Anja Manuel
Executive Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, former U.S. State Department diplomat, foreign-policy advisor, and co-founder and principal of strategic consulting firm Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Deterrence Depends on Sustained Allied Capacity
Former U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel argues that China’s escalating coercion around Taiwan will test whether the United States can turn its alliances with Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan into a barrier to a quarantine or blockade. Alongside Anja Manuel and Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove, he contends that military arrangements remain substantial but deterrence is weakened by inadequate stockpiles, competing crises and doubts about U.S. political resolve. Their central claim is that allies can add capacity and coordinate more closely, but cannot replace sustained American leadership.
Tariff Access Is Becoming a Supply-Chain Security Test
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer argues that U.S. trade policy should use tariffs, market access and security conditions to redirect production toward the United States and North America while limiting exposure to China-linked supply chains. He describes a durable hierarchy of access—not a return to pre-tariff trade—in which companies can plan around known rates but must meet stricter origin, investment and export-control rules. China, in his account, is a commercial relationship to be bounded rather than reformed through negotiation.
Free Societies Must Adapt Without Abandoning Their Ideals
Anja Manuel, executive director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, argued that rapid shifts in artificial intelligence, conflict and economic power require leaders to test “too hard, audacious” ideas rather than merely react to events. Opening the forum, she said adaptation must remain anchored in the ideals of free societies, as technology, wars and new growth centres reshape the international order.