Ben Heineman
Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-7305
Fax: 617-495-8963
Email: ben_heineman@harvard.edu
AP Photo
May 11, 2009
"The Long Goodbye"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
A defense of the Bush Administration's approach to national security and terror is certainly legitimate at a time when the pendulum is swinging the other direction (to a degree). There should be a great national dialogue on issues of such import. The question about Dick Cheney's outspokenness is, in my view, much less about its propriety than about his judgment and his political effectiveness. Is he the right voice for a post-election Republican party?
AP Photo
May 5, 2009
"Function, Not Form, Matters Most in Board's Nonexecutive"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"The fundamental question, raised but not answered by last week's ouster of Lewis, is what are the functions of a non-executive leader of the board, whether denominated board chair or presiding director?"
AP Photo
April 27, 2009
"SARS Corporate Playbook"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Multinational corporations have seen this movie before. It was a horror flick called "SARS" (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)."
AP Photo
December 15, 2008
"Be Thorough"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
“While political leaders are always tempted to "get out front" of the story with strong denials (see Jesse Jackson, Jr.), partial truths, glaring omissions or statements that subsequently become misstatements are a political cancer that can metasticize in ugly ways. Plus, the facts gathered by the internal team may be contradicted by facts to which only the prosecutor (or the media) have access. Despite the drumbeat of deadlines and public pressure, accuracy is far more important than speed.”
istock
November 4, 2008
"Financial Leaders Go AWOL in the Meltdown"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"What's happening is a crisis of capitalism, though not because there is a debate about the ultimate virtues of capitalism over socialism -- that argument is long over. Rather, the failure of business leadership on an almost cataclysmic scale has brought front and center the issue of how government should rein in business."
AP Images
October 24, 2010
"The Afghan Black Hole: Governance and Corruption"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Addressing governance and corruption in a failed state like Afghanistan would be enormously challenging if they were "just" issues of development, but the "development" of Afghanistan, of course, takes place in the midst of a fierce civil war and intense regional rivalries and interference under what most experts consider a wholly unrealistic deadline (progress by next summer).
AP Images
March 31, 2010
"Obama's Afghan Dilemma: Managing Hamid Karzai"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"President Obama has committed the prestige of the United States, his personal credibility, billions of taxpayer dollars and, most importantly, the lives of American military personnel to a war which depends — as his top generals, Petraeus and McChrystal have said — on attaining a key civilian, not military, objective: creating an Afghan state with security, order, rule of law and accountable institutions that protects and serves its people. That goal depends on defeating the corruption and instability which have plagued Afghanistan for centuries."
September 29, 2010
"Deciding in a state of ignorance"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Bob Woodward's new book on the Obama White House portrays a president so frustrated with top military advisers for their refusal to provide what he considered a reasonable exit strategy from Afghanistan that he devised one himself. How should leaders reconcile the laudable instinct to rely on the advice of experts with the sometimes urgent need to force them to think outside the box?"
AP Images
September 16, 2010
"No Cure for the Cancer of Health Care Costs"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"The ever more conservative Republicans want to slash government programs (and the increased coverage) over the dead bodies of the Democrats. And the Democrats want to constrain insurance premiums and profit-maximizing in the private sector over the dead bodies of the Republicans. A bipartisan attempt to find the right combination of systemic productivity gains, meaningful competition and appropriate budgeting has receded far over the horizon."
AP Image
August 3, 2009
"The Power of the Personal Story"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Yes, the president deserves some credit for the "beer summit' as successful damage control. But, overall, his personal intrusion into the Cambridge arrest was very damaging: he diverted attention from health care; he failed to teach the nation a lesson on the critical importance of getting the facts right before rendering judgments; and, by subsequently saying that both Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley were good men but each had overreacted, he put the salient issue of racial profiling to the side and, to some extent, just rekindled the debate about the particular facts of a particular arrest."
