OP-EDS
June 9, 1988
The Toll of Losing a Public Service Leader
Boston Globe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
The Toll of Losing a Public Service Leader
May 3, 1988
Why Ratifying the INF Treaty Really Matters
Christian Science Monitor
By Albert Carnesale, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
The United States Senate should vote to ratify the INF Treaty - and it will. As in the committee hearings, debate on the floor focuses on the consequences of this treaty for national security. In the end, most members will agree with Sen. Sam Nunn's conclusion that the treaty makes a 'modest but useful contribution to NATO security.'
April 18, 1988
Dukakis's Record: A Success Story
New York Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Assessing the qualification of individuals to serve as President is among the toughest judgments citizens make. In the clamor before New York's primary, too much attention has focused on debates among candidates, promises made and policy positions taken. Too little effort has been made to explore a richer source of clues about probable performance: records. The record of Michael S. Dukakis, Governor of Massachusetts, is an informative guide.
October 26, 1987
Second Look: Lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Boston Globe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
The 25th anniversary of the Cuban Missile crisis is an appropriate occasion to ask: what lessons should this event teach policy makers in the United States and the Soviet Union today? Distant as it is, the missile crisis still offers the best lens available through which to examine the possibilities of nuclear confrontation, problems of crisis management and opportunities for crisis prevention. It remains the only occasion in the postwar era when the United States and the Soviet Union stood eyeball to eyeball contemplating actions that could have led directly to nuclear war.
October 20, 1987
Kennedy's Cuban Crisis is Risky as a Precedent
Los Angeles Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
The United States' attack on two Iranian offshore oil platforms in retaliation for a missile attack on a U.S.-flagged tanker vividly renews our attention to the hotly contested debate over whether the War Powers Resolution applies to current military operations in the Persian Gulf. To clarify the issues at hand, we need more historical perspective. Too many advocates of the resolution seek to apply "lessons" of one searing recent experience: Vietnam. Like Mark Twain's cat, having sat once on a hot stove, they are determined again to sit on any stove at all.
July 31, 1985
Of Hawks, Doves - and, Now, Owls
New York Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, Albert Carnesale, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Forty years ago, one bomb devastated Hiroshima. Today, there are more than 50,000 nuclear weapons, and a nuclear war could destroy civilization. Avoiding war has become a necessity. How? Hawks have had their say; doves, theirs. Now, listen to the owls.
May 6, 1981
The U.S.- Japan "Pie"
New York Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki's predecessor, Masayoshi Ohira, coined the phrase "productive partnership" to define the relationship between Japan and the United States. Mr. Suzuki's current visit to this country, and the agreement last week to restrict Japan's automobile exports to the United States, provide an appropriate opportunity to consider the questions: productive of what? for whom? Autos aside, the answer for Japan seems clear. The American-Japanese relationship provides Japan with basic security guarantees essential to its self-defense, a framework of international order within which Japan can continue to develop as a major independent power, and vital economic markets. For the United States, the question appears tougher. Still, assuming competent management of our side of the partnershipe, Americans enjoy at least three major categories of benefits.
December 21, 1980
An Intelligence Agenda
New York Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
The central test of a national intelligence service is how well its analyses and estimates inform policy-makers of probable developments abroad. More than any other, it is this test that the United States intelligence community is failing today.
Consider the case of Iran. Through l978 and 1979, American intelligence profoundly misassessed the revolutionary forces opposing the Shah. For example, in August l978, a Central Intelligence Agency estimate concluded: 'Iran is not in a revolutionary or even prerevolutionary situation.' The intelligence community's failure to illuminate these events exasperated President Carter, provoking him to send a memorandum to the C.I.A. declaring: 'I am not satisfied with the quality of political intelligence.'
Beneath the surface of this case, one finds characteristic failings of the current community in the three key elements of performance: collection, analysis, and service to policy-makers.
