PAKISTAN
Summer 2013
Belfer Center Newsletter Summer 2013
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Summer 2013 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s expanding work on complex cybersecurity issues and Middle East challenges, offers reflections on the role of the U.S. in Iraq, and spotlights work being done by the Center and its affiliates on environment and energy issues.
April 22, 2013
"Panetta to Hillary: 'You're Flat Wrong'"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"The issue was who was in charge of the drone program being conducted over Pakistan, the ambassador, Cameron Munter (who was present by video link) or the Station Chief. Specifically, Munter wanted to have approval power over the drone strikes. Hillary agreed. Panetta insisted otherwise."
(AP Photo/Aqeel Ahmed)
February 22, 2013
"'Zero Dark Thirty' has the facts wrong – and that's a problem, not just for the Oscars"
Op-Ed, Christian Science Monitor
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
The movie “Zero Dark Thirty” is unquestionably a gripping drama and credible contender in this year’s Oscar competition (nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay). If director Kathryn Bigelow’s film presented itself principally as fiction, it could be judged exclusively on its technical or dramatic merits, which are considerable. However, writes Graham Allison, "because it advertises itself as a factually grounded 'journalistic filming' of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, it cannot duck a further question about what it owes to truth."
February 5, 2013
"Drones: What's the Fuss About?"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"...[I]n Pakistan, in Yemen, in Somalia, and now seemingly in West Africa, the drones have been a reliable source of intelligence and, equipped with missiles, a lethal and potentially accurate weapon....Unquestionably, there have been a number of innocent people killed in drone attacks, either by proximity and/or mistake. But what is this in comparison to the land invasions and mass aerial bombings of the pre-drone era?"
January 29, 2013
President Obama's WMD "Czar" Appointed Executive Director of Belfer Center
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Gary Samore, President Obama’s Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Counter-Terrorism and Arms Control, has been appointed Executive Director (Research) for Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A former fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program, Samore has served for the past four years as the principal advisor to the President on all matters relating to arms control and the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and WMD terrorism.
January 16, 2013
"Obama Must Write the Rule Book for Drones"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Evelyn Krache Morris, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"Obama may be comfortable with Brennan's philosophy of targeted assassinations, and he may be equally confident in the proposed new CIA chief's ability to control the initiatives of underlings. However, these are flimsy foundations on which to base policy decisions, particularly ones concerning a weapon as controversial as drones. Cutting Congress and the public out of the process of determining how, when, and where these weapons should be used is counterproductive and shortsighted."
December 12, 2012
"A Moral Choice on Torture"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
In a new Washington Post column, Belfer Center senior fellow David Ignatius looks at Kathryn Bigelow's newest movie, Zero Dark Thirty, about the raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and asks what place torture has in issues of national security and, with bin Laden dead, 'where do we go next?'
November 2, 2012
A Difficult Era in US-Pakistani Relations
Event Report
Ambassador Cameron Munter, recently retired US Ambassador to Pakistan, gave an off-the-record lecture on November 1st, 2012, on his views on the past, present, and future of US-Pakistani relations.
November 1, 2012
"Obama's Failed Foreign Policy"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Eliot A. Cohen, Eric S. Edelman, Senior Associate, International Security Program and Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
"Because of the last four years, we face a world in which our enemies do not fear us, our friends do not believe they can trust us, and those who maneuver between the two camps feel that they will not get in trouble by crossing us. It is time, and more than time, to choose a different course."
October 2012
Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age: Power, Ambition, and the Ultimate Weapon
Book
By Toshi Yoshihara and John R. Holmes
Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age assembles a group of distinguished scholars to grapple with the matter of how the United States, its allies, and its friends must size up the strategies, doctrines, and force structures currently taking shape if they are to design responses that reinforce deterrence amid vastly more complex strategic circumstances.
