Carnegie Connects

China is top of mind for all these days, including U.S. officials. Whether it's because of military exercises against Taiwan, a trade war with the United States, or China's efforts to block a deal on Tik Tok, getting tough on Beijing seems to be the order of the day. But are we getting China right? Are agreements between the United States and China on core interests possible? Or is the current status quo the best we can do with Beijing to manage the relationship to avoid serious conflict?  Join Aaron David Miller as he sits down with the Economist’s David Rennie to discuss these and other issues. 

In recent days, the Netanyahu government has doubled down on its efforts to consolidate its control and ramp up its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Following the firing of the former director of Shin Bet, an unprecedented decision in Israel’s history, the government has begun the more complicated process of terminating the attorney general, as well as changing the process by which judges are appointed.  A ferocious military operation in Gaza that has taken a terrible toll on Palestinian civilians and recent anti-Hamas demonstrations have resulted in renewed negotiations on a new hostage release for ceasefire agreement. And for the first time since the Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement in November 2024, rockets launched against northern Israel triggered response strikes in the Beirut suburbs.  What does the future hold for Gaza and any longer-term agreement? Will the Netanyahu government succeed in what appears to be a renewal of the 2023 effort to increase its power and undermine Israel’s judiciary? What about any hopes for a regional peace accord encompassing Palestinians and Saudi Arabia? Join Aaron David Miller as he engages former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon on these and other issues on the next Carnegie Connects.

Does public opinion matter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Do leaders pay attention to the changing views of their respective constituencies? Each situation presents unique challenges for analysts and scholars trying to answer these questions. And those challenges have grown exponentially more complicated in the wake of October 7, 2023, and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.  How have Israeli and Palestinian attitudes evolved toward their leaders and the region, one another, the United States’ role, and the war?  And how do Israelis and Palestinians on all sides of the divide imagine their  future, particularly whether there’s a pathway out of the ongoing crisis and any prospects for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?   Join Aaron David Miller as he engages in conversation with Dahlia Scheindlin, a political strategist and a public opinion researcher, and Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, two analysts and pollsters of Israeli and Palestinian politics and public opinion, on these and other issues on the next Carnegie Connects. 

All Presidents, Jonathan Alter wrote, are blind dates. Donald Trump may be the first who isn’t. Political analysts and historians not only have Trump’s first term to gauge his temperament and policies, but the four years preceding the 2024 elections, where he previewed his agenda for his second non-consecutive term. Even with that foreshadowing, Trump has crashed through traditional norms and conventions, aggrandized presidential power, and sought to reshape American politics in ways few would have thought possible. What lessons does history hold for us in approaching the second Trump presidency? Is it plausible to talk about the age of Trump as historians have done for certain presidents? The American experiment in democratic self-governance has been tested in the past. How will it fare going forward? Indeed, will the traditional guardrails hold and protect against the abuse of presidential power? Join Aaron David Miller as he engages in conversation with presidential historians Nicole Hemmer and Douglas Brinkley to discuss these and other issues, on the next Carnegie Connects. 

As President Trump pursues his “America First” foreign policy agenda, much of the world is left wondering about what role the United States will now play in global affairs and the stark contrast of this administration from those that came before. Writing in Foreign Affairs in October 2023,  Jake Sullivan, then the National Security Adviser to President Joe Biden, asserted that the “essence of President Biden’s foreign policy is to lay a new foundation of American strength so that the country is best positioned to shape the new era in a way that protects its interests and values and advances the common good.” Was the Biden Administration able to lay that new foundation of strength that might enable the U.S. to advance both its interests and its values, and cope with the complexities of a fast-changing world? Was it able to successfully mobilize its alliances and check the power and influence of its adversaries? And will the Trump administration, with a dramatically different approach to the world beyond America’s shores, fare any better? Join Aaron David Miller as he engages in conversation with Jake Sullivan as they look back at the last four years of Biden administration’s foreign policy and ahead to the challenges that confront the nation at home and abroad, on the next edition of Carnegie Connects.  

