International Security

The Trump/Vance Unilateralist Delusion

Belfer Center — Jul 25, 2024

Jul 25, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that if Trump and Vance win in November, it will do enormous long-term damage to America's global position.

A War Without a Name: The Iran-Israel Relationship in Historical Perspective

Belfer Center — Jul 24, 2024

Jul 24, 2024

The defining tension in Middle Eastern politics today—and the most combustible pile of tinder—is between the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The antagonism between the two countries has existed for more than forty years. It has played out across the region for more than twenty years within the context of the Middle East’s wider tumult. It has not been restricted to diplomacy, either, but has played out through various means: covert, proxy, political and psychological warfare. Observers of this conflict have as a result tended to describe this state of affairs with obscure terms: “cold” war, “shadow” war, or other words that allude to the existence of an active and geopolitically consequential antagonism but imply an ambiguity that plain old “war” never could.

Why Iran's New President Won't Change His Country

Belfer Center — Jul 16, 2024

Jul 16, 2024

Mohammad Tabaar's analysis posits that yet even if Khamenei gives Pezeshkian a relatively long leash, his government is unlikely to negotiate another ambitious nuclear agreement. It will, instead, look to ink a deal that could freeze or incrementally scale back Iran's nuclear advances, including by reducing the quality and quantity of the uranium Iran enriches, in exchange for sanctions relief. Such a transactional deal would have multiple advantages for Pezeshkian. Given Khamenei's support, Iran's conservatives would be less likely to sabotage that deal than they were the 2015 agreement. And it would be easy for Tehran to ramp up its program if the United States withdraws again, as occurred under President Donald Trump in 2018.

Five Questions for the Secret Service

Belfer Center — Jul 15, 2024

Jul 15, 2024

The agency had one job—to protect a major political figure from physical harm—and failed, writes Juliette Kayyem. Five questions must guide inquiries into the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.

A Failure of Security and Democracy

Belfer Center — Jul 13, 2024

Jul 13, 2024

Juliette Kayyem writes that politicians and security experts, especially those focused on the upcoming conventions in Milwaukee and Chicago and future political rallies, must now reckon with the evident mismatch between what we know about political violence—it is pervasive and indiscriminate, according to the FBI—and how we plan for it.

Biden's Frailty Doesn't Endanger America

Belfer Center — Jul 11, 2024

Jul 11, 2024

Stephen Walt writes that doubts about Biden’s ability to do the job over the next six months must be balanced against the qualities that Trump exhibited when he oversaw U.S. foreign policy. Insider accounts of Trump’s first term portray him as erratic, mercurial, uninterested in details, and incapable of giving most foreign-policy problems sustained attention.

The Non-Proliferation Problem

Belfer Center — Jul 9, 2024

Jul 9, 2024

Those harboring doubts about the viability of nuclear non-proliferation ought to consider the lessons of the past 75 years. Even if it proves impossible to contain this catastrophically destructive technology completely, a world with fewer nuclear-armed states is exponentially safer than one with many of them.

What the United States Can Learn From China

Belfer Center — Jun 20, 2024

Jun 20, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that Americans who are deeply worried about China's rise should reflect on what Beijing has done well and what Washington has done poorly.

Reducing Nuclear Dangers

Belfer Center — Jun 20, 2024

Jun 20, 2024

Matthew Bunn argues that governments need help from scientists and engineers both in understanding the dangers that nuclear weapons continue to pose and in finding paths to reduce them.

Remembering Owen Coté

Belfer Center — Jun 14, 2024

Jun 14, 2024

Owen R. Coté Jr., who exerted a profound influence on security studies as Co-Editor and later Editor of the Belfer Center journal International Security, died on June 8, 2024. He was 63. Owen was also the Principal Research Scientist and Associate Director of the Security Studies Program (SSP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“All of us at the Belfer Center are saddened to learn of the passing of Owen Coté,” said Belfer Center Director Meghan O’Sullivan. “While he was based at MIT, he has been an integral part of our Center through his decades-long work with our signature publication, the journal International Security. Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.”

