"From August 3-8, 2008, the Aspen Strategy Group gathered in Aspen, Colorado to assess the instruments and institutions of American power and purpose. Aspen Strategy Group members, government officials, academics, and journalists formed a bipartisan group of foreign policy and national security practitioners from a wide range of government agencies. This publication is a collection of the fifteen papers that were used to guide their discussions during the course of the conference, along with a scene setter and concluding observations."--The Acknowledgments