The Weekly Leaf
This week, oil prices surged amid an escalation in conflict in the Middle East, the U.K. and eleven other countries announced a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, President Trump imposed new trade restrictions on Canada after Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods took effect, and the far-right Alternative for Germany party dominated state elections in Saxony-Anhalt.
Today, on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we remember the nearly 3,000 lives lost in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and honor the heroism, sacrifice, and resilience of our nation.
Read more below.
SAVE THE DATES
2026 Aspen Security Forum: DC Edition
December 9, 2026 | Washington, DC
2027 Aspen Security Forum
July 18–20, 2027 | Napa, CA
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Save the dates for the 2026 Aspen Security Forum: DC Edition and the 2027 Aspen Security Forum. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months!
Limited partnership opportunities are available.
If you are interested in learning more, please contact Deb Cunningham at deb.cunningham@aspeninstitute.org.
This Week’s Content Highlights
Features from Aspen Strategy Group Members
Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush at the George W. Bush Presidential Center
Nicholas Burns interviewed by Christiane Amanpour for CNN’s Amanpour: “‘We Need Friends and Allies in the World’: Former NATO Ambassador on 9/11”
Anja Manuel interviewed by Amy Kellogg for Times Radio’s The Trump Report podcast
Kurt Campbell interviewed by Henrietta Levin for CSIS’s Pekingology podcast
Michael Froman for the Council on Foreign Relations: “Horse Wrestling and Hegemony: Why Central Asia’s Nomad Games Matter This Year”
Jane Harman for the Financial Times: “Young Americans Have Never Witnessed a Functioning Foreign Policy”
Jane Harman and Saxby Chambliss interviewed by Dasha Burns for C-SPAN’s Ceasefire
David Ignatius for The Washington Post: “When the Rogue Agents Become Superintelligent”
Dina Powell McCormick interviewed by John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and Shashank Tripathi for The Ruthless Variety Program podcast: “Republican’s Plan to WIN the Midterms + Meta President Dina Powell McCormick”
Meghan O’Sullivan interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin for CNBC’s Squawk Box: “Containment of the Iranian Regime May Be the Best Option Right Now”
David Petraeus at the House of Lords: “The Special Relationship in an Era of Strategic Transformation”
Daniel Poneman interviewed by Samuel George for The Transponder podcast: “The Race for Energy”
Penny Pritzker and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson interviewed Scott Kirby for The CEO Signal podcast: “United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby on Calculated Bets and Building a U.S. Flag Carrier”
David Rubenstein interviewed Kai Bird for the America’s Book Club podcast: “Kai Bird on Roy Cohn, American Scoundrel & American Prometheus”
David E. Sanger and Chris Cameron for The New York Times: “2 Trump Envoys Headed to Moscow and Kyiv to Revive Peace Talks”
Anne-Marie Slaughter for Project Syndicate: “What 9/11 Did to Us”
Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer for The Long Game podcast: “Written in Pencil: Canada No Longer Trusts America’s Signature”
Philip Zelikow for the Times Literary Supplement: “Letting Go”
Robert Zoellick, Shuvaloy Majumdar, and Christopher Sands interviewed by Nick Schifrin for PBS News’ Compass Points: “How the U.S. and Canada Fell Into a Feud – And How It Could End”
Robert Zoellick for the Financial Times: “Trump’s Threats Against Canada Are Self-Defeating”
Post of the Week
Features from ASG Rising Leaders and Fellows
Rebecca J. Anderson (‘26) and Shubham Singhal interviewed by Roberta Fusaro for The McKinsey Podcast: “Made in America, Again? Rethinking U.S. Manufacturing Resilience”
April Arnold (‘22) and Al Mauroni for War on the Rocks: “Possible Is Not Plausible: How Nightmare Scenarios Hijack Unconventional Weapons Policy”
Leanne Erdberg Steadman (‘22) recently founded The Dignity First Project, which was ranked #10 on Substack’s World Politics section, and was named a Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Peacebuilding
Steph Guerra (‘22) et al. for RAND: “Building a Defense-in-Depth Biosecurity Strategy for the AI Era”
Clara Kaluderovic (‘26) for The National Interest: “Who Is Ukraine’s New Defense Minister?”
James Martin (‘22) won the Democratic primary for Florida’s 21st Congressional District
Philippe Nassif (‘21) and Rachel Brandenburg for Arab News: “We Cannot Let the Lebanon-Israel Breakthrough Slip Away”
Eva Pound (‘26) produced an interview with President Trump for Punchbowl News: “President Trump Has a Message for Congress”
Thomas Shattuck (‘26) for Perry World House: “The Legacy of the Nancy Pelosi Visit to Taiwan and Linkages in the U.S.-China Relationship”
Mathilda Silbiger and Constanze Stelzenmüller for Brookings: “Could the Right-Wing Extremist AfD Govern a German State for the First Time?”
