Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - Preventive defense strategy

Yvonne Yew Offers Insight into Crucial Asian Security Issues

Ramiro Gonzalez Lorca — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:08:12 -0500

"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."

Hot Off the Presses

Susan M. Lynch — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:03:27 -0500

A survey of recent books by Belfer Center affiliates.

The Right Way to Cut Pentagon Spending

Michèle Flournoy — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 12:07:42 -0600

February 4, 2013

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.

U.S. Policy Toward Countering al-Qaeda 2.0

David Ignatius — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:00:40 -0600

"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.

Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis for Today’s Crises

James F. Smith — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:51:05 -0500

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.

Tales of War

Robert B. Zoellick — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 10:50:38 -0500

November 2, 2012

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.

Winners of Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons Contest Announced

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:38:35 -0500

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 50^th anniversary of the crisis that narrowly averted nuclear war in October 1962.

The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Anchoring Stability in Asia

Richard Armitage and Joseph S. Nye — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:03:29 -0500

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.

Belfer in Brief

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:01:55 -0500

Happenings and occurences in and around the Belfer Center.

Correspondence: Decline and Retrenchment: Peril or Promise?

William R. Thompson, Kyle Haynes, Paul MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:25:35 -0500

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."

Paul Doty's Legacy Lives on Through Influential Journal

James F. Smith — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:09:03 -0500

As soon as Paul Doty launched what is now Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1974, he began planning a scholarly journal on international security. He shrugged off colleagues’ concerns that there would be little market for such a journal.Thirty-six years after the first issue appeared in the summer of 1976, the Belfer Center’s quarterly International Security consistently ranks No. 1 or No. 2 out of over 70 international affairs journals surveyed by Thomson Reuters each year.

What to do about Iran

Nicholas Burns — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:36:04 -0600

In this op-ed piece, Professor Nicholas Burns stresses the importance of keeping negotiations and diplomacy, rather than the threat of force, at the forefront of U.S. strategy in dealing with Iran.

Comrades, we're in a defensive arms race with Russia-- but it isn't a bad thing.

Kevin Ryan — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:39:45 -0600

Russian leaders have previously promised to improve the survivability of their offensive nuclear missile force as a means of ensuring that they would retain an effective nuclear deterrent, and that will likely happen. But recent events and announcements indicate that Russia is also investing money in its own increased missile defenses.

Hanne Hagtvedt Vik Studies Human Rights and Implementation of Protective Laws

Meredith Blake — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:08:13 -0600

Hanne Hagtvedt Vik, a professor of international history at the University of Oslo and Belfer Center research fellow, has spent much of her career studying human rights and the implementation of international laws and treaties. In an interview with the Belfer Center's Meredith Blake, Vik spoke about what motivates her as a scholar and humanitarian.

India's Nuclear Odyssey: Implicit Umbrellas, Diplomatic Disappointments, and the Bomb

Andrew B. Kennedy — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:20:10 -0500

After decades of flirting with nuclear weapons, India finally emerged as a nuclear power in the 1990s. New evidence suggests that India was able to hold off in part because it was able to secure protection through an alternate method: implicit “umbrellas” from superpowers. In the late 1970s, however, U.S. support for India waned as it began to improve its relations with Pakistan, and India lost its other major backer with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By the late 1980s, India could no longer protect itself through diplomatic means, and acquisition of the bomb became an inevitable response to its security needs.

Veto Players, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation: Domestic Institutional Barriers to a Japanese Bomb

Jacques E.C. Hymans — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:10:35 -0500

Although Japanese politicians have expressed interest in the bomb in the past, the country’s veto players make acquisition unlikely. Early research viewed proliferation exclusively as a response to security needs. Since the 1980s, most models have included domestic factors, but they have focused exclusively on a single actor whose influence can be negated if veto power is widely enough dispersed. Thus, despite Japan’s intimidating plutonium supply, and its persistence in building a complete fuel cycle, the country’s large and growing number of veto players suggests the continuation of a rigid nuclear weapons policy. As this analysis indicates, historical institutional analysis is crucial to understanding a state’s propensity for proliferation and should be considered alongside other contributing factors.

Rosenbach Tapped for Pentagon Cyber Policy Role

James F. Smith — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:15:01 -0500

October 6, 2011

CAMBRIDGE, MA. - Eric Rosenbach, a veteran Army intelligence officer who served as executive director for research in the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 2007 to 2010, has been appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the appointment on Tuesday, Oct. 4, in Washington. Rosenbach left the Kennedy School in 2010 to become managing director of the Markle Foundation, handling national security issues, and moved earlier this year to a senior role at Good Harbor Consulting, a leading consulting firm on cyber-security and related issues. He remained a faculty affiliate at the Belfer Center and an adjunct lecturer at the school, teaching a course on counterterrorism policy and national security law.

Ashton B. Carter Named Deputy Secretary of Defense

Sharon Wilke — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:08:09 -0500

The U.S. Senate on Friday unanimously confirmed Ashton B. Carter as Deputy Secretary of Defense, the second highest-ranking official in the Department of Defense. Carter, who has served as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics since 2009, is on leave from the Belfer Center’s board of directors. He was co-director of the Center’s Preventive Defense Project until leaving for government in 2009 and served as the director of the Center from 1990-93.

