ECONOMICS OF NATIONAL SECURITY
July 15, 2007
Old Oil Fears Don't Match 2007 Reality: U.S. Vulnerability, Economic Threat are Largely Overstated
Op-Ed, San Francisco Chronicle
By Philip Auerswald, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
January 2009
Defense Management Challenges for the Next American President
Journal Article, Orbis, issue 1, volume 53
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project (on leave), Harvard & Stanford Universities
PDP Co-Director Dr. Ashton B. Carter explores the daunting list of national security challenges facing the next American president.
January 2008
Defense Management Challenges in the Post-Bush Era
Book Chapter
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project (on leave), Harvard & Stanford Universities
Dr. Ashton Carter discusses the resource management challenges facing American defense leaders in the coming decade.
October-December 2007
"United States Hegemony and the New Economics of Defense"
Journal Article, Security Studies, issue 4, volume 16
By Jonathan D. Caverley, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008
This paper proposes an alternate theory of technological hegemony that explains the U.S. policy of massive R&D investment in both the late Cold War and the current era of American preponderance. Modern weapons' complexity and economies of scale tend to produce monopolies, and the value chain for the production of these monopolistic goods is dominated by the systems integration techniques of prime contracting firms. In turn these prime contractors remain largely enthralled by U.S. market power. The United States gains international influence by controlling the distribution of these weapons. Put simply, technology with international political effects is likely to have international political origins.
November, 2009
Export Control Development in the United Arab Emirates: From Commitments to Compliance
Policy Brief
By Bryan Early, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
The swiftness with which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched its civil nuclear program presents a number of challenges for policymakers in seeking to ensure the program's safety and security. At the onset of its efforts, the UAE government consulted with a set of the world's leading nuclear suppliers to develop a framework that would help its nuclear program conform to the highest standards in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation. The UAE drew on these consultations in making a sweeping set of international commitments in April 2008 to ensure that the sensitive nuclear materials and technologies it would acquire as part of its nuclear program would be securely controlled.1 While the UAE has been widely praised for the depth and breadth of the nonproliferation commitments it has made, it will be the UAE's efficacy at complying with them by which its success will be judged.
October 4, 2008
"The Problem Is Still Falling House Prices"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
Martin Felstein discusses the falling prices of housing in the current economic crisis, and the negative impact on individuals with mortgages and financial institutions and individuals currently paying off a mortgage, and the implications of the new legislation on this issue.
September 29, 2008
"Problems run deeper than Wall Street"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"With less than two months remaining before America's presidential election, much attention is focused on the state of the American economy and the challenges that it will present to the next president."
September 18, 2008
The Power of Oil Consumers
Op-Ed
By Henry A. Kissinger and Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
The oil-consuming nations are in a position to shape both the global economic and political balance, provided they coordinate and, to some extent, pool their efforts. America should play a major role in this effort. Rather than wait passively for the next blow to fall, the major consuming nations -- the Group of Seven, together with India, China and Brazil -- should establish a coordinating group to shift the long-term trends of supply and demand in their favor and to end the blackmail of the strong by the weak.
August 11, 2009
"A Runaway Deficit May Soon Test Obama’s Luck"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US as he takes a well-earned summer break after just over six months in the world’s biggest and toughest job.
February 29, 2008
"Oil for Nukes — Mostly a Bad Idea"
Op-Ed, Christian Science Monitor
By Matthew Fuhrmann, Affiliate, Project on Managing the Atom
"...In 1975, France signed an agreement with Iraq authorizing the export of a research reactor and highly enriched uranium. According to French officials at the time, their aim was to obtain a permanent and secure oil supply from a country that provided 20 percent of its oil.
It worked. But it also had tremendous consequences for international and regional security."