Helen Toner (‘21) interviewed by Ezra Klein for The New York Times’ The Ezra Klein Show: “The A.I.s Are Already Out of Control”
Things to Know
Content Relevant to Aspen Security Forum Discussions
Alicia Diaz for Bloomberg: “Trump’s Targeted Canada Tariffs Offer Scope and Time for a Deal”
Lucy Fisher, Andrew England, and Neri Zilber for the Financial Times: “Israel Retaliates After UK Bans Trade With Israeli Settlements in West Bank”
Raffaele Huang for The Wall Street Journal: “Is China Stealing American AI? Why ‘Distillation’ Has Washington Up in Arms”
Saim Dušan Inayatullah and Elizabeth Schumacher for DW: “Canada, Ukraine Pledge 100-Year Partnership”
Hafsa Khalil for BBC: “Sudan’s Healthcare System on Brink of Collapse After Cuts, Medical Charity Warns”
Dan Lamothe, Rachel Chason, and Isaac Arnsdorf for The Washington Post: “Trump Accuses Iran of Meddling in Midterms as Wave of Missiles Targets U.S. Base in Jordan”
Matthew Lee and Astrid Suárez for the AP: “Rubio Pledges U.S. Won’t Take Unilateral Action Against Drug Trafficking Despite Recent Strikes”
Estelle Nilsson-Julien for Euronews: “France Co-Hosts Major Space Summit With Germany Despite U.S. Firms’ Withdrawals and Merz Absence”
Yuji Nitta and Mai Nguyen for Nikkei Asia: “Vietnam and Russia Deepen Energy Ties as To Lam Visits Moscow”
Grégoire Roos for Chatham House: “The AfD’s Victory in Saxony-Anhalt Marks a Turning Point for Germany – But Perspective Is Important”
Summer Said, Shelby Holliday, and Alexander Ward for The Wall Street Journal: “Iran-Backed Houthis Take Effective Control of Key Red Sea Chokepoint”
Dustin Volz for The New York Times: “Anthropic Says It Blocked Possible Efforts to Build Biological Weapons”
From the Archives
As the United States reflects on the events of September 11 and the wars that followed, revisit our conversation on courage, duty, service, and sacrifice from the 2026 Aspen Security Forum.The Human Element of War: Military Service Across Generations
Colonel Jack Jacobs, Medal of Honor Recipient, National Medal of Honor Museum
Lieutenant Colonel Will Swenson, Medal of Honor Recipient, National Medal of Honor Museum
Joseph A. Dinkel, Strategic Advisor, Apandion
Moderator: Courtney Kube, NBC
Book of the Week
In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir
By Francis Fukuyama
“Francis Fukuyama, a leading public intellectual, is well-known for his landmark, bestselling works of political philosophy and history. Here, for the first time, he charts his political and intellectual evolution across five transformative decades….
More than a conventional memoir, In the Realm of the Last Man is personal history as political history—the story of a life that illuminates the troubled fate of democracy and liberalism over the last fifty years. Returning to and developing the concepts that have been central to his work—recognition, thymos, trust, identity, human nature, institutions, and the Last Man—Fukuyama brings the depth and richness of personal experience and pathbreaking scholarship to illuminate the crises of the twenty-first century.
Urgent, brilliant, and essential, Fukuyama’s In the Realm of the Last Man reveals a major thinker grappling in real time with the convulsions of history, and looking ahead to our possible future.”
Around the Institute
The Ethics of Cause and Conduct: Reflections on Contemporary War
The Aspen Socrates Seminar 2026 with the title “The Ethics of Cause and Conduct – Reflections on Contemporary War” creates a space to engage deeply with the ethical dimensions of contemporary warfare. Bringing together participants from diverse professional backgrounds and perspectives, it offers an opportunity to examine the principles, tensions, and trade-offs that shape decisions before, during, and beyond conflict. The seminar invites participants to develop a nuanced understanding of the ethical frameworks that govern both the justification for war and the conduct within it. It also encourages reflection on the broader ecosystem of security – from procurement and innovation to strategic prioritization – highlighting the moral responsibilities that accompany power and preparedness.
Held on October 14–16, 2026, in Weimar, Thuringia, and organized in partnership with the Aspen Institute Kyiv and the Aspen Institute Germany, the seminar offers a protected, high-level setting for open and candid exchange. It connects professionals from the military, civil society, public administration, and police communities, strengthening transatlantic ties while building trusted networks across sectors.
The seminar will be led by Evelyn Farkas, Executive Director of the McCain Institute. More information can be found here.
Please email leadership@aspeninstitute.de to apply to attend
Podcast of the Week
Stephen Hadley, Jane Harman, John McLaughlin, and Michael Morell joined Mary Louise Kelly for NPR’s Sources & Methods podcast: “How Sept. 11 Reshaped National Security”
