Mailing address
Littauer 376B
Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs
79 John F. Kennedy Street, Mailbox 53
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Downloadable CV
Monica Duffy Toft
Associate Professor of Public Policy
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: (617) 495-3966
Fax: (617)-496-2254
Email: monica_toft@harvard.edu
Experience
Monica Duffy Toft is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Political Science and Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Toft was a research intern at the RAND Corporation and served in the U.S. Army in southern Germany as a Russian voice interceptor. Her research interests include international relations, nationalism and ethnic conflict, civil and interstate wars, the relationship between demography and national security, and military and strategic planning. Professor Toft is the author of The Geography of Ethnic Conflict: Identity, Interests, and Territory (Princeton University Press, 2003) and co-editor of The Fog of Peace: Strategic and Military Planning under Uncertainty (Routledge, 2006).
Professor Toft is director of the Belfer Center's Initiative on Religion in International Affairs, which was established with a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
Forthcoming January 2010
Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars
Book
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"Using comprehensive data on internal conflicts, Toft challenges the flawed assumptions driving international peacemaking diplomacy and peacekeeping operations, which sadly may be prolonging civil wars instead of ending them. This provocative and politically incorrect book ought to stimulate a long-needed debate over the efficacy of current approaches to ending conflicts." - Andrew Natsios, Georgetown University
AP Photo
June 30, 2009
"A Risky Prospect for Iraq"
Op-Ed, Foreign Policy
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"As American troops pull back from Iraq's urban areas, a central question is whether Iraq's forces will be able to secure the peace. If history is any guide, Iraq's security forces face a challenging task. Ending civil wars and keeping them ended is not easy. Iraq faces three critical risk factors."
AP Photo
April 2009
"Nasty, Brutish and Long"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Prospect, issue 157
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
It’s a busy time for civil wars. The Sri Lankan army has pushed far into Tamil territory, seeking a decisive victory. The killings in Northern Ireland show how spoilers try to gain advantage over rivals in any political process. Then there is the threat that recently pacified civil wars, such as those in Iraq and Sudan, will come back, while the global recession may push new ones forward.
AP Photo
September 2008
"Russia's Recipe for Empire"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Foreign Policy
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
Russia’s recent campaign against Georgia is a textbook example of how powerful states forged empires in centuries gone by. For those who have forgotten, here’s how it’s done.
AP Photo
June 2, 2008
"Why Islam Lies at the Heart of Iraq's Civil War"
Op-Ed, Christian Science Monitor
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"...[N]ot until 2007 did the Pentagon acknowledge that Iraqi sectarian violence had crossed a threshold to become a civil war.
But policymakers still haven't come to terms with the implications of that fact. If they did, they'd see that a wisely executed withdrawal of US-led forces could well be the surest path to peace. That's because withdrawal is likely to transform the fighting in Iraq into a defensive struggle for power in a nation-state, as opposed to an offensive battle rooted in religion."
June 2007
"The Myth of the Borderless World: Refugees and Repatriation Policy"
Journal Article, Conflict Management and Peace Science, issue 2, volume 24
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
This essay explores the impact of the end of the Cold War on the counter-refugee-crisis policies of the United Nations and its strongest member states.
Spring 2007
"Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 31
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
This article argues that overlapping historical, geographical and, in particular, structural factors together with an absence of an internecine religious war, the proximity of Islam’s holiest sites to Israel, large petroleum reserves, and jihad account for Islam’s higher representation in civil wars.
November 13, 2006
"Iraq is Gone. Now What?"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"...the stability and prosperity of a post-civil-war state depends in large measure on how the war ends."
September 6, 2006
"Conclusion: Seven Lessons Learned from the Fog of Peace"
Book Chapter
By Talbot C. Imlay and Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"...the fog of peace can never be entirely pierced. Flexibility and constant cultivation of the ability to question received wisdom and to reconsider assumptions are the best security against catastrophic failure in a future war, regardless of whether that war resembles a more traditional interstate war or the current war on terror."
September 2006
The Fog of Peace and War Planning: Military and Strategic Planning under Uncertainty
Book
By Talbot C. Imlay and Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
This volume sets out to examine and analyse how governments and military organizations planned for an uncertain and potentially threatening future during four different peacetime periods spanning from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the aftermath of the Second World War.
