Washington must think the unthinkable to credibly deter potential adversaries such as China.
The Thucydides Trap
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The Showman Cometh
The Riyadh visit was a boon for Saudi Arabia, as it was attended by some fifty leaders from the Sunni Arab world. Whether Mr. Trump's Riyadh attacks on Shiite Iran will call forth a hostile response from Tehran in the aftermath of an electoral victory of the moderates remains to be seen.
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Ambassador Douglas E. Lute Named Senior Fellow
Former NATO Ambassador Douglas E. Lute joined the Belfer Center in April as a Senior Fellow with the Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project.
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Experts Launch Dialogue on U.S.-Pakistan Relations
In April, a Belfer Center delegation met with former Pakistani nuclear officials in Istanbul, marking the start of a track 1.5 dialogue.
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Interviewing Hillary at Harvard
On March 3, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Harvard University at the invitation of Professors Nicholas Burns (HKS), Robert Mnookin (HLS), and James Sebenius (HBS) in one of her first public engagements since last autumn.
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Conference Focuses on U.S., Japan, and Rise of China
A group of top-level American and Japanese academics and officials gathered for a Belfer Center conference in March to discuss the U.S.-Japan alliance and the rise of China.
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Samantha Power Returns
Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 until 2017, has been named to a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School.
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The Showman Cometh
The Riyadh visit was a boon for Saudi Arabia, as it was attended by some fifty leaders from the Sunni Arab world. Whether Mr. Trump's Riyadh attacks on Shiite Iran will call forth a hostile response from Tehran in the aftermath of an electoral victory of the moderates remains to be seen.
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Ambassador Douglas E. Lute Named Senior Fellow
Former NATO Ambassador Douglas E. Lute joined the Belfer Center in April as a Senior Fellow with the Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project.
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Experts Launch Dialogue on U.S.-Pakistan Relations
In April, a Belfer Center delegation met with former Pakistani nuclear officials in Istanbul, marking the start of a track 1.5 dialogue.
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Trump Desperately Needs a Goodwill Ambassador
"When one people holds another in high regard, it becomes easier for governments to cooperate and make sacrifices on behalf of each other. By contrast, if a country or its leaders are regarded with disdain, hatred, suspicion, or contempt, it will be harder for the governments to collaborate, and ambitious politicians may discover they can win support by turning their backs on the despised foreign power instead."
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Why the United States Needs Qatar, and Why the Current Conflict is Best Settled Peacefully
The most important action for the United States to take in the current situation is to ease tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and continue to pressure both countries to improve their investigation of individuals supporting al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Qatar's unorthodox diplomacy, their provision of a stable, strategically situated basing area, and their record in bringing to light human rights issues in the Middle East could actually be useful for United States.
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Samantha Power Returns
Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 until 2017, has been named to a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School.
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International Council Debates Critical Global Issues
A lively discussion of “Russiagate” at the JFK Jr. Forum on Tuesday, May 2, launched the 2017 annual meeting of the Belfer Center International Council .
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Deconstructing Islamophobia by Emphasizing Individuality
It’s this distorted perception of the Muslim identity that Nadia Marzouki is working to dissolve. Her research focuses on the society’s perceptions of Muslims in an effort to deconstruct ignorance about Islam through emphasizing individuals’ autonomy to accept—or reject—societal structures.
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The Making of a Russian Spy: A Roadmap for the FBI to Resolve Russia Gate
No matter who wins in the competition between Republicans and Democrats, or between Trump and his supporters and opponents, Russia wins by sowing dissension among all parties.
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Theresa May's Troubles and 'The Troubles'
On Monday, the newly elected Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, emerged from his meeting with his British counterpart, Theresa May, promising good news. Varadkar said he was satisfied May would not jeopardize the peace agreement in Northern Ireland in her efforts to secure the support of that province’s Democratic Unionist Party for her government.
Yet even if this is true, it is unrealistic to hope that a deal between the Tories and the DUP will have no impact on the politics of Northern Ireland. And if Varadkar is wrong, we could be headed toward a political stalemate or worse, and a possible economic crisis in that corner of the United Kingdom.
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This Is How Great-Power Wars Get Started
To avoid escalations of this sort, the Trump administration should now lay out a positively defined political vision for the Middle East, which would accompany and tether its negatively defined anti-Islamic State and anti-Iranian goals. At this time, the fundamental part of this vision must be a clear U.S. position on the future of Kurdish-held areas in Iraq and Syria.
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In Saudi Shakeup, Economics Tops Counterterrorism
The latest big news out of the Middle East is that Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has ousted the crown prince and installed his 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, in that position. While the world waits to see more of the reaction from Saudis and others in the region, a few quick thoughts come to my mind.
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The World Is Even Less Stable Than It Looks
"If the past 25 years have taught us anything, it is that few foreign-policy problems can be solved simply by blowing things up. The United States is still unsurpassed at that sort of thing, but the real challenge is devising political solutions to conflicts once the guns have fallen silent. We've been singularly bad at this in recent decades, and Trump's disdain for diplomacy and efforts to gut the State Department will just impair us even more."
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