What Role Should the U.S. Play in Middle East?

Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye and Stephen M. Walt — Mon, 16 May 2011 09:21:35 -0500

The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.

Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics

Timothy Crawford — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:15:39 -0600

States use wedge strategies to prevent hostile alliances from forming or to disperse those that have formed. These strategies can cause power alignments that are otherwise unlikely to occur, and thus have significant consequences for international politics. How do such strategies work and what conditions promote their success? The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation—concessions, compensations, and other inducements—to detach and neutralize potential adversaries. These kinds of strategies play important roles in the statecraft of both defensive and offensive powers. Defenders use selective accommodation to balance against a primary threat by neutralizing lesser ones that might ally with it. Expansionists use selective accommodation to prevent or break up blocking coalitions, isolating opposing states by inducing potential balancers to buck-pass, bandwagon, or hide. Two cases—Great Britain’s defensive attempts to accommodate Italy in the late 1930s and Germany’s offensive efforts to accommodate the Soviet Union in 1939—help to demonstrate these arguments. By paying attention to these dynamics, international relations scholars can better understand how balancing works in specific cases, how it manifests more broadly in international politics, and why it sometimes fails in situations where it ought to work well.

The Security Curve and the Structure of International Politics: A Neorealist Synthesis

Davide Fiammenghi — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:07:01 -0600

Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power continuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that continues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist assumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its opponents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and security. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic relationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.

Graceful Decline? The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment

Paul MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:19:17 -0600

There is broad scholarly consensus that the relative power of the United States is declining and that this decline will have negative consequences for international politics. This pessimism is justified by the belief that great powers have few options to deal with acute relative decline. Retrenchment is seen as a hazardous policy that demoralizes allies and encourages external predation. Faced with shrinking means, great powers are thought to have few options to stave off decline short of preventive war. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, however, retrenchment is not a relatively rare and ineffective policy instrument. A comparison of eighteen cases of acute relative decline since 1870 demonstrates that great powers frequently engage in retrenchment and that retrenchment is often effective. In addition, we find that prevailing explanations overstate the importance of democracies, bureaucracies, and interest groups in inhibiting retrenchment. In fact, the rate of decline can account for both the extent and form of retrenchment, even over short periods. These arguments have important implications for power transition theories and the rise of China.

Strange Bedfellows: U.S. Bargaining Behavior with Allies of Convenience

Evan Resnick — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:33:40 -0600

Despite the ubiquity of the term "alliance of convenience," the dynamics of these especially tenuous alliances have not been systematically explored by scholars or policymakers. An alliance of convenience is the initiation of security cooperation between ideological and geopolitical adversaries in response to an overarching third-party threat; they are conceptually different from other types of alliances. Neorealist, two-level games, and neoclassical realist theories all seek to explain the outcome of intra-alliance bargaining between the United States and allies of convenience since 1945.

Guns and Cell Phones

Rami Khouri — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:58:12 -0500

September 28, 2010

Senior Fellow at the Dubai Initiative Rami Khouri wrote: Looking around the Arab world this week, it is difficult to know what are our real priority challenges, because multiple issues stand out as problems, vulnerabilities, weaknesses or threats.

Local and Global Causes of Terrorism

Rami Khouri — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:37:50 -0500

The blending of perceived global threats with daily experienced local grievances seems to be a critical mental and political fulcrum in the making of terrorists -- whether they are successful financial analysts in New York or tribal farmers in Yemen, writes Rami Khouri.

The Way Forward on Missile Defense

Ashton B. Carter — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 10:15:15 -0500

"Iran's continued pursuit of an illicit nuclear program and North Korea's rash intimidation after sinking a South Korean navy ship are but the most recent reminders of the real need for effective U.S. missile defenses," write Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter.

Retired Brigadier General Kevin Ryan to Direct Belfer Center Research

Sasha Talcott — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:00:46 -0500

May 27, 2010

Kevin Ryan, a retired brigadier general with extensive experience in political-military affairs, missile defense, intelligence, and US-Russian military relations, has been selected to become the new executive director for research at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center of International Affairs, director Graham Allison announced today.

Future of Diplomacy Project to Focus on Negotiation, Communication

Sharon Wilke — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:41:05 -0500

As the international need grows for nations to overcome challenges from climate change to terrorism to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Harvard Kennedy School is responding with a new Future of Diplomacy Project directed by Nicholas Burns.

Students Research Pakistan’s Military-Civilian Relationship

Beth Maclin — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:38:14 -0500

Two Belfer Center International Global Affairs (IGA) fellows traveled to Pakistan in March for a week of research about the Pakistani military and its relationship with the civilian government.

When the Car Bomb Goes Off

Richard Clarke — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:09:58 -0500

"Imagine if, after a fatal attack, President Obama responded by proposing greater outreach to Muslim communities domestically and around the world, in an effort to undercut radicalization. That is precisely what we and other nations should be doing, but it would undoubtedly be decried as a weak, starry-eyed reaction by our commander in chief, especially after an attack that revealed deficiencies in our counterterrorism system."