Morality Is the Enemy of Peace

Belfer Center — Jun 13, 2024

Jun 13, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that once governments use moral arguments to justify their positions in international disputes, cutting a deal becomes much harder, even when it would be in everyone's interest.

The End of Soft Power?

Belfer Center — Jun 12, 2024

Jun 12, 2024

Joseph Nye argues that even as the hard power of weapons and armies resurges on the global stage, the cultivation and use of soft power will still hold currency in the twenty-first century.

AI and the Decision to Go to War: Future Risks and Opportunities

Belfer Center — Jun 7, 2024

Jun 7, 2024

This short article introduces our Special Issue on 'Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making'. The authors begin by stepping back and briefly commenting on the current military AI landscape. They then turn to the hitherto largely neglected prospect of AI-driven systems influencing state-level decision making on the resort to force.

Biden's Foreign-Policy Problem Is Incompetence

Belfer Center — Jun 4, 2024

Jun 4, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that those who fetishize credibility typically assume all that is needed is sufficient resolve. This overlooks the other key ingredient— competence.

When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Adversary Perceptions of Nuclear No-First-Use Pledges

Belfer Center — Jun 4, 2024

Jun 4, 2024

Would the world be safer if the United States pledged to never use nuclear weapons first? Supporters say a credible pledge would strengthen crisis stability, decrease hostility, and bolster nonproliferation and arms control. But reactions to no-first-use pledges by the Soviet Union, China, and India suggest that adversaries perceive pledges as credible only when the political relationship between a state and its adversary is already relatively benign, or when the state’s military has no ability to engage in nuclear first use against the adversary.

Old and New Lessons from the Ukraine War

Belfer Center — Jun 4, 2024

Jun 4, 2024

Joseph Nye Russia's war on Ukraine is still raging, and no one knows when or how it will end. Nonetheless, the past two years have borne out several predictions concerning what does and does not work in twenty-first-century conflicts involving major powers.

When Foreign Countries Push the Button

Belfer Center — Jun 3, 2024

Jun 3, 2024

Is there a norm against using nuclear weapons? Many policymakers believe that allied countries would severely condemn a state’s nuclear use. But survey research in the United States and India finds high absolute support for nuclear use, and that the public supports nuclear attacks by allies and strategic partners as much as those by the public’s own government.

Not So Innocent: Clerics, Monarchs, and the Ethnoreligious Cleansing of Western Europe

Belfer Center — Jun 2, 2024

Jun 2, 2024

Ethnic cleansing is not only a modern phenomenon. The medieval Catholic Church saw non-Christians as a threat and facilitated the ethnoreligious cleansing of Muslim and Jewish communities across Western Europe. Three conditions made this possible: The rising power of the papacy as a supranational religious authority; its dehumanization of non-Christians; and competition among Catholic Western European monarchs that left them vulnerable to papal-clerical demands to eradicate non-Christians. These findings revise our understanding twentieth- and twenty-first-century ethnic cleansing in places like Cambodia, Iraq, Myanmar, the Soviet Union, and Syria.

Writing Policy Recommendations for Academic Journals: A Guide for the Perplexed

Belfer Center — Jun 1, 2024

Jun 1, 2024

How can scholars write effective policy recommendations? Despite the potential importance of academic work to the policy debate, many scholars receive little training on why and how to make policy recommendations. To remedy this problem, here are steps to guide scholars as they begin developing policy recommendations for their articles.

The Death of an Iranian Hard-Liner

Belfer Center — May 24, 2024

May 24, 2024

Mohammad Tabaar writes that former Iranian President Raisi will be remembered for putting the country on the right path after a series of presidents who challenged the supreme leader's vision. He will be memorialized for positioning Iran as a nuclear threshold state and establishing it as a rising power—and for doing so not despite external pressure, but because of it.