CRISIS MANAGEMENT
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Winter 2011-2012
Q&A with Ashton B. Carter
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Following the recent appointment of Ashton B. Carter as deputy secretary of defense, we asked Carter about the challenges and opportunities of his new position. Carter, an on-leave member of the Belfer Center Board of Directors, is a former director of the Belfer Center and was co-director of the Center’s Preventive Defense Project until leaving in 2009 to serve as under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
Ashton B. Carter, a member of the Belfer Center Board of Directors is a former director of the Belfer Center and was co-director of the Center’s Preventive Defense Project until leaving in 2009 to serve as under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Following his recent selection as deputy secretary of defense, we asked Carter about the challenges and opportunities of his new position.
Winter 2011-2012
"Impact of the Palestinian Bid for Statehood: Views from Center Scholars"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Traci Farrell, Former Communications Assistant
On the heels of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' application to the UN for full Palestinian statehood, the Belfer Center asked a number of its resident experts and scholars what their reactions were to the historic move.
November 25, 2011
"Arab Awakening, Act II"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
In his Nov. 25 Boston Globe column, “Arab Awakening, Act 2”, Nicholas Burns warns that, nearly one year since the start of reform and revolution across the Arab world, the region may turn more turbulent and violent in the months ahead.
AP Photo
Fall 2011
"The Collapse of North Korea: Military Missions and Requirements"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 36, volume 2
By Bruce W. Bennett and Jennifer Lind
The upcoming transition in North Korea’s leadership will not inevitably bring about a collapse of government, but the potential consequences of such an event necessitate advance and combined planning. It is imperative that China, South Korea, and the United States develop a coordinated response, as each of these countries could take destabilizing action to protect their individual interests. A relatively benign collapse could require 260,000 to 400,000 troops to gain control of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, prevent humanitarian disaster, manage regional refugees, and ensure stable U.S.-Chinese relations. Civil war or war on the peninsula would only increase these requirements.
(AP Photo/Christian Lutz)
September 19, 2011
"The World Must Insist That Europe Act"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor
In his celebrated essay “The Quagmire Myth and the Stalemate Machine”, published in 1972, Daniel Ellsberg drew out the lesson regarding the Vietnam war that came out of the 8,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, which he had secretly copied a few years earlier. It was simply this: policymakers acted without illusion. At every juncture they made the minimum commitments necessary to avoid imminent disaster – offering optimistic rhetoric, but never taking the steps that even they believed could offer the prospect of decisive victory.
AP Photo
September 10, 2011
"The War on Terror is Over"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The war on terror was an entire government ideology based on the belief that Islamic terrorism represented a unified and operationally centralized threat, demanding a predominantly military response with the president, as commander in chief, empowered to use any means necessary to defeat the enemy. The US government, under any administration, is going to need a variety of tools to use to combat that threat of Al Qaeda and its affiliates."
AP Photo
June 13, 2011
"Bobbling an Outbreak"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The volume and severity of this outbreak means it should be easier, not harder, to detect the source. There are more opportunities to determine a pattern of purchases or consumption. Yet Germany’s troubled history has made it a very pro-privacy nation, with public health and medical information decentralized and guarded. That is understandable for personally identifiable information, but not forgivable for a nation at the center of the European Union. There is a way to share basic information without violating a patient’s rights."
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
June 13, 2011
"How to avoid a lost decade"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor
Even with the massive 2008-09 policy effort that prevented financial collapse and depression,writes Summers, the United States is now halfway to a lost economic decade.
AP Photo
April 24, 2011
"The Game Changer"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"...[T]here were two different responses to the spill — one political, one operational. Despite some fits and starts, the operational response largely worked. But it was the political response that garnered so much attention, and seemed so disconnected from what was going on day-to-day operationally. What happened last summer was that the ground rules that had guided oil-spill responses for two decades were exposed as politically infeasible — even though it was those ground rules that guided the entire response from start to finish."
AP Photo
March 21, 2011
"Northern Japan: Resilient Despite Disaster"
Op-Ed, GMF Blog
By Joshua W. Walker, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2010–2011
"The dangers in the current situation are very real. Even if the current crisis is not deepened by further quakes or a worsening of the nuclear contamination, it is a terrible blow to Japan's shaky economic recovery. It may well reinforce an already existing tendency toward isolation in the country's foreign and security policy. Yet there are opportunities as well. Having shown the world their resilience in the face of a terrible natural disaster, the people of northern Japan may have the chance to rebuild a stronger nation with the help of both domestic and international allies and enemies alike."