“The outcome of the American election will have huge implications both for American institutions and for the world,” Francis Fukuyama wrote in September of last year. Just a few weeks into his second term, with a slew of executive orders and controversial appointments, President Donald Trump seems determined to refashion the fabric of American politics and society with the aim of aggrandizing presidential power at the expense of Congress and the courts. Globally the new administration is worrying allies by withdrawing from the Paris Climate agreement and the World Health Organization, suspending foreign assistance, and imposing tariffs on key trading partners.How will these efforts impact America’s political system? Will the checks and balances the framers envisioned to constrain the abuse of power hold? What impact will the foreign and domestic policies of the new Administration have on America’s role and image in the world? Join Aaron David Miller as he engages in conversation with Francis Fukuyama, a nonresident scholar in the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, to discuss these and other issues. 

Three years into Russia’s war against Ukraine, two undeniable realities appear to mark its future. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes time is on his side, and ongoing political changes in Washington are stirring worries that Ukraine can no longer count on sustained levels of military, economic and political assistance.  The Kremlin is not deviating from its ultimate goal of making Ukraine unlivable and non-viable while restoring it to Russia’s sphere of influence. Ukrainian Volodymyr President Zelensky, on the other hand, is facing acute manpower shortages and continued military setbacks.  As we enter 2025, what does the battlefield picture tell us? How will the advent of the Trump Administration impact America’s support for Ukraine? Can Europe fill the gap should America falter? The Trump Administration has begun preliminary talks with Russia about a Putin-Trump summit. What are the prospects for a negotiated settlement to pause or end the war?  Join Aaron David Miller as he engages in conversation with Carnegie analysts and scholars Michael Kofman, Alexandra  Prokopenko, Eric Ciaramella and Andrew S. Weiss to discuss these and other issues in the latest episode of Carnegie Connects.  

Over the last two years, intelligence organizations and analysts failed to anticipate critical events in the Middle East that would roil the region. The sudden collapse of the Assad regime and the opening of a new chapter in Syria’s conflict-ridden story is the latest in a fraught period that has seen an of escalation of tensions in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. What explains the Assad regime’s sudden demise and the ascendance of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other Sunni Islamist organizations? What do these events portend for Syria’s governance and the policies of Iran, Russia, Turkey, and Israel in the region? And what would be the best policy on Syria for the incoming U.S. administration?  Join Aaron David Miller as he sits down with Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and Charles Lister, senior fellow and the director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, to explore these and other issues.

More than a year into the Israel-Hamas war, the Middle East remains mired in conflict. The war in Gaza drags on with no end in sight; the West Bank continues to seethe; the collapse of the Assad regime has activated Israeli forces along the Syrian border; and while a cease-fire deal has calmed the Israel-Lebanon border, the possibility of a serious escalation between Israel and Iran remains all too real. Meanwhile, uncertainties about U.S. policy abound as the Biden Administration gives way to one headed by President Donald Trump.Will Israel be able to translate its recent military wins into stable security and political arrangements? What does the future hold for the hostages and the people of Gaza? Is there a diplomatic off-ramp that might preempt or prevent an Iran-Israel confrontation? And what of the future of Iran’s nuclear program?  Join Aaron David Miller as he sits down with Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, and Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, to discuss these and other issues on Carnegie Connects. 

Beyond Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, the Biden administration has faced significant international challenges over the president’s four years in office.  President Biden and his team have contended with a range of issues including strategic competition, growing threats to democracies, climate change, critical minerals supply chains, and shaping the transformative potential of emerging tech to solve global problems without exacerbating regional economic inequality. When it comes to foreign policy, as George Will quipped, the American public wants as little of it as possible, but that hasn’t been the case over the last four years.  What are the key principles and assumptions that have underscored its approach to foreign policy? And what kind of world does it leave for its successors? U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has served in the Biden administration from the beginning, first at the White House and more recently at the State Department. Join Aaron David Miller as he sits down with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell to discuss these and other issues.