WESTERN EUROPE
AP Photo
March 9, 2009
"The Promise of 'Normal Ties'"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Now that the United States has initiated diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran, Damascus and Tehran will feel new pressure to say what they want -- rather than mainly to criticize the US and say what they reject.
Winter 2008/09
"When Right Makes Might: How Prussia Overturned the European Balance of Power"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 33
By Stacie Goddard, Former Research Fellow, Intrastate Conflict Program/International Security Program, 2001-2002
Prussia fundamentally changed the balance of power and politics in nineteenth-century Europe by justifying its expansion in a way that prevented a balancing coalition from forming: it signaled constraint, laid rhetorical traps, and demonstrated a need to secure its identity in international politics—arguments that none of the great powers could legitimately counter. Similarly, China has carefully framed its foreign policy strategy in a way that has prevented balancing against it thus far. The United States, on the other hand, only halfheartedly tried to justify the war in Iraq, which dramatically increased the cost of fighting the war. Legitimation theory, then, helps to explain why states fail to balance in seemingly predictable ways.
Winter 2008/09
"Linkage Diplomacy: Economic and Security Bargaining in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–23"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 33
The Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902–23 illustrates the importance of economic side payments as a method for forming and maintaining alliances. It also shows, however, the influence of domestic factors on constraining these types of payments. Security concerns often lead a nation to offer side payments to a potential ally, but domestic political constraints, partisanship, and changing strategic needs account for the variation in the economic-security linkage.
AP Photo
January 11, 2009
"The Dark Side of Self-Determination"
Op-Ed, Daily News Egypt
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Self-determination has turned out to be an ambiguous moral principle. Woodrow Wilson thought it would solve problems in central Europe in 1919, but it created as many as it solved. Adolf Hitler used the principle to undermine fragile states in the 1930's. Today, with less than 10% of the world's states being homogeneous, treating self-determination as a primary moral principle could have disastrous consequences in many regions."
AP Photo
January 8, 2009
"We Have Military to be Proud of — So Give Them Money They Need"
Op-Ed, The Scotsman
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"As a country, we must face the fact our armed forces have reached the limit of what they can afford to do. Aside from Afghanistan and Iraq, we have troops deployed in large numbers in Germany and defence and peacekeeping duties in Bosnia, Kosovo, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. As a country, we claim to be proud of the dedication and professionalism of ourarmed forces, but we spend half as much on them per head as the Americans do."
Photo by Robert C. Stowe
January 7, 2009
Harvard Project Leadership Presents Key Lessons at Poznan Conference of the Parties
News
By Sasha Talcott, Director of Communications and Outreach
The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements leadership team traveled to Poznan, Poland, in December 2008 to present findings of their new Interim Report, which outlines several promising ideas for successors to the Kyoto Protocol.
AP Photo
December 20, 2008
"They Grew Up Half an Hour Away from Each Other. They Both Faced a Choice. One Became a Successful Entrepreneur and Prominent Thinker. One Bombed Glasgow Airport"
Op-Ed, Sunday Herald, (Scotland)
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"...[B]oth he and I faced a choice between seeing Islam as setting us against our country, or as setting us up to be a part of it. Equally clearly, we made different choices. However, that is the same choice facing half a million Muslim young people growing up all over Britain, and about half a billion more all over the world."
Robert C. Stowe
December 15, 2008
Harvard Project Leadership Presents Key Lessons at Official COP 14 Side-Event
Event Summary
By Robert C. Stowe, Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program; Manager, Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
In the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements' official side-event in Poznan, Poland, Professor Robert N. Stavins presented key findings from the project's Interim Report, which synthesizes an extensive research effort conducted by 27 teams of leading experts from developed and developing countries, whose goal is to identify key design principles of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture.
November 24, 2008
New Harvard Project Report Outlines Ideas for Successor to Kyoto Protocol
Press Release
By Sasha Talcott, Director of Communications and Outreach
A new report from the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements outlines several promising ideas for successors to the Kyoto Protocol. The report also provides guidance on the most intractable challenges facing global climate negotiators, including participation by developing countries, how to reduce deforestation, and how to prevent a "collision" between climate policy and international trade law.
AP Photo
November 19, 2008
"Obama and Ozdemir: Breaking Barriers"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
"Cem Özdemir, 42, was elected Saturday as co-leader of the Green Party, capping a career in the German and European parliaments that started in 1994. In terms of breaking color and ethnic barriers, this equals or even tops the historic first elected American Black president, because the nature of European societies is so much less pluralistic and culturally-racially-ethnically less egalitarian than American society."
