentum. Now Comes a Russian Offensive”
Odd Arne Westad for Foreign Affairs: “Trump, Xi, and the Specter of 1914”
From the Archives
Revisit our conversation on energy security from the 2025 Aspen Security Forum.
Watts Up: Energy Security in an Era of Shifting Geopolitics
Dan Brouillette, Co-Chairman, Torridon Group LLC; 15th U.S. Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Joel Sampaio, Speaker, Brazilian Foreign Ministry
Jason Bordoff, Founding Director, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University
Meghan O’Sullivan, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Moderator: Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist
Book of the Week
Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare
By Katrina Manson
“Project Maven and its legacy sit at the intersection of colliding trends: America’s insecurity about declining global power, the technological revolution driving AI into every aspect of society, the dominance of Big Tech, all-encompassing surveillance, and the ambitions of China’s growing military. As the second Trump administration pours money into military AI and autonomy while the UN Secretary-General clamors for a ban on killer robots, this book investigates whether AI will improve accuracy and save lives or if a fundamentally unreliable black-box technology will unleash mistakes and atrocities at scale. Drawing on more than 200 interviews with insiders and opponents, this compelling narrative tells the definitive story of how AI warfare, once the stuff of apocalyptic science fiction, has become a reality.”
Podcast of the Week
Roula Khalaf joined Lauren Laverne for BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs podcast: “Roula Khalaf, Journalist”
Join Our Team!
The Aspen Strategy Group is seeking a Scowcroft-Nye Fellow with a strong interest in foreign policy and national security. Join our small, fast-paced, collaborative team and contribute to the main pillars of our work, including the Aspen Security Forum, the Rising Leaders Program, and Track II Dialogues.
Thank you for sharing this opportunity with your networks.
