USE OF INTELLIGENCE IN POLICYMAKING
Summer 2013
"Hot Off the Presses"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Susan M. Lynch, Program Assistant, International Security Program; Web Manager, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
A survey of recent books by Belfer Center affiliates.
April 1, 2013
"SOCOM Steps Up"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"The emblem of the U.S. Special Operations Command pointedly illustrates its mission: It shows the tip of a spear. Now SOCOM is expanding this arsenal to create a global network that can project power even as America’s armies withdraw from the battlefields of the last decade.
Adm. William McRaven, the SOCOM commander, has been developing this ambitious new role at his headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base here. McRaven is among the nation’s most celebrated warriors. He planned the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011; in his office is a small sculpture tagged “Bull Frog,” honoring him as the longest-serving Navy SEAL in uniform," writes David Ignatius of the Washington Post.
February 15, 2013
"James Clapper Warns of Sequester’s Impact on Spy Agencies"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"With a March 1 deadline for sequestration legislation approaching, it’s the season for scare talk about the effects of budget cuts. But even discounting for this, the warning Thursday from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about the impact on America’s spy agencies was ominous," writes David Ignatius in the Washington Post.
February 20, 2013
"Panetta’s ‘Do Over’ on the Allen Investigation"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"As Leon Panetta spends his final days as secretary of defense, there’s one decision I hope he’d like to do over: His order back in November to authorize a Defense Department investigation of thousands of e-mails from Gen. John R. Allen, which the FBI had just dumped in Panetta’s lap," writes David Ignatius of the Washington Post.
January 30, 2013
Graham Allison, Robert D. Blackwill, and Ali Wyne on Lee Kuan Yew’s Predictions for China’s Future
News
By Paul Fraioli, Research Assistant, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Time magazine’s Feb. 4, 2013 international edition published an extensive excerpt from the new book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (MIT Press, Feb. 1, 2013), by Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill, with Ali Wyne. The book draws on their in-depth interviews with Lee and his voluminous writings and speeches. The excerpt in Time distills Lee’s strategic insights about the future of China.
November 14, 2012
"Global Challenges Line Up For Obama"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"On foreign policy, President Barack Obama effectively posted a sign on the White House lawn last summer that said, Come back after Election Day. Now, the moment has arrived, and the world’s problems are lining up for attention," tells David Ignatius of the Washington Post, as he outlines the international challenges facing the second Obama administration.
August 6, 2012
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center Launches Website Marking Cuban Missile Crisis 50th Anniversary
Press Release
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs today launches a new website to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Designed to help policymakers, students, and interested citizens draw lessons from these critical events half a century ago, www.cubanmissilecrisis.org not only provides background on the crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in October 1962 but also offers tools to understand how it can inform contemporary policy.
May 7, 2012
"How It Went Down"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Time
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
"While journalists have provided a number of histories of the events that led to bin Laden's death, the purpose of this analysis is to examine White House decisionmaking for lessons that can be applied to future foreign policy challenges."
In a TIME magazine cover story, Belfer Center Director Graham Allison writes about decisions behind the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. Allison, whose analysis is the result of more than 100 hours of interviews, is author of the prize-winning analysis of the 1971 Cuban Missile Crisis, Essence of Decision.
Summer 2012
Graham Allison in TIME: Inside Story of Bin Laden's Last Days
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
In his dramatic cover story in TIME Magazine on May 7, Belfer Center Director Graham Allison offers readers a behind-the-scenes account of how President Barack Obama made the most fateful decision of his presidency – whether to launch the Special Forces assault on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan in April 2011. Allison puts readers in the president's Oval Office chair as Obama weighed the risks of the several options he faced as evidence emerged that bin Laden was in the compound in Abbottabad.
Winter 2011-2012
Belfer Center Newsletter Winter 2011-2012
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Winter 2011-2012 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features news, analysis and insight by Belfer Center scholars on issues that include increasingly important info-tech policy challenges and the first U.S.-Russian joint threat assessment on nuclear terrorism. The Center’s deepening impact on defense policy is highlighted with an article about the recent appointments of Ashton B. Carter and Eric Rosenbach to senior Pentagon posts and a Q&A with Carter, the new deputy secretary of defense. Additional articles focus on issues ranging from the Palestinian bid for statehood to Calestous Juma’s role in Lagos’ launch of the first innovation advisory council in Africa.
