PREVENTIVE DEFENSE STRATEGY
Summer 2013
"Yvonne Yew Offers Insight into Crucial Asian Security Issues"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
"Researching Asian security issues has never been more topical,” Yvonne Yew said in discussing her work at the Belfer Center. Despite Asia’s economic growth, she said, “simmering tensions, territorial disputes, nuclear proliferation concerns, and military skirmishes serve to potentially undermine the region’s peace and prosperity. As a former Singaporean diplomat and representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yew is in a unique position to view security issues spurred by the momentous and ongoing rise of Asia."
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.
AP Images
February 4, 2013
"The Right Way to Cut Pentagon Spending"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Michèle Flournoy, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Whether or not Congress avoids sequestration by March 1, defense spending will likely be cut by at least 10% over the next decade. As 20% of the federal budget and 50% of discretionary spending, it will be part of any longer-term budget deal.
AP Images
January 30, 2013
"U.S. Policy Toward Countering al-Qaeda 2.0"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"The Obama administration is working with its allies to frame a strategy to combat what might be called 'al-Qaeda 2.0' — an evolving, morphing terrorist threat that lacks a coherent center but is causing growing trouble in chaotic, poorly governed areas such as Libya, Yemen, Syria and Mali," writes David Ignatius.
November 2, 2012
"Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis for Today’s Crises"
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s view, “the significant unknowns” during the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly catapulted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev into nuclear war. For former diplomat Nicholas Burns, the principal take-away from the crisis was the importance of giving an adversary a way out of a confrontation short of complete surrender. Allison and Burns were panelists on Oct. 14 at a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to consider the modern lessons flowing from the missile crisis. The event kicked off an intensive series of seminars and workshops for scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to mark the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis. Panel moderator Juliette Kayyem, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, reminded the audience that the missile crisis is often framed through the myth of the tough American president staring down the Russian foe and making him blink. Kayyem said that version fails to capture the nuanced secret diplomacy and the American concessions that made a deal possible.
AP Images
November 2, 2012
"Tales of War"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Robert B. Zoellick, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
On November 6 Americans will vote for their next commander-in-chief, the first of the duties assigned to the president by the constitution. The security outlook he will face is in flux. There are plans for a “rebalancing” of military attention to the Asia Pacific region, new tensions over old islands in the western Pacific, and even speculation over a novel “Air-Sea” operational concept, which would integrate air force and navy capabilities to deter – and, if need be, to counter – precision missiles and other weapons that could threaten America’s projection of power across oceans.
October 22, 2012
Winners of Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons Contest Announced
Press Release
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Foreign Policy Magazine have announced the winners and runners-up of the “Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis Contest,” held to mark the 50th anniversary of the crisis that narrowly averted nuclear war in October 1962.
August 2012
The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Anchoring Stability in Asia
Report
By Richard Armitage and Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
The following report presents a consensus view of the members of a bipartisan study group on the U.S.-Japan alliance. The report specifically addresses energy, economics and global trade, relations with neighbors, and security-related issues. Within these areas, the study group offers policy recommendations for Japan and the United States, which span near- and long-term time frames. These recommendations are intended to bolster the alliance as a force for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
Summer 2012
Belfer in Brief
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Happenings and occurences in and around the Belfer Center.
Spring 2012
"Correspondence: Decline and Retrenchment: Peril or Promise?"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 36, volume 4
By William R. Thompson, Kyle Haynes, Paul MacDonald, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2006-2008 and Joseph M. Parent
Kyle Haynes and William R. Thompson respond to Paul K. MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent's spring 2011 International Security article, "Graceful Decline? The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment."
