The Aspen Institute

Featuring Elliot Ackerman, the New York Times bestselling author and highly decorated US Marine veteran who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, in conversation with Kitty Boone, vice president of public programs at the Aspen Institute. From the protracted war in Afghanistan, to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, to the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the US has been confronted by a dizzying array of national security threats in recent years. Ackerman, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and has covered the wars in Ukraine and Syria, discusses how these challenges are interrelated, and what might be the most significant challenges we face in the years ahead. In this talk, he looks at ways the Biden administration could apply lessons learned from those experiences to the current threats we are facing in the world.