Jane Harman
Former U.S. representative for California who served from 1993–1999 and 2001–2011, with senior work on intelligence, armed services, and homeland security; later served as director, president, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
American Resilience Depends on Defending Civic Rather Than Hereditary Institutions
The American inheritance is civic rather than hereditary, and its durability depends on institutions that are defended rather than merely celebrated. Karl Rove warned that treating American identity as a matter of ancestry reverses the Declaration’s anti-aristocratic premise, while Kori Schake and Jane Harman argued that political pressure on the military and failures of constitutional restraint put democratic norms at risk. Their shared case was that American resilience is a historical record, not a guarantee.
Türkiye’s S-400 Dispute Still Blocks a Deeper U.S. Defense Relationship
Akif Çağatay Kılıç, Türkiye’s chief adviser on national security and foreign policy, argues that Ankara’s geography requires it to keep working relationships open across rival blocs, from NATO and the EU to Russia, Ukraine and Iran. He presents Türkiye as a venue for diplomacy rather than a power able to dictate settlements, while acknowledging that its own defense ties with the United States remain constrained by the unresolved dispute over its Russian S-400 system and access to F-35 aircraft.
U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Faces a Two-Superpower Stress Test
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Gillian Tett led a panel on whether mutually assured destruction can still stabilize a nuclear order no longer defined by a U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Christine Wormuth argued that the collapse of arms-control limits and China’s buildup have made this the most dangerous period of her national security career; Matthew Kroenig said the United States needs more nuclear capacity to deter Russia and China at once; and Jane Harman warned that weapons modernization without political strategy could deepen the risks it is meant to contain.