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Foreign-Imposed Regime Change

Alexander B. Downes on why states overthrow the governments of some states but not others.

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Oil ShockWave

College curriculum package simulates oil crisis.

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AP Photo

May 6, 2008

"Winning the African Prize for Repression: Zimbabwe"

By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution

After much delay, the “official” presidential election results in Zimbabwe were finally announced last week (May 2, 2008). While opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the majority vote (47.9% to Robert Mugabe’s 43.2%), because the 50% minimum that is needed to win outright was not reached, a run-off will take place. This second round leaves Zimbabweans and the international community certain that Robert Mugabe will continue his use of intimidation, force, and violence to secure his re-election.

AP Photo

5 May 2008

"A Strategy to Promote Healthy Globalisation"

Financial Times

By Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor

Lawrence Summers explains why a growing global economy is worrisome to U.S. workers, and encourages policymakers to work for the interests of U.S. citizens while maintaining an open, global economy.

AP Photo

May 5, 2008

Preventing Terrorist Attacks: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom

By Erik J. Dahl, Research Fellow, International Security Program

Why do terrorist attacks frequently succeed, even though later investigations almost always show that warnings had been available but were either misunderstood or ignored?  Conventional wisdom, as seen in the 9/11 Commission Report, holds that disasters such as the 9/11 attacks have been caused by failures of analytical imagination, a lack of long-term strategic intelligence on the threat, and organizational limitations that prevent the U.S. intelligence community from being able to “connect the dots” of the existing intelligence. 

AP Photo

April 29, 2008

"Averting an Energy Crisis"

The Boston Globe

By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative and Robbie Diamond

Graham Allison and Robbie Diamond warn readers of the grave impacts of rising oil prices to US security. "Add to this continued instability - and in some cases, hostility - in some of the world's most prolific oil-producing nations, and the conclusion is clear: America's dependence on oil, particularly oil from unstable and undemocratic parts of the world, threatens national security and economic stability."

AP Photo

2008

"The Shia Factor"

Heartland: Eurasian Review of Geopolitics, (The Pakistani Boomerang Issue), issue 1

By Kayhan Barzegar, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program

The new rivalry between two main Muslim communities is the result of the political developments in Iraq. The pragmatic relationship between Iran and the Shia factions in other countries. The fears of Sunni regimes of a Shia crescent moon.

April 22, 2008

"It's Not the Price That Causes Hunger"

International Herald Tribune

By Robert Paarlberg, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization

"Africa's food crisis grows primarily out of the low productivity, year in and year out, of the 60 percent of all Africans who plant crops and graze animals for a living. The average African smallholder farmer is a woman who has no improved seeds, no nitrogen fertilizers, no irrigation and no veterinary medicine for her animals. Her crop yields are only one third as high as in the developing countries of Asia, and her average income is only $1 a day."