The United States has a vital national interest in continuing to avoid hostile or failed states on its borders. A prolonged crisis with Mexico — not least because of effects on ordinary Americans and U.S. domestic politics — would inevitably divert the administration’s time, attention, and resources away from other U.S. core national interests — including working with allies to contain China’s hegemonic ambitions in Asia and Russia’s neo-imperial policies in Europe, as well as to successfully combat international terrorism.

In an analysis of why the United States is losing ground as a world power and what it can do to reverse the trend, War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft by Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris describes the statecraft of geoeconomics: the use of economic instruments to achieve geopolitical goals.

A sampling of Belfer Center fellows and affiliates in the news.

This fall, the Belfer Center welcomed a number of distinguished leaders as new senior fellows and visiting scholars. Eight new arrivals come from a range of high-profile public policy backgrounds, and each brings significant and varied expertise to Harvard Kennedy School and the Belfer Center.

Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Robert Blackwill, Member of the Board of the Belfer Center and Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, General James Cartwright,Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, Paula Dobriansky, Senior Fellow with the Belfer Center's Future of Diplomacy Project, Ollie Heinonen, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, David Petraeus, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, Dennis Ross, International Council Member of the Belfer Center, and Gary Samore, Director of Research at the Belfer Center, are all signatories of the Public Statement on U.S. Policy towards the Iran Nuclear Negotiations published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The statement urges the Administration to continue negotiating until it has completed an agreement that strengthens monitoring and verification of the Iranian program, clears issues of possible military dimensions to the Iranian program, restricts research and development in order to delay Iran's ability to deploy advanced centrifuges, only provides sanctions relief in exchange for verifiable actions undertaken by Iran, and contains measures to penalize Iran if it violates the terms of the agreement. It also urges action in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and in the broader region to contain Iranian influence and reassure allies of American commitment to stability.

As the debates rage along the Potomac regarding the Iran nuclear framework, ISIS, the Ukraine crisis, the rise of Chinese power and a half dozen other important U.S. foreign policy challenges, how better to think about these problems than to seek council from the two most impressive strategists of the post World War II era – the late Lee Kuan Yew and Henry Kissinger.

The stage is being set for an even more dramatic confrontation between the West and Russia over Ukraine. Obama must recognize the danger to U.S. national interests that the crisis may create and act accordingly.

Robert D. Blackwill presented for The Ananta Aspen Center a speech entitled "The United States, India, and the Rise of Geoeconomics," on June 10, 2014 in New Delhi.

Robert D. Blackwill presented to The World Cultural Forum a speech entitled "Managing the U.S.-China Great Power Relationship," on June 18, 2014 in Shanghai.