JOURNAL ARTICLE

NEWS

"International Climate Policy: The Durban Platform Opens a Window"
by Professor Robert Stavins

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EVENT

FORUM: "Is War on the Way Out?"
Jan. 30, 2012, 6 p.m., with Joshua Goldstein, Steven Pinker, Monica Toft, Stephen Walt and Joseph Nye

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January 16, 2012

The Defensive Nature of China's "Underground Great Wall"

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom

A study by Georgetown University's Phillip Karber claims that a vast network of tunnels in China, often called the "underground great wall," could hide up to 3,000 nuclear weapons. Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Hui Zhang argues that the study leaps to unwarranted conclusions based on simplistic reasoning and questionable extrapolation from decades-old estimates of Chinese weapon levels. New information on fissile materials inventories and other authoritative data indicate that China has a nuclear arsenal of a few hundred weapons and that the underground great wall is meant to protect this small deterrent from a first strike.

AP Photo

January/February 2012

"Nuclear Weapons 2011: Momentum Slows, Reality Returns"

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, issue 1, volume 68

By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom

In the Doomsday Clock issue of the Bulletin, the author takes a look at five events that unfolded in 2011 and that seem certain to cast a powerful shadow in months and years to come. No new breakthroughs occurred, the author writes, adding that 2012 could be a much more difficult year.

AP Photo

January/ February 2012

"Nuclear Scientists as Assassination Targets"

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, issue 1, volume 68

By William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Since 2007, international media have reported the violent deaths of four scientists and engineers connected with Iran’s nuclear program and an attempt on the life of a fifth. The news reports on such killings are murky, incomplete, and, in some instances, likely inaccurate...

January 19, 2012

Belfer Center Ranked #1 University-Affiliated Think Tank in World

The Belfer Center has been ranked No. 1 university-affiliated think tank in the world in the 2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index. The Index, coordinated by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, is the culmination of an eight-month process involving more than 1500 scholars, journalists, experts in numerous research categories, and organizations from around the globe.

AP Photo

January 14, 2012

"Iran Scientist Assassinations Serve No End"

Boston Globe

By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy

"Ahmadi-Roshan was likely as expendable to the Iranians as he was to whoever plotted his death. That suggests why Iran seems so incapable of protecting its allegedly high-value scientists. He was, in the end, of no consequence to the real issues at play. His murder should be condemned because it is brutal and gets us no closer to a meaningful resolution of Iran's nuclear ambitions."

AP Photo

January 17, 2012

"Not Another War, Please!"

The Huffington Post

By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program

"Apart from the question, never asked and never answered, as to why Iran cannot have nuclear weapons while India and Pakistan can, there is the lassitude that has set in over the successive wars in Afghanistan — which has lasted much too long — and Iraq — which has been essentially fruitless. A new war is certainly to be avoided, if possible."

AP Images

January 12, 2012

"The 20 Percent Solution"

Foreign Policy

By Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

On Monday, Jan. 9, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran had begun producing 20 percent enriched uranium at Fordow, a fuel enrichment plant buried deep underground near the holy city of Qom. On the surface, there is little new here: Since February 2010, Iran has been producing 20 percent enriched uranium at Natanz, another once-secret site located about 3 ½ hours from Tehran.

Hadi Mizban

December 20, 2011

"Troops Are Gone but Iraq War Is Not ‘Over’"

Bloomberg

By Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

While Americans have been welcoming the “end” of the war in Iraq over the past few days, a political crisis of serious proportions has been unfolding in Baghdad.

December 23, 2011

"Why isn't peace on anyone's platform?"

Boston Globe

By R. Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Harvard Kennedy School

In his December 23 Boston Globe op-ed, "Why isn't peace on anyone's platform?", Professor Burns wrote that our national leaders rarely raise the standard of "peace" as among our most important international objectives.  Unlike past leaders such as Lincoln, FDR, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, our current Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington now elevate "security" and "defense" as our top strategic priorities.  In fact, the goal of peace does not appear prominently on the websites of any of the seven Republican presidential candidates.  Of course, peace is an elusive and perhaps even unattainable goal and we must continue to invest in our military and homeland security to defend our country in a violent age.  But, have we become so fearful in the wake of 9/11 that we no longer believe the pursuit of peace can be the guiding star that makes us a better nation?

AP Photo

December 25, 2011

"Christmas gift to America 20 years ago – a Russia to be thankful for"

Christian Science Monitor

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

When the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago on Christmas, doomsayers had a field day. But seen strictly from the perspective of what matters most to Americans, the good news is that the nightmares that experts realistically expected about Russia have not happened.