JAPAN
AP Photo
April 1, 2012
"Northeast Asia's Nuclear Future"
Op-Ed, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs
By James Platte, Former Stanton Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow, 2011–2012
"The negative impact of Fukushima and North Korea's dangerous nuclear politicking stand in stark contrast to the promise of growing nuclear sectors in China and South Korea. While preventing nuclear terrorism and strengthening nuclear security globally are urgent issues, how the nuclear dynamics of Northeast Asia plays out in the coming years will be more critical for the future of the global nuclear industry."
March 2012
"Incentives and Stability of International Climate Coalitions: An Integrated Assessment"
Discussion Paper
By Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Enrica De Cian, Emanuele Massetti and Massimo Tavoni
"A successful international climate policy framework will have to meet two conditions, build a coalition of countries that is potentially effective and give each member country sufficient incentives to join and remain in this coalition. Such coalition should be capable of delivering ambitious emission reduction even if some countries do not take mitigation action. In addition, it should meet the target without exceedingly high mitigation costs and deliver a net benefit to member countries as a whole. The novel contribution of this paper is mostly methodological, but it also adds a better qualification of well-known results that are policy relevant."
AP Photo
February 29, 2012
"How Big a Competitive Threat Is China, Really?"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review
By Michael Beckley, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2011–2012
"Is China becoming a serious economic competitor to the United States? Is China, in effect, a giant Japan?...For many reasons, China is unlikely to repeat Japan's success. Most important, China is developing in a far more challenging international environment than Japan faced in the second half of the 20th century. As a result, its economy will remain more compatible than competitive with America's for the foreseeable future."
January 19, 2012
"Stopping the Clock"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"...[W]hen the smart scientists decided to add global warming and biological harms to the clock's matrix in 2007, their previous laser focus on nuclear Armageddon lost its impact. Their explanation of why things have gotten one minute worse is a laundry list that includes nuclear proliferation, Iran, Japan's nuclear disaster and its effects on nuclear power investments, carbon emissions, and virulent strains of viruses that can be used for lethal purposes."
December 19, 2011
"As It Pivots Toward Asia, America Brings an Undefined Era to a Close"
Op-Ed, Jakarta Globe
By Anindya Bakrie, International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
On the strategic front, Indonesia is not, and will not be, a part of any attempt to contain China, writes Anindya Bakrie. At the same time, he says, Indonesia cannot have its options constrained in dealing with the United States, Japan, India or any other country: "This is true not only of Indonesia but of Asean in general. No country in Asean wants to be forced by either the United States or China to choose between the two. Indonesia, as Southeast Asia’s pivotal country, must continue to pursue a free and independent foreign policy that welcomes extra-regional powers without becoming a part of any exclusive agenda they might have."
December 5, 2011
"A Wave of the Future: International Linkage of Carbon Markets"
Op-Ed, Outreach
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
"...[I]t remains true that cap-and-trade is still the most likely domestic policy approach for CO2 emissions reductions throughout the industrialised world, given the rather unattractive set of available alternative approaches. This makes it important to think about the possibility of linking these national and regional cap-and-trade systems in the future. Such linking occurs when the government that maintains one system allows regulated entities to use allowances or credits from other systems to meet compliance obligations."
November 2011
"Nuclear Policy Gridlock in Japan"
Policy Brief
The historical growth in the number and variety of Japanese nuclear veto players has made the country an extreme case of stasis in fundamental nuclear policies. Japan is not the only country to experience this phenomenon, however. In many advanced industrialized democracies, the old Manhattan Project model of top-down, centralized, and secretive nuclear institutions has gradually given way to more complex arrangements. And as a general rule, the more numerous the veto players, the harder the struggle to achieve major nuclear policy change.
Winter 2011-2012
"International Security" Journal Highlights
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
This section of the Belfer Center newsletter includes highlights from the Fall 2011 edition of the International Security journal.
AP Photo
November 21, 2011
"A Pivot That Is Long Overdue"
Op-Ed, New York Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
The planned Marine rotation reinforces Obama's message to the region that the United States intends to remain a Pacific power. One of the great power shifts of the 21st century is the recovery of Asia, but instead of keeping our eye on that ball, the U.S. wasted the first decade of this century mired in two land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Obama has announced that American foreign policy will "pivot" toward East Asia.
AP Photo
Fall 2011
"Veto Players, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation: Domestic Institutional Barriers to a Japanese Bomb"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 36
Although Japanese politicians have expressed interest in the bomb in the past, the country’s veto players make acquisition unlikely. Early research viewed proliferation exclusively as a response to security needs. Since the 1980s, most models have included domestic factors, but they have focused exclusively on a single actor whose influence can be negated if veto power is widely enough dispersed. Thus, despite Japan’s intimidating plutonium supply, and its persistence in building a complete fuel cycle, the country’s large and growing number of veto players suggests the continuation of a rigid nuclear weapons policy. As this analysis indicates, historical institutional analysis is crucial to understanding a state’s propensity for proliferation and should be considered alongside other contributing factors.
