BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS
June 2008
"The Yellow Rain Affair: Lessons from a Discredited Allegation"
By Matthew Meselson, Co-director, Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons and Julian Perry Robinson, Co-director, Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons
"U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, in a speech in West Berlin in September 1981 and in a detailed report to the Congress the following March, charged Soviet-backed Laotian and Vietnamese forces with waging toxin warfare against Hmong resistance fighters and their villages in Laos and against Khmer Rouge soldiers and villages in Cambodia. The charges were repeated with additional details in a further report to the Congress and to the member states of the United Nations in November 1982 by Haig's successor, Secretary of State George Shultz.
The investigation on which the allegation was based, however, failed to employ reliable methods of witness interrogation or of forensic laboratory investigation; it was further marred by the dismissal and withholding of contrary evidence and a lack of independent review. When the evidence for toxin attacks or any other form of chemical/biological warfare (CBW) was subjected to more careful examination, it could not be confirmed or was discredited. In what became known as the "Yellow Rain" affair, these charges — that toxic substances called trichothecenes were used in CBW — were initially pressed vigorously by the U.S. government and, even when the allegations proved unsustainable, they were not withdrawn...."
May 29, 2008
Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters
By Richard Clarke, Faculty Affiliate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
It's not just Bush and Cheney that are to blame. The system is broken. That's the message in this provocative sequel to Against All Enemies. When Richard Clarke apologized for 9-11, he never thought that there would be so many more government failures in so short a time, but climate change, Katrina, the struggle with al Qaeda, the insecurity in cyberspace, and the failure of homeland security all bespeak a larger problem, a systemic failure. Clarke documents the failures and suggests solutions for making government work better in its most important job, protecting us.
May 2008
Financing Entrepreneurship
By Philip Auerswald, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Ant Bozkaya, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2009; Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2005–2009; Dubai Initiative, 2007–2008
This important collection comprises foundational papers which offer an understanding of the conceptual and historical substructure of entrepreneurial finance and more recent seminal works about entrepreneurs and the obstacles that they systematically seek to overcome. Further articles describe the variety of institutional forms that have evolved to address the challenges inherent in entrepreneurial finance and the role of government in the process of innovation, entrepreneurship and the financing of new ventures. These papers, complemented by the editors' comprehensive introduction, are essential for scholars, researchers, policy makers and entrepreneurs wishing to advance their understanding of this important and expanding field of study.
AP
March 8, 2008
"Recent Progress and Remaining Challenges for Advanced Coal Technology in China"
volume 6
By Kelly Sims Gallagher, Senior Associate, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group and Lifeng Zhao, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy Research Group/Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2006-2008
In order to promote the research, development, demonstration and deployment of advanced coal technologies, the Chinese central government and local governments have formulated a series of industrial, fiscal, environmental policies and plans. These are outlined in this book chapter.
March 2008
Targeting Civilians in War
By Alexander B. Downes, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008
Accidental harm to civilians in warfare often becomes an occasion for public outrage, from citizens of both the victimized and the victimizing nation. In this vitally important book on a topic of acute concern for anyone interested in military strategy, international security, or human rights, Alexander B. Downes reminds readers that democratic and authoritarian governments alike will sometimes deliberately kill large numbers of civilians as a matter of military strategy. What leads governments to make such a choice?
March 2008
Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa
By Robert Paarlberg, Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project/Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2007-2008
Heading upcountry in Africa to visit small farms is absolutely exhilarating given the dramatic beauty of big skies, red soil, and arid vistas, but eventually the two-lane tarmac narrows to rutted dirt, and the journey must continue on foot. The farmers you eventually meet are mostly women, hardworking but visibly poor. They have no improved seeds, no chemical fertilizers, no irrigation, and with their meager crops they earn less than a dollar a day. Many are malnourished.
Nearly two-thirds of Africans are employed in agriculture, yet on a per-capita basis they produce roughly 20 percent less than they did in 1970. Although modern agricultural science was the key to reducing rural poverty in Asia, modern farm science—including biotechnology—has recently been kept out of Africa.
February 2008
La République de Dieu
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
La République de Dieu is a collection of essays on the idea of God; on evangelism ("La République de Dieu"); on Islamic fundamentalism ("L'Islam médiéval"); and followed by empirical chapters analyzing a number of conflicts between the Muslim and non-Muslim world: Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Arab/Israeli.
February 2008
The Powers to Lead
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. offers a sweeping look at the nature of leadership in today's world, in an illuminating blend of history, business case studies, psychological research, and more. As he observes, many now believe that the more authoritarian and coercive forms of leadership—the hard power approaches of earlier military-industrial eras—have been largely supplanted in postindustrial societies by soft power approaches that seek to attract, inspire, and persuade rather than dictate.
January 17, 2008
Ruthless Humanitarianism
By Doug Brooks and Matan Chorev, Senior Research Assistant, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Over the past twenty years, Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) have become significant elements of national security arrangements, assuming many of the functions that have traditionally been undertaken by state armies. Given the centrality of control over the use of coercive force to the functioning and identity of the modern state, and to international order, these developments clearly are of great practical and conceptual interest.
This edited volume provides an interdisciplinary overview of PMSCs: what they are, why they have emerged in their current form, how they operate, their current and likely future military, political, social and economic impact, and the moral and legal constraints that do and should apply to their operation. The book focuses firstly upon normative issues raised by the development of PMSCs, and then upon state regulation and policy towards PMSCs, examining finally the impact of PMSCs on civil-military relations. It takes an innovative approach, bringing theory and empirical research into mutually illuminating contact. Includes contributions from experts in IR, political theory, international and corporate law, and economics, and also breaks important new ground by including philosophical discussions of PMSCs.
2008
"The Future of American Power"
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"It is generally agreed that the United States is the leading power at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but there is less agreement on how long this will last. Some observers argue that American pre-eminence is simply the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and that this 'unipolar moment' will be brief, while others argue that America's power is so great that it will last for much of the coming century...